That first digital marketing agency chat.
This week, I had a conversation with a potential client that was, honestly, interesting.
They only wanted to communicate by email.
No intro call. No initial chat. No chance to talk things through. They wanted me to send something through and kick off from there.
I get it. Email feels neat. It feels controlled. You can reply when you are ready.
But if I am being straight with you, starting a project like that usually turns into guesswork.
And guesswork costs money.
It also costs time, trust, and momentum. You might not see it in week one, but it shows up later. Things drag. Priorities wobble. Everyone feels a bit frustrated.
What that first conversation actually does
| What you need at the start | What you can get stuck with if you start on email only | What we do in a quick chat | What it leads to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear goals | Vague targets like “more leads” | We ask what success looks like in your world | A plan that targets the right outcome |
| What matters most to you | Work that looks busy but feels off | We get to the things that are really important to you | Better priorities, less rework |
| Service focus | Promoting the wrong services | We unpack your service offering and margins | More of the work you actually want |
| Past activity and history | A fresh restart that loses value | We assess what has gone on in the past | You keep what works and fix what does not |
| Biggest reward areas | Trying to do everything at once | We identify where the greatest rewards would lie first | Faster wins, better momentum |
| Location and coverage | Leads from the wrong places | We confirm where you want to place your services | Local pages and ads that match reality |
| Visibility and access | No idea what accounts exist or who owns them | We check access, tracking, and ownership early | Fewer surprises later |
| Tracking and proof | Paying into a pit with no clarity | We confirm what gets measured and how | You can see what is working |
| AI search readiness | Content that AI cannot understand or trust | We capture real business context and proof points | Better chance of showing up in AI answers |
| Guardrails for the project | Scope creep and misalignment | We agree what we are doing, and what we are not | Cleaner delivery and happier clients |
At the start of a project, you are really trying to get to know the client.
And I mean properly know them, not just a surface version.
You want to get to know the things that are really important to them.
You want to look at their strategic focus in terms of their service offering.
You want to assess what has gone on in the past, so you can gather all that information and move forward from that.
Not a fresh restart.
Because you never want to lose anything that has been in the past and move forward. There is value in understanding this data.
That first chat is where all of this gets pulled out quickly. Not perfectly. Just enough to set the guardrails.
And once direction is set, things flow. Then email works brilliantly.
Email only at the start sounds easy. It rarely is
When you only use email at the start, people tend to skip detail. Not because they mean to. It just happens.
You can ask the questions that feel awkward in writing, but normal when you talk.
Questions like:
- What have you tried already?
- What did you pay for?
- What did you get back?
- What do you not want to repeat?
- What would make you feel like this was working in the first 60 days?
That is where a digital project (whether Google Ads or SEO or Social marketing) gets its shape.
The stuff we walk into when clients come onboard
This is a big one.
When clients come to us, they often come in with a bit of hurt.
They have had no visibility over what has gone on.
They feel they have been putting money into a pit, and it has not come out.
And usually it is not because they did nothing. It is because the work was not tied to a clear strategy, or they were not shown what mattered.
Things we run into a lot in week one
- No clean handover from a past agency (sometimes this cannot happen but we have been around to work our way through many a situation.)
- No access to key accounts.
- No idea what tracking is set up, or what is broken.
- A website that looks fine but does not convert. Or boy oh by, websites that look okay at the front end but are an absolute mess at the backend.
- Ads that ran, but no one can clearly say what worked
- SEO work that focused on traffic, not on leads or sales
If you do not talk at the start, you can miss these clues. Then you start building on top of shaky ground. That is when people feel like marketing is just random.
Now add AI search into the mix
This is the newer layer people do not always realise they are dealing with.
Your future customers do not only search on Google the old way.
They ask Google’s AI results questions.
They ask ChatGPT.
They ask voice assistants.
They ask things like:
- Who is the best SEO agency for my industry
- Who can help me get leads in Auckland
- Who do business owners trust for digital marketing
- What should I fix first, my website or my ads
AI search pulls answers from what it can understand.
It looks for clarity.
It looks for consistency.
It looks for proof and real-world signals, like reviews, case studies, location details, service pages that explain what you do in plain language.
If we skip the first conversation, it gets harder to build that.
Because AI search needs context, not just content.
You cannot fake context. You have to learn it from the business.
As I often say, and yes, you can quote me on this as Cathy Mellett:
If we skip the first conversation, we do not get a strategy. We get activity.
And activity is easy to sell.
Results need context.
So, what does a better start look like
A quick conversation.
Nothing over the top.
Just enough to set the framework and guardrails so we can deliver.
We cover:
What success looks like for you
- Your service focus and where the money is really made
- What has happened in the past, so we do not lose anything, and we do not repeat mistakes
- Where the greatest rewards likely sit first
- What locations and service areas matter to you
- What you can realistically support internally, like follow-up and sales process
FAQs
Why do you need a chat before you start?
Because the first part of the project is getting to know what matters to you, what has happened in the past, and where the best opportunities sit first. Without that, the work turns generic.
Can we not just do it all by email?
You can, but email only at the start usually creates gaps. A short conversation closes those gaps fast. After that, email can carry most of the project.
What if I do not have time for a call?
Then keep it short. Even 15 to 20 minutes can set the direction and save weeks of back and forth later.
How does this help with AI search?
AI driven search tools look for clear, specific business context. They reward sites and brands that explain what they do, where they do it, and why people trust them. A start chat helps us build that properly, not guess it.
What if I have been burned by an agency before?
That is common. The upfront chat helps you see how we think and how we work, and it helps us understand where things broke down before.
What happens after the first chat?
We send a focused plan and clear next steps. You will know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what outcome we are working towards.
Article by Cathy Mellett
Cathy Mellett is the founder of Net Branding, a digital marketing agency based in Auckland, New Zealand. She works with local businesses and global brands across EMEA, the Pacific, and the USA. Cathy focuses on practical strategy that drives real outcomes, not busy work. She is known for starting projects with a proper conversation, so the goals, guardrails, and priorities stay clear from day one.
