[andyakb]

First, I just want to say that building anything and getting paying customers is never easy so it's impressive to see what these guys have done.

While there is definitely a large market of agencies suffering from this problem, I don't think this is the "true" solution.

Clients hire an agency because they just want to pay somebody to build them a website (or whatever it actually is). When approaching this, they are almost definitely not thinking at all about having to do anything other than tell the agency what they want.

This is the client having unrealistic expectations, but they aren't supposed to be the experts, so it should be on the agency to be clear about those expectations. Even if you think you're clear about the about of work required of them, most client will drag their feet to no end on delivering the content. This is because they have 1,000 other things to do, don't really know where to even begin, and are getting frustrated because the reason they went to an agency was because they didn't have the time to deal with this.

Looking at setting up endless reminders as a solution misses the reason they came to you and loses out on a ton of value. Clients don't want to do this. Find a way so that they don't have to and then charge for that. If a client doesn't want to pay to have you do it at the start, give them a deadline for the content, if they don't get it to you by then, they can either get the site as-is or pay to have you do it for them.

What content do you need from the client? Figure out what questions you have to ask them to create that content, schedule a call, then ask them those questions, get a transcript, and give it to a copywriter. Then give the result to the client along with a timeline of "if this isn't approved or edited by X, then it is going live as-is."

I get where Content Snare is coming from, but I think it misses a much bigger underlying point of why this is such a problem.

[jimmyrose]

There's more to Content Snare than just blasting your clients with reminders. One of the most important parts is making it easy for clients to provide content. You can do that by providing structure and visual references.

That way it's easier for them to understand what they need to provide.

When they understand what needs to be done, it often gets done.

We've found that's the big difference between the people Content Snare works for and ones it doesn't. The ones that take the time to lay it out properly and provide instructions get content faster. The ones that sign up, put in a couple of pages and let it blast their clients never get anywhere.

This is why I'm in the process of creating a bunch of templates that lay out copywriting instructions and wireframes... to get people started down the right path faster

(sorry if this is hard to read. I'm on my phone and half was done with speech to text)

[steve_adams_86]

This was the value I perceived mostly as well. I likely wouldn't use reminders at all. In my experience, if a client isn't on the ball and can't remember or be bothered to send content, I probably don't want to work with them.

Making it easy to send the content though, that's great. Keeping it all in one place is even better.

This would be great if you could host it at your own domain (or can you already?) so clients just go to your website to do it rather than a totally different service. Just drop a widget into your own web page or something, tell clients to go to yoursite.com/content/clientName where they log in and start viewing. I suppose that would complicate things in other ways, but it would be nice in general to not make a user remember yet another service and url that's totally disparate from your own company.

[jimmyrose]

That's good to hear actually.

Right now you get a subdomain of contentsnare.com

I think it really needs the space of a full browser window to get the full experience, especially if there are screenshots/wireframes in the layout.

If this was squashed down into a typical column on the website, it could get a little crowded and hard to follow but I definitely see your point on this.

The best we have right now is the ability to share a request with a link - no login required. So you could have a button in your client portal or a client-specific page to open their request

[apatters]

It's definitely not a universal scenario that the agency can produce 100% of the content for the client. Sure the content should be part of the planning and budgeting up front, and the agency should do as much of it as they can. But a common example of where you may need content from the client is a hotel that wants to do a new photoshoot for their new website. They know that photos are incredibly important to their marketing, they often have a preferred photographer they want to work with directly, even if you're local and offer to conduct the photoshoot for them, they can probably do a better job producing those assets than you can because they know their property inside and out.

That's a classic case where you have to depend on the client for content and a tool like Content Snare might be useful.

[SnowingXIV]

This is hitting it on the head. A lot of clients don't want to provide their own content and spend time filling out headings and searching for images, sure some do but mostly they are focusing on their business and while yes they are the ones closest to the metal, actually doing the work, they aren't and likely shouldn't be doing the copywriting. Speak with them, figure out as much as you can about them, take notes, and get a copywriter like you said.

More often this goes pretty smoothly and they'll review the website quickly and will send corrections like "Oh, you should add this sentence." or "Don't say that, remove it." I usually do a few pieces and make sure the tone is on point and then take that new information to flesh out the rest of the site.

It's a lot easier for them to edit a "complete" product than to see a blank canvas and have to figure out what goes where.

[amelius]

Yeah, it's a bit like the client asking you to collect and present information, then passing the question back to the client using a slick interface :)