The client onboarding process at TwoTone is built around a simple goal: start creating meaningful work as quickly and efficiently as possible.
How quickly that happens depends on the scope, priorities, and access we need from your team. A website project, for example, has a different ramp-up than an ongoing full-service marketing partnership.
Once you’re ready to work with a marketing agency, you want to know things will keep moving. At TwoTone, we use onboarding to learn your organization, establish priorities, and give our team the context we need to become a useful extension of yours from the start.
Key Takeaways:
- We start planning before we start producing, so our first work is based on your actual priorities.
- The faster we can get access, assets, information, and feedback from your team, the faster we can build momentum.
- Onboarding is the beginning of the work, not a waiting period before the “real” work starts.
What Does the Client Onboarding Process Look Like at TwoTone?
Our onboarding process depends on the work we’re doing together. Digital advertising may require access to your ad accounts and analytics, while a website project requires a deeper understanding of your audiences, goals, brand, content, and functionality. A full-service marketing partnership may require a broader look at your entire marketing operation.
The specifics change, but the priority stays the same: learn your organization quickly so we can do good work without making you spend the first month getting us up to speed. Here’s how we do that.
Finalize the Partnership
The process actually starts before onboarding. During your Discovery Call, we talk about your current marketing, what you’re trying to accomplish, where you’re stuck, and what kind of support would be most useful.
From there, we create a recommended plan. For many services, you’ll receive a transparent proposal within 24 hours outlining what we recommend and how we can help. You should understand what you’re hiring us to do and why before the work begins.
Once the agreement is finalized, onboarding begins. We’re not starting from zero; we already understand your goals and challenges. Then, we go deeper.
Meet Your Team and Kick Things Off
One of the biggest advantages of a full-service agency is having multiple skill sets on one team. At TwoTone, that can include strategists, designers, copywriters, web designers and developers, digital marketers, SEO and social media experts, project managers, and video and photography creatives.
During kickoff, we establish how the TwoTone team will work with yours, including:
- What are your most important goals and priorities?
- What deadlines are coming up?
- Who needs to be involved in decisions and approvals?
- How should we communicate?
- What existing marketing should we know about, and what would make the partnership successful?
We also learn how your organization operates. A nonprofit preparing for a major fundraiser needs different support than a manufacturer focused on lead generation, and a one-person marketing department has different needs than a full internal team. Understanding the context of your company helps us work like an extension of your team, not hand you a generic marketing plan.
Get the Access, Assets, and Information We Need
One of the most important parts of onboarding is simple: getting access to what we need. Depending on your scope, that might include:
- Website, hosting, and analytics
- Google Ads, Meta Business Manager, and social accounts
- Email and CRM platforms
- Brand guidelines, logos, photography, and video
- Marketing plans, campaigns, reports, and sales materials
- Audience research, existing content, and marketing calendars
You don’t need everything on this list or a perfectly organized archive. Bring us what you have, and we’ll help identify what’s missing.
Access can also affect your onboarding timeline. The sooner we have the accounts, assets, and information needed for your work, the sooner we can put them to use.
Decide What Needs to Happen First
Hiring a full-service agency means that suddenly, you can do a lot. From website updates to email strategy, social media to SEO, the list can grow quickly. That’s why one of the most important parts of onboarding is establishing priorities. We identify what needs attention now, what can wait, and how immediate needs fit into the bigger strategy.
You need a team that can help decide which tasks actually matter.
Build the Plan
Once we understand your goals, priorities, and what we have to work with, we build the plan. For a digital marketing partnership, that may include reviewing campaigns, tracking, audiences, and how each channel supports your goals. For a website, we move through strategy, messaging, design, development, and launch. Most custom TwoTone websites take approximately 8 to 16 weeks, depending on size, functionality, content, and feedback.
Planning keeps us from moving quickly in the wrong direction. There’s a difference between getting started fast and rushing. We want the first one.
Get to Work
Once priorities are set and we have what we need, we get to work. Depending on your partnership, that could mean strategy, copy, design, development, advertising, content, video, website updates, and more.
Since TwoTone is full-service, those pieces are handled by one connected team. A campaign might move from:
Strategy → Copy → Design → Landing Page → Ads → Email → Reporting
You get the specialists you need without coordinating multiple vendors yourself, helping the work keep moving after onboarding.
What Can Affect Your Client Onboarding Timeline?
So, how fast can you get onboarded? The frustrating but accurate answer is: it depends. We don’t want to give you an arbitrary number of business days when the actual answer depends on the partnership you’re starting. What we can tell you is what tends to affect the timeline.
Do I Need to Have Everything Figured Out Before We Start?
Absolutely not. In fact, if you had every marketing problem diagnosed, every priority established, every campaign planned, and every project perfectly scoped, you probably wouldn’t be looking for a marketing partner. You can come to your Discovery Call saying:
- “We need more leads.”
- “Our marketing team is overwhelmed.”
- “Our website is outdated.”
- “We’re not sure our marketing is working.”
- “We have a big initiative coming up and need help.”
That is enough to start a useful conversation. Our job is to ask the questions that help uncover what is actually needed, and once you become a client, onboarding continues that process at a deeper level. We’ll learn your organization, understand your goals, identify priorities, and turn those conversations into action.
What Can You Do to Make Marketing Agency Onboarding Faster?
If speed matters, there are a few things you can do before and during onboarding to help.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does the client onboarding process take?
There is no single onboarding timeline for every TwoTone client. Timing depends on your scope, priorities, the access and information required, and your team’s availability. During the sales and kickoff process, we’ll establish what needs to happen before work can begin and what we can start tackling first.
How quickly will I receive a proposal after a Discovery Call?
For many TwoTone services, you’ll receive a proposal within 24 business hours outlining our recommendations and how we can help. From there, the timing of onboarding depends on the scope of the partnership and the steps needed to get started.
What happens during new client onboarding?
New client onboarding typically includes finalizing the partnership, meeting your team, aligning on goals and priorities, gathering relevant account access and assets, establishing communication and approval processes, and planning the first work we’ll tackle together. The specifics depend on the services you’ve hired TwoTone to provide.
What do you need from our team during onboarding?
We may need access to relevant marketing platforms, existing brand and marketing assets, information about your audiences and goals, upcoming deadlines, and input from key decision-makers. You do not need to organize everything perfectly before contacting us. We’ll tell you what we need based on your specific engagement.
Can TwoTone work with our existing marketing team?
We’d love to. Many of our clients already have internal marketing staff. TwoTone can work alongside your team to add capacity, fill skill gaps, provide strategic direction, support campaigns, manage creative production, or bring in specialized expertise your organization does not have in-house.
How quickly can a website project get started?
The onboarding and start date will depend on our current schedule and your project requirements. Once underway, most custom TwoTone website projects take approximately 8 to 16 weeks, depending on site size, functionality, and how quickly content and feedback are provided throughout the project.
Do we need a complete marketing strategy before hiring TwoTone?
No. If you already have a strong strategy, we can work from it. If you don’t, we can help build one. You can come to the Discovery Call with a specific project, a clear business goal, or simply a marketing problem you need help solving.
Ready to Stop Waiting on Your Marketing?
If you’re asking how quickly we can get started, there’s a decent chance you’re already ready for something to change. You don’t need to solve the onboarding process before you contact us.
Start with a 30-minute Discovery Call. We’ll talk about where you’re trying to go, what’s getting in the way, and what kind of support makes sense. From there, we’ll build a plan and establish what it takes to get your TwoTone team up and running.
Onboarding should create momentum, not become another project sitting on your to-do list.
