A client intake form for marketing and design agencies
An agency inquiry usually names a deliverable, such as a website, a rebrand or a campaign. What the agency needs to know is the goal behind it, what already exists, who approves the work, and which budget range to plan around. The intake’s job is to get from the deliverable to the goal.
What should marketing and design agencies ask first?
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Which service are you interested in? | Brand, website, campaigns and ongoing content are different teams and different scopes. |
| What should this change for your business? | More leads, a launch, or a brand that matches where the company is now. The goal sets the scope, not the deliverable. |
| What already exists: brand guidelines, a website, past campaigns? | Starting from guidelines and starting from nothing are different projects. |
| Is there a launch date or an event this has to be ready for? | A fixed date limits how many rounds of revisions fit. |
| Who approves the final work, and how many people review it before then? | The number of reviewers predicts the number of revision rounds. |
| Which budget range should we plan around? | Agency work comes in tiers, so a range picks the tier. Offer your own ranges as a choice. |
If an answer would not change what you do next, leave the question out. Each extra question is one more reason for someone to stop before they finish.
Which answers come back too vague to use, and what do you ask next?
The answers that cause a phone call are rarely missing. They are present and too loose to act on. A narrower follow-up, asked straight away while the person is still there, usually settles them. Offering likely answers shows the person the level of detail you need.
| What comes back | The follow-up that settles it |
|---|---|
| “We need a new website.” | Is the main goal more inquiries, a site that looks like the company you are now, or something the current site cannot do, such as selling online? |
| “The budget is flexible.” | Which of these ranges should we plan around? We will scope to it, not past it. |
| “Our marketing team will approve it.” | Who signs off on the final version, and roughly how many people review it before that? |
Follow up once per gap, then move on. If an answer is still unclear after one follow-up, flag it for whoever picks the request up rather than pressing.
When is a call or a visit still the right move?
A discovery meeting is still right for a large engagement, and most clients expect one before they sign. The intake changes what that meeting is for: instead of collecting the brief, it tests whether you and the client see the same project.
How do you set this up from the Client intake template?
Acquainto has a Client intake template to start from. After you sign up, open Browse templates, pick Client intake, and it lands in the editor as a draft you can change before anything is published.
This template fits agencies closely. It already branches on the service the person is interested in, with consulting, design and development as the starting choices, and its design branch asks about existing brand guidelines. Rename the choices to your own service lines, add the goal, approval and budget-range questions to every branch, and keep one question per branch for what that service needs first.
Acquainto runs it as a short written conversation instead of a form. It:
- asks a follow-up when an answer is incomplete, and asks for clarification when one is vague;
- uses a structured choice where precision matters and open conversation where detail matters;
- shows the person every answer before it is sent, so they correct their own mistakes;
- hands back one clean value per question, delivered to your own systems by webhook.
The person answering needs no account, and nothing has to be scheduled. Start free trial, see how it works, or compare plans.