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Running any business is hard, but running a digital marketing agency can be especially challenging. With fast-paced technological advancements happening every day, the industry is constantly changing and evolving. Every day, there is a new trend that you need to catch up to. Whether it is social media, PPC ad campaigns, or website design, there is always something new that you can do. Although the dynamic environment of this industry is rich with potential and growth opportunities, surviving and thriving can sometimes be difficult.
The goal of every business is to grow, not just stay functional. However, growth can mean different things for different people or agencies, depending upon their values, vision, and mission.
Growth has some standard identifying features, such as:
If your business shows any of the above signs, you are ready for the next big step — scaling your agency.
People often use the word growth and scaling interchangeably. However, scaling differs from growth. Growth is about expanding your resources, both people and investment capital, and, as a result, increasing your revenue. In contrast to growth, scaling is about getting a substantial increase in revenue without a proportionate increase in resources.
Scaling your agency has multiple benefits, but it is not without challenges. Most industries face these challenges and give up quickly. Here are some common challenges agencies face when they scale their business.
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As an agency, it’s challenging to run the regular course of business and develop innovative ideas to scale simultaneously. Here are a few tried and tested tips to help your agency scale like a pro.
Networking is essential in any business, but more so for digital marketing agencies as it relies heavily on trust and credibility. If you are sticking to a limited number of clients, it will be an impossible feat to scale your business. Therefore, you need to focus on expanding your network. A few simple ways to do that are:
For all the marketing tactics digital agencies give to their clients, they often forget to implement them for their own business and, as a result, struggle to get more clients. You need to avoid making that mistake and improve on your inbound and outbound marketing tactics.
Outbound marketing is all about actively seeking clients rather than waiting for them to come to you. Although less effective than inbound marketing techniques, it still has the potential to get you fool-proof leads.
Pricing plays a vital role in the scaling of your agency. Often agencies end up charging way less than their actual cost and incur heavy losses to attract clients. On the flip side, keeping the prices way up than the market rate can lead to loss of clients and a freeze on increasing the number of clients.
A good way to go about it is to calculate the actual cost, measure your quality levels and compare it with your competitors’ offer. You can also create packages and combos to give the best deal to your client without losing up on money. You can also offer tired solutions that can range from the most basic to advanced to meet the price range of different clients.
As you scale your business, your existing methods of working and management may end up becoming faulty. Faulty workflows and processes can severely impact your quality, productivity, and costs. Therefore, analyze the existing workflow carefully and look for bottlenecks in it. Change the process to meet increasing production rates without overburdening the employees. Use automation wherever you can to simplify and speed up the process. You can also use them to minimize the chances of error and increase your efficiency.
As you scale your business, it is natural that the work pressure will increase not just on you but your staff as well. The increasing burden can lead to a downfall in quality, higher churn rates, low employee morale. An efficient way to get out of this fix is to outsource non-core activities and services that you don’t specialize in. If you fear your clients may object to outsourcing, you can choose a white label solution to outsource your work.
White label solutions can offer high-quality work and consistency that will keep your clients happy. Also, a white-label service means that it is unbranded, which allows you to brand and resell that service with your name. Therefore, your client will not know anything about third-party involvements. Some of the most well-known white label solutions in 2021 are DashClicks, Verblio, ProfitBooks, and BuildFire.
People like to work with names that they have heard, known, and trust. No matter how good you are at your job, any business would think twice before hiring an agency they have never heard of. To mitigate that, you need to get out there and make your brand recognizable. Here are a few ways to build your brand awareness:
Onboarding is the place where the client makes the final decision to stay with your agency. Therefore, it must be smooth, easy to navigate, and effective. Make your onboarding process transparent and straightforward. Hide nothing from your clients. Any hidden clause or condition can put your reputation in jeopardy. It is also an excellent idea to map the activity on your onboarding page to identify areas where you can improve.
Most agencies focus all their energies on getting new clients during the scaling process. Getting new clients is essential, so is keeping the existing ones. Here are a few tips on how to retain existing clients.
Most agencies provide their clients weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports of their campaigns and progress. These reports include a lot of numbers and jargon that clients do not know about, making the information useless to them. Instead of doing that, use advanced analytical tools like Tableau Public, Sprinkle, HubSpot, and InstaReports to create presentable reports.
Such reports are easy to understand and explain to your clients what’s going on with their campaign. It makes your job easier as they trust you more when everything is clear and transparent.
In the bid to scale, agencies often end up agreeing to deals they later regret. You should know the clients with whom you can maintain quality, efficiency, and productivity. Stick to your niche and choose clients carefully. The right clients can help you take your business to the next level quickly.
Here are some tips for choosing the best clients:
It’s clear that scaling isn’t an easy process. It takes constant efforts, well-planned strategies, and leveraging the opportunities that come your way. Following your plan and focusing on one goal at a time can help you grow your agency quickly and efficiently. Just put your efforts in the right direction and don’t give up when you have setbacks.
Author:
Sean Davis is a professional content developer at DashClicks, a white-label digital marketing platform for small and medium-scale agencies. He also has more than 5 years of experience as a content strategist, blogger, and digital marketer. Sean uses his expertise to spread knowledge through his writing. He is highly proficient in describing complex technical concepts with simplicity to make them widely accessible.
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