If you’re like most of my agency-side partners, growth is big factor in your annual goals. After all, spend on ad agencies is expected to hit $45 billion this year, and there’s no reason your firm shouldn’t be getting a larger piece of the pie. But with more and more firms popping up in every facet of the game – from advertising, to digital, to PR and more – it’s definitely daunting trying to separate yourself from the pack. That’s why I put together these 5 strategies to help grow your marketing agency. There’s opportunity out there, and with the right plan in place, more of that business can come your way.
Strategy No. 1 – Outsource more marketing services.
There’s so marketing many tactics available, and it’s important to remember that clients don’t always know what they need. The confusions over content marketing v. public relations, or the misconceptions of advertising v. social media, can be confusing. The solution that most clients go with is the firm that offers all the services under one roof, which means you need to stay competitive.
If your competitors are offering more services than you, it might be time to add a few more tactics to your trade. But the challenge then comes, how do you do that if your team is already maxed?
The solution: outsource.
Freelancers and specialty firms are available everywhere, and they can really give your marketing firm the edge it needs. In fact, freelance marketers and programmers make up about 45 percent of the freelance market. That means if you’re an agency that wants to add a new service offering – be it strategic communication, interactive design, audience surveys, web programming, etc. – there’s an opportunity to find an incredibly talented team that’s ready to jump on board your next project.
Strategy No. 2 – Provide marketing measurement and ROI.
Did it work? That’s the number one question I hear from marketing clients. If you want to acquire new clients or build on your existing ones, you need to be able to answer this question. That’s why I always recommend providing a measureable outcome from your marketing activities.
Effective marketing measurement allows you to demonstrate the success of your marketing, ensuring clients fully comprehend that value. It also means they can translate the value back into the figures that matter to their bottom line.
Most importantly, marketing measurement helps you present real results from previous projects to new clients considering your services.
Marketing measurement varies from tactic to tactic. If you’re looking at a primarily digital strategy, stats can be relatively simple to pull and provide. If you’re looking at something more traditional, like out-of-home advertising or media pitching, the marketing measurement task can be trickier.
For complex projects, consider conducting a brand awareness and favorability study before you launch your campaign, and build follow-up studies into your plan as well. This will help you track your progress and effectiveness over time.
You can also use specialized phone numbers and web URLs across your different marketing tactics to best determine which are performing best.
When putting marketing together, be sure to include tracking features to help prove the successful results of your firm’s hard work. Your clients will be amazed by the results!
Strategy No. 3 – Use long-term tactics and checkpoints.
When creating opportunities for current and potential clients, consider the importance of long-term tactics and checkpoints. Long-term projects add the opportunity to develop a stronger relationship with your clients, in which you can prove your value again and again, yielding more opportunities for future work.
Think about a long-term strategic communications plan. In this case, you don’t just look for one to two press clips per month, but instead propose looking at achieving an increase in brand awareness over a twelve-month period.
The key differences between the two approaches are the timeframe and the metrics. A long-term project with long-term goals allow you to secure long-term work, and measure your success over time.
Also, because the metric in this example is brand awareness, you’ll be able to use research methodologies to gauge success over time, rather than a finite metric like press clips.
The most important part of this methodology is the use of checkpoints. Periodically, you’ll conduct an awareness study to gauge success. As the study will need to be conducted regularly and ongoing, you’ll have continuous opportunities to discuss additional work with the client. You’ll also have a greater likelihood for success if you pitch new ideas immediately following the demonstration of successful growth in your marketing metrics.
No. 4 – Dive deep into their audiences.
Clients look to marketers as the experts, especially when it comes to audiences. When growing your agency, be sure to demonstrate yourself as an expert in those audience to really help your firm stand out in the crowd.
Marketing clients want to see firms that have unique insights into customers that can be used to create meaningful marketing opportunities. Audience deep-dives demonstrate your knowledge of what makes buyers tick.
Consider a few ways of going about this. First, you’ll really want to get to know the audiences you’ll be marketing to, which means you’ll want to sit down and talk to those individuals. Focus groups and in-depth interviews are a great way to go about this, as they help you uncover what matters most to your buyers.
Statistics have a tendency to ring loud in the ears of clients, which is why you’ll also want to have measureable facts about your client’s target customers. You can conduct an audience survey to get this information, or you can find great secondary data that’s already available.
If you’re not sure where to look for data, be sure to contact a market research partner to help you track down the data you need.
Bring a wealth of knowledge to the table about the audiences that matter, and you’ll be sure to wow both future and existing clients like never before.
No. 5 – Become the industry expert.
A Market Research team can help grow your agency. Reach out today for a free consultation.
Knowing a ton about the audience is one thing, but knowing even more about the client’s industry makes you the official marketing expert for that vertical.
When meeting with clients, find opportunities to share marketing information that they might now know. This can vary from marketing opportunities, to successful campaigns from other markets, to unique buying cycle opportunities you’ve uncovered.
To find this information, you’re going to need to do ongoing research. Read industry articles, and likewise scour marketing industry publications for ideas for your client. You’re going to have to review a lot of case studies, articles, and industry jargon, but the end result will be nuggets of information that really make you stand out in the eyes of the client. Do this enough, and you’ll be branded the go-to marketing expert for that field.
Clients always want to have the best marketing firm for their business, and truly being that expert is exactly how you’ll get there.