Posted by Running a successful marketing agency is no joke. Especially in the post COVID era, when the world has seen a sudden boom in the field of online marketing.
More and more opportunities opening up has been a big boon to most marketing agencies. But, things can easily escalate and get overwhelming.
You would know that running a marketing agency is not just about getting the desired results for your clients. It is also about optimizing various operations and business processes that take place in the backend.
If you are struggling to run your marketing agency while trying to achieve the best possible results for your clients, then we feel you. Let’s look at some actionable strategies that can help your marketing agency to work more effectively and scale quickly.
1. Re-evaluate your Short-Term and Long-Term Goals
When you run a full-fledged marketing agency, it is easy to get caught up in the everyday hustle. You and your team will have a thousand things to take care such as focusing on customer success, acquiring new customers, building your brand reputation, and similar more.
You may even get caught up with unnecessary distractions that may feel right at that point in time. But in the long term, they wouldn’t help you achieve your goals.
When was the last time you took a moment to reevaluate your marketing agency’s goals? If it’s been a while, then this is the perfect time to do so.
Revaluation of your company’s goals is important, especially after this massive change in the economy. The world today is not what it used to be. Uncertainty has crept in most businesses and thus your goals will pivot too.
So, brainstorm and reassess your business’s short-term and long-term goals. Come up with a renewed business plan that will help you survive and move forward in the post-COVID times. You’ll be surprised to know how necessary this revaluation was.
You can then assess your business activities to understand which ones align with your short-term and long-term goals. Chances are that most of your activities were in for short-term gratification, but were not helping you in the long run.
In fact, research shows that leaders with limiting mindsets can be one of the most significant roadblocks to the sustainable change of any business. So, a mindset shift is the first step towards a better tomorrow for your marketing agency.
2. It’s Time to Take your Digital Properties Seriously
We live in times when we are surrounded by numerous communication channels. And thus, having a presence on just one channel cannot be fruitful in the long run for your marketing agency.
Did you know that businesses that adopt an omnichannel approach see a 91% year-on-year growth in their customer retention rates? This is significant now more than ever.
If you own multiple digital properties for your business but have primarily focused on one channel, then you might be losing out on a lot. It’s time for you to start focusing on all your digital properties.
For instance, suppose that PPC has been working wonders for your marketing agency until now. Then, great! Increase your Google Ads budget to get even better results.
But, at the same time, also building your presence on other social media channels as well. For example, be active on Twitter threads and use blogger outreach to have an omnichannel presence.
When you go the omnichannel way, you can reap a lot of benefits. Such as, you can have a better understanding of your customers, you can organize more targeted campaigns, and have better brand visibility on all channels.
Ultimately, having an omnichannel marketing approach will help you win over new customers and achieve maximum ROI in these uncertain times.
3. Always have the Right Tools at your Disposal
Tools can empower your marketing agency as nothing else can. Though skilled people in your agency can do an efficient job for your agency, nothing can beat the right tools.
With the right tools at your disposal, you can save loads of time, automate processes, achieve better results for your clients, and have exponential business growth in the coming years.
In today’s day and age, there have been numerous, unbelievable advancements in technology. With technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep Learning, and Big Data, tools can do a lot of operations that are otherwise impossible by, us, humans.
Here are a few must-have tools that can completely transform the efficiency of your marketing agency and lead you towards more wins:
- A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can be a brilliant way to manage all your customer data in a central place.
Such a tool can help you to optimize all your processes starting from lead generation till you finally seal the deal with your clients. A great example would be the marketing agency SoMe Connect that increased its revenue by 133% just by using a CRM! - Visual content such as charts, illustrations, and infographics are imperative for any marketing agency to succeed. But, investing in expert graphic design designers may take up a big chunk of your budget. Hence, you can use other easier, cost-effective options such as free infographic maker tools that can help you create high-quality graphics without spending a lot on hiring graphics designers.
- Having dependable, robust customer support is an absolute must. In these difficult times, you don’t want to lose out on leads and customers due to sloppy customer support.
Tools such as Intercom and Freshdesk can entirely change your customer support game. These tools can help you offer premium customer support to your clients by offering options such as live chat, AI chatbots, email support, and similar more. - Social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer can prove to be extremely useful for building your social media presence and growing your tribe.
These tools can help you organize effective social media campaigns, monitor the results, and fine-tune your strategy based on that.
These tools will provide you with a hassle-free way of building a strong presence on every social media platform where your target audience is likely to hang out. Plus, these tools can also help you to manage your clients’ social media profiles.
For example, the Marketing Group says that they manage 350+ clients’ social media profiles efficiently with the help of such social media management tools.
4. Be Flexible with Opportunities
Like it was mentioned before, change is the only constant today. The world economy is rapidly changing. We cannot make any promises and assumptions for tomorrow. Hence it is super-important for leaders like you to keep your minds and convenience open.
This is the perfect time to expand your business portfolio by diversifying in more directions. For instance, SaaS and eCommerce sectors are booming now more than ever.
The SaaS industry has grown from $141 billion to $157 billion in 2020. eCommerce businesses have grown 17% in the post COVID era. Hence, you can definitely think of expanding your business and building something for yourself.
Come up with a competitive SaaS tool, launch an entirely new set of services, or team up with white label agencies to expand your business even more. The options are endless. All you have to do is take the first step.
Instead of having a fixed mindset and rigid business approach, welcome more opportunities. For instance, if you get a collaboration deal from a brand, then grab on to it. This will help you experience new horizons of the market while earning handsome commissions.
Remember to always stick to your mission statement while accepting new opportunities. Only then you’ll be able to build a sustainable business.
5. Build Systems to Build Processes, not to Achieve Results
As a marketing agency, you might be tempted to go with your short-term goals in this deadline-driven world. And, you’ll seldom notice yourself investing your energy and resources in developing a system that will lead you towards success.
Your usual way of getting things done quickly will not only add to your anxiety but will also lead to compromised quality in your work. This will ultimately lead to a reduced ROI for your marketing agency.
Hence developing a system that encourages optimum productivity can yield you the best results for your marketing agency. You should put proper systems in place that will help you scale and grow more can be a vital factor in accelerating your growth multiple folds.
This brief guide by Inc on how to create a business plan for your marketing agency will help you achieve your desired results while scaling your business even more.
In Conclusion
The economy, the consumers, and the market demands – everything has drastically changed ever since the outbreak of the pandemic. The marketing agencies that adapt to the change and find opportunities for growth in this uncertain economy will be the ones to survive and succeed.
Therefore, take the help of these effective strategies and start working more effectively starting now. Remember, the earlier you realize these, the farther you will get.