7 Key Strategies to Elevate Agency Growth & Client Value

This is the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. Discover the strategies and techniques to grow a highly successful and profitable digital marketing agency with your host, Joshua Nelson. Today I'm excited to share something that will revolutionize the way you think about your marketing agency, and that's 7 key services that you should be offering within your agency to move the needle forward for your clients. So you're gonna wanna watch this video. So when it comes to the service offering and kind of the, the way that you stack your program for your clients, um, there's a million things we can do from websites and SEO and pay-per-click and social media, email marketing. Couple things from a program packaging perspective that I always like to start these videos with is I think it's important to have a comprehensive approach, right? Don't just do SEO, or don't just do pay-per-click, for a variety of reasons. Stack it together, that way you get tangible, measurable results for the client. That way you can charge more on a monthly recurring basis. That way you can expect to get an outcome and expect the client to stay with you for a longer period of time. But make sure that your program is packaged for a specific niche, a specific industry, that your recurring fee is greater than $1,000 in monthly recurring. Try and stay away from one-off package programs, but have something where they're paying you on a monthly basis. You're not doing project-related work. And most importantly, sell the hole, not the drills. If you were to go into Home Depot and you were going to buy a drill, the person that's really technical is gonna be like, oh, you know what, there's 17 different drills you could buy there's this one that's got an 18-mag, you know, power source and it can spin 10,000 rotations per second. And you, as the person trying to buy the drill, could care less about the technical stuff. What you care about is, is it gonna put a hole in my wall so that I can hang that thing? And so as you create your package, make sure that's what you're doing. You're selling the hole and not the drill. So let's get into the 7 key strategies that I think all marketing agencies should know about and should be thinking about implementing in their overall program package. Uh, first of all is a website that's built to convert. I, I really think that regardless of how your client generates leads, regardless of what you kind of lead with, your— their website and how well that website is built to convert will have a big impact on the results they generate. It will have an impact on the return on investment you're able to get for them. Because at the end of the day, even if you're just doing Facebook ads or you're just doing Google ads and you're landing on a landing page or you're using lead ads, typically the customer's gonna wanna do some research, they're gonna wind up on the client's website, and there's certain things they need to see on that website in order to convert. And so what we found is when we take accountability for the website, we make sure it's built to convert, that it, it loads quickly, that it's got all the right elements, we can more confidently generate a result. And so number one is having a website for them that's built to convert. And we build those on behalf of our clients. We build the site, we design it, we write the content, and we make sure that it's really, really well positioned for conversion. Now, that's great because we can control the outcome. It also gives us more value that we're bringing to the, to the table for the client, right? We're actually building the website and we can make updates, modifications, and adjustments to that website as needed. Number 2 is search engine optimization, right? Making sure that that website is properly optimized for their city plus their service, for their subservices. So when someone goes to Google and runs a search for, you know, Dallas plumber, Dallas drain cleaning, Dallas water heater repair, in the example of us working with plumbing companies, is great because we still find our lowest cost, highest value leads come from organic search and from the Google Maps. And so making sure you've got a great strategy for your title tags, your H1 tags, your meta description, the pages that you put on the website, when done well, can have a big impact. It's a great thing to show the client, hey, look, here's what we're working towards, towards getting you ranked. But more importantly, when they do get ranked, it's going to generate more clicks, more leads, and more sales for their business. It's going to help them grow. It's going to help them take things to the next level. I really think that 2 and 3 kind of go in tandem— SEO, Google, uh, Google Map optimization— but I put them as separate bullets. There's very specific things you can do on the map listings to optimize it, off the map listing to build authority, with review strategy to help them build up their online reviews so they rank in the map and and they rank organically. I think this should be the foundation of a comprehensive marketing strategy that you put in place for your clients. If you help them get a great website that's built to convert, and you can get them ranked organically where you can drive low-cost, high-quality traffic to their site, you're going to win, the client's gonna win, it's gonna be a great service all around. Now, number 4 is we wanna do paid search. And I truly believe that you wanna have a blended service. And while I'm, I'm a big believer in SEO and Google Maps, The fact is, it works different in different markets. And you don't wanna just be completely reliant on SEO. Like, you wanna have some gasoline that you can pour on strategy to generate more traffic, to generate more leads, to get a blended result, and to kinda diversify what's gonna work and what isn't. The clients we work with where we are able to do SEO and pay-per-click and retargeting, we just have more control that we can generate a better, more tangible outcome for the client. And so with paid search, typically we want to be doing Google Ads, right? That's running Google Ads, running retargeting for the client, local service ads and home services, and in legal and in healthcare, local service ads, Google Guaranteed is, is big. And so Google Ads, right, we wanna set up the ad groups, we wanna set up the landing pages, we wanna track it all so we've got good optimized paid search. We wanna help track to the average cost per lead and the projected return on investment so we can show them, look, here's how much we're gonna spend, here's what we can expect in terms of lead generation. With local service ads, it is a whizzy-wig platform, right? Like Google wants the contractor or the client to go set themselves up themselves. We found is there's some hoops to jump through, right? Getting the background checks, setting up the campaign, making sure that all of the inbound leads are being marked appropriately in the backend, that we're driving new reviews. For a long time we told the client, "Look, do this on your own. You can handle it." In recent years we've gotten more involved and we've said, "Hey, you know what? Let us help you manage this. Let us listen to the outcome of those calls, rate the outcome of those calls." And as a result, our clients are getting better results. And so this is something they're willing to see value in having some additional support with. And so I really would encourage you to have local service ads as part of what you do. Social ads in certain markets can be super effective. So that's Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, different niches, different industries. We tend to focus predominantly on Google Ads, local service ads, and SEO. Social ads is more the retargeting layer for us because in plumbing specifically, you're not on social media looking for someone to fix the plumbing or to install that new water heater until there's a problem. And so for us, directional-based advertising is the best play with retargeting as an additional layer on top of that. But I really do think if you're doing this service for your clients, website, SEO, Google Maps, paid search, You need to be doing retargeting, right? Absolutely put the pixel, make sure that you're retargeting their traffic. Retargeting is great because it will have a lift on the effectiveness of everything else that you do. Also, the client is going to see their ads, they're gonna see their banner advertisement, they're gonna see themselves because they're pixeled in their own retargeting audience, and they're gonna be like, "Wow, what did you guys do? I'm seeing myself everywhere." And so it's got kind of that double effect. Actually does generate better results, but it also is something tangible the client sees that you're doing that gets them excited about what you're bringing to the table. So we've got website, SEO, Google Maps, paid search. Uh, number 5 is marketing automation and focusing on lead conversion. And I think a lot of agencies shy away from this. We just want to generate the leads, we want to generate the rankings, but I think that the, the future of the marketing agencies is we can't just generate the lead, we've gotta actually focus on what the client wants, which is more sales. And so if we know that we're generating leads via these channels, but the clients aren't converting them because they don't have speed to lead in place, because they're not using two-way text messaging, that's an opportunity we need to solve. And so with HighLevel, we're able to put marketing automation in place where our website now has smart automation. When someone fills in a form, there's an email, there's a call, there's an SMS. With some pipeline management where once the deal, the lead comes in, if it hasn't converted, we're putting some nurture sequences in place. Where if somebody calls in and they don't answer it, an immediate text message goes out on behalf of the client. "Hey, we saw you called in. Sorry we missed you. Is there anything we can help you with?" I promise you, if you just put a little energy in your program in helping them convert more of the leads that you generate, you're going to become stickier, you're gonna generate better results, you're gonna improve your long-term outcomes, your long-term retention with the client base. So I really encourage you to be thinking about marketing automation and when I say lead conversion, you might even think about putting a concierge to follow up with their leads on their behalf. Especially the ones that didn't convert immediately on the phone. If you can provide a concierge service where you're following up with unconverted leads, that is going to have a lift. That's gonna differentiate you from the competition. Number 6 is database reactivation, which is taking their past list of customers, their past list of inquiries, and making them an offer. Most of your clients, or potential clients, have past customers that they've done business with that they don't do anything to, to remarket to. And so this, I think, is just something logical that should be part of your program. Great thing about database reactivation is it can generate quick wins, and it doesn't incur additional costs for the clients. So we can sign the client up, get started on our entire program. While that's happening, get their database loaded into HighLevel and send a couple of offers right out of the gate so they get some leads, they get some sales while everything else is building up. Uh, and then number 7 is is we have to make sure that we're tracking and we've got ROI reporting. Like, do not be the agency owner that says, "Hey, I know how to do all this stuff for you, I'm gonna do it, but I'm not gonna be able to show you the result." Right? They're paying you to make it rain, to see growth within their business, and ultimately, in order for them to have confidence, they need to know that they're spending money, something's happening with that money, leads are being generated, and there's a return on investment at the other side. And so from a tracking perspective, yeah, we got to put the pixels, yeah, we do the keyword tracking, yeah, we got to put analytics. But most importantly, we need to be able to say, here's how much you spent, here's how many leads were generated, here's your average cost per lead, and here's your return on investment. And you can do that with a lot of different tools. Um, Agency Analytics, if you're using HighLevel, you can definitely do some of that within HighLevel. Um, what we use is we use a, a tool called Ninja Cat, which pulls in the data. And we use CallRail for call tracking. Uh, you could do that directly within HighLevel, and it gives you the ability to pull in all the data sources. How much did they pay you? How much did they spend in ads? How many leads were tracked from SEO, from Google Maps, from these various sources? How many web submissions? How many live chats? And be able to show them what they really, really want to see. I really think the, the next iteration of this, and what's right on the cusp of coming next, is being able not to just project return on investment, but to be able to say, based on their— where the revenue is actually tracked, in our case the dispatch system, being able to say, here's how much you spent, here's how many leads were generated, here's where those leads came from, and here's the actual revenue that was generated based on your system. And the technology is now available in plumbing and HVAC, it's available in, in a lot of different industries where you can match the leads you generate to the actual revenue in their system, and you can report that on a consistent basis. I think if you can do that, you're gonna be ahead of the curve, and you're gonna be able to really have a premium level option for your clients. And so these are the 7 key services. Let me know in the chat here which of these maybe do you want to implement? Which of these are you already leveraging that you're getting great results? The main thing I want to make sure lands for you as you're watching today's video is don't try and just do one. Like, if you want to move the needle for your client, it's much better to come in with a comprehensive approach because when you combine these things, they have a synergistic effect. And you could say, "Hey, look, we're gonna combine SEO and paid search and database marketing and marketing automation to generate an outcome." Right, they don't pay you to rank keywords. They don't pay you to post Facebook ads. They pay you to generate sales, right? And the more you can align with that and become a growth driver for your clients, you become indispensable. Where they're willing to pay you a premium fee, they're willing to stay with you long-term because you're adding that much value and you're helping to grow their business. And these are the 7 key services we use for our clients and we recommend the 7 Figure Agency members use for their clients. So hopefully this has been helpful. Let me know if you have follow-up questions. If you'd like more training on this and how to really build a world-class program, how to land clients, deliver world-class results, retain your clients at the highest level possible, and scale your agency, I've got a free training available to you at 7figureagency.com/roadmap. That's 7figureagency.com/roadmap. It walks you through our entire 7-figure agency roadmap on how to scale to 7 figures and beyond over the next 12 to 24 months. So, that's it for today. 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