In this solo episode of the 7 Figure Agency Podcast, host Joshua Nelson outlines a practical framework for boosting client retention in digital marketing agencies. He identifies three core pillars—onboarding, communication/reporting, and success management—and argues that the top reason clients churn is perceived indifference, not lack of results. To combat this, Nelson recommends systematic gifting strategies: a welcome box at onboarding, anniversary and life‑event gifts, and a budget‑driven SOP that empowers account managers to surprise clients with thoughtful, often non‑branded, items. He references key retention books (Giftology, Never Lose a Customer Again, Retention Point) and stresses the need for a balance between world‑class results and world‑class service. Listeners are offered a free “Client Retention Game Plan” checklist and an invitation to schedule a one‑on‑one agency acceleration session.
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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. I wanna talk a little bit about retention and some of the key strategies you can put in place to improve your stickiness with clients and get them to stay with you longer. If you wanna reduce your churn and increase your retention by using some clever gifting strategies you're gonna wanna watch this video. So when it comes to retention and really improving the stick rate with your clients, so they can stay with you longer and so that you can reduce that churn, really what you wanna focus on is 3 things: your onboarding, your communication reporting, And then your success management, how you build that team. And there's some great books out there on this idea of retention and how outside of just focusing on the results you deliver, right? Obviously you gotta be good at the SEO, the pay-per-click, the social media. You gotta be making it rain for your clients. But the things you can do outside of that to improve your client retention, because what we know is that The number one reason clients leave isn't just because the results. It isn't just because, like, they didn't get a great return on investment. What we found is the number one reason a client will leave is perceived indifference, right? They hire your services, and even if you do an amazing job, if you're not creating a great experience, you're not showing the results for them, you're not seeing the vision where things are headed, they will eventually They will cancel. They will go to somebody else. They will churn out. And what's interesting is solving for perceived indifference should be one of the easiest things you can do, right? Because that just takes you caring. It just takes your team caring. It takes you putting some things in place to show them that you appreciate them as a client and you want them to be with you for the long term. And so there's some great books on retention that have come out over the years. I've studied these, I try and read every book that I can get my hands on around how do we improve retention, how do we create a great client experience. And some of the best are Giftology, if you've ever read it, it really talks about the power of gifting both in the sales process and after the sale. Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman, and Retention Point, another great book on really how to improve your client retention rates. And one of the things all of these have in common is focusing on the intangibles, right? The things that the client wouldn't expect, right? When they hire you, they expect you're going to build their website, right? And you're gonna get them some leads, and you're gonna, you know, make it rain for them, right? That's their minimum expectation. And so if you do that, you're kind of at an even footing. The things they don't expect is the way that you onboard them, the special things, the way you notice them as a human being, the way you notice their team, Those are the things that actually improve with stickiness. They improve with the relationship that you develop. And so gifting is one of those really powerful things you can do. Nobody expects to receive gifts from their provider, right? They very rarely get things in the mail. And so what we found works best is be sure absolutely to gift on the front end. Once they sign up, send them the gift basket. Hey, welcome aboard. Super excited about doing business with you. You know, we're gonna be really kicking things off here strong. Send them a welcome box. We've got a great custom welcome box that we send out to all our clients that just, it sets a baseline of professionalism that they're not expecting. It's like, wow, you know, they've got this great onboard process, they've done a great job with the communication and how they kind of kicked off the sales process and how they kicked off the relationship to get things started, but then they also dropped these unexpected goodies on my lap that were well packaged, work professional. Now, in addition to that, you want to be thinking about 1-year anniversary. They've been with you for a year. Definitely want to have some type of gift in the bag for that. Life change events. And this is something that you have to pay attention for. Your team has to be paying attention for. But life change events are wedding anniversary. They get married. They have a kid. They have a grandkid. They get an award for themselves. In their business in some way, when those life change events happen, if you and your team are paying attention, you can bestow gifts at a very strategic time that make you stand out, that are absolutely gonna be well received by the client base. And the best way to do this is to give your team a budget to surprise. So, account manager meets with the client, they say that, hey, they're having a baby, The account manager, if they have to go back to you and say, "Hey, they're having a baby. I think I'd like to send something. What should I send?" And go figure all that stuff out, and you know, how much money is there? Very rarely is it gonna happen. But if you build it into your business process where they listen for those things, and there's an SOP that says, "Go to this site, order this product, send it out with this note," and they know they can spend whatever it is, $150 to $250 to recognize the clients, those things happen on a very consistent basis. And when that's happening on a very consistent basis, your clients, in addition in addition to getting great results, are being surprised and delighted. And when they're being surprised and delighted, they're getting those things that they don't expect, they're being acknowledged in a way that they don't expect, well, first of all, there's gonna be no chance of perceived indifference, 'cause they know you care, they know you're paying attention, but they're also gonna be more likely to stay, they're gonna be more likely to refer, they're gonna be more likely to say, "Man, this agency I work with, man, they're awesome. They really show that they care about me in a very special way." So hopefully this makes sense, right? This is something you can absolutely, all of you can implement within your agency. So we like to send a welcome basket, we like to send Sherry's Berries, we like to send something right out of the gates that's a goodie that them and the team are gonna receive at the office and they can consume. We use gourmet gift baskets and Sherry Berries for that. We have a great custom box that we send out. We've got it customized, we put in a tumbler, we put in a t-shirt, we put in a copy of our book. So there's one that's non-branded, right? If giftology is all like, don't ever send a gift that's branded to you because you want it to be about them. People keep things that are about them. They throw away things that are like about you. So definitely have something they can consume. Think about buying a custom gift that's, you know, for them. Maybe a tumbler with their logo on it or something cool with their logo on it. And then no reason not to send something that's very uniform that's branded for your organization that can live in their in their office, can live in their house as well. And remember that you gotta have this healthy balance, right, between results and service. Because if you've just got great results and you don't have good service, that's perceived indifference, they're gonna leave, right? Because there's too much competition. There's too many other agencies vying for their business that know what they're doing. If the results are there but there's bad service and you're not showing that care, they're gonna leave. But at the same exact time, if you've got great service, right, let's say you're dropping thank you gifts and you know everybody's name on the team and you're just their best friend, but there's no results, they're gonna churn on that as well. So there has to be this healthy balance between delivering world-class results, providing a world-class experience, that's when you're gonna be able to maximize your client retention rates. So if you'd like a checklist on some of our best ideas and strategies on how to improve client retention from onboarding all the way through to long-term retention and building your account management team, we've got a checklist called the Client Retention Game Plan that you can access by going to 7figureagency.com/retention-workbook. That's 7figureagency.com/retention-workbook. You can access it there. If you got value from this, please press the like button. Be sure to subscribe for future videos just like this. Share this with another agency that you know that's trying to figure out how to dial in their retention to keep their clients longer. If you've got follow-up questions or follow-up thoughts on this, post it in the comments. I do my best to read these comments and engage with each of them individually. And if you'd like some more help on how to actually implement this in your agency, you're like, you know what, I wanna be around other agencies that are doing this type of thing, that are providing world-class experiences, that are retaining their clients at the highest level possible, I'd encourage you to go to 7figureagencies.com/schedule. There we'll schedule an agency acceleration session with you, meet with you one-on-one, figure out where you're at today, help you map out a plan to accelerate the growth, and talk about how to get you involved in the 7 Figure Agency. So that's it for today. Thanks so much for watching, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
