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How To Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency (...My Top 7 Strategies) | Adam Erhart - YouTube
Channel: Adam Erhart
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- As a digital marketing agency owner,
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I know all about the
pains and frustrations
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of wanting to grow your agency
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but just not knowing
the best way to do it,
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which is why in this video,
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I want to cover my top seven strategies
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that I've used over the
years to massively grow
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my revenue, my profit, my customer base
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and build the agency of my dreams
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so you can do the same.
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Alright, let's get to it.
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(lively music)
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Hey there, my name is Adam Erhart,
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modern marketing strategist,
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and welcome to The Modern Marketing Show
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where we help you make
marketing that matters.
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So, if you're interested in learning
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about the latest and greatest
marketing strategies,
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tools, tips, tricks, and tactics,
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well, you may want to consider subscribing
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and hitting that notification bell.
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Alright, so, if you're here now,
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it's because you want to grow
your digital marketing agency
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which I first have to commend you on
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because wanting to grow your
agency is a very noble pursuit.
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The more you grow,
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the more people you're
going to be able to serve,
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and the more people you serve well,
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the more they're going to
be able to serve in turn.
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And thus, we fuel the business,
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we fuel capitalism,
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and we make the world a better place.
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Now before we dive into the tips,
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real quick on my history
just so you know who I am
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and why I'm qualified to talk about this,
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I've had a digital
marketing agency for years,
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I started way back in the
day by offering things
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like web design and social media.
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Over the years,
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that evolved into SEO and a
lot of search engine marketing
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and then that evolved even
further to where we are now
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which really focuses on online advertising
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like Facebook ads,
Instagram ads, YouTube ads,
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and Google ads.
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And that essentially
is where we're at now.
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Now, when I first started
the business years ago
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it was a very, very sketchy start,
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as I'm sure you can remember
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when you first started your agency.
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In fact, for the first few months,
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I was making almost no revenue
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and it was only when I
put my foot in the ground?
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Flag in the ground?
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Foot in the sand?
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Drew a line in the sand? Whatever.
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It was only when I drew a line in the sand
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and said this is the point
where I'm going to make it
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or I'm essentially going to quit, give up,
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and go back and get a job again,
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well that's when things really took off
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because I was willing to do the things
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that I'd been previously unwilling to do
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and that's really what we're
really gonna be focusing
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on here is essentially
leveraging the things
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that most of your competitors
aren't willing to do,
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which is gonna give you a leg up
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and allow you to really just
blast them out of the water.
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So with that said,
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this first tip is gonna sound
a little counterintuitive.
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After all, if your goal is to
grow and scale your agency,
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why would you want to do the unscalable?
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Well, essentially the unscalable
things are often the ones
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that have the most traction,
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especially when you're trying to grow
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and really hit that next level.
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After all, there's no substitute
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for face to face conversation.
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Now, this is a mistake that
I made a few years ago.
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As my agency started to explode,
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I started to move further and further away
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from those personal relationships
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and those face to face conversations.
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In turn, the business kind
of ended up plateauing,
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and it was only when I
started to recommit myself
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as the agency owner to doing
those unscalable things
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like meeting clients in
person, following up,
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doing a lot of really
personal interaction.
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Well, that's when things took off again
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because my clients started
to really understand
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that I truly, genuinely cared about them
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and about their success and I
was willing to do the things
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that others were not.
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This next tip, I'm sure
you've heard before,
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but it's the 80/20 rule
or Pareto principle,
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and we need to apply the 80/20 principle
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to your entire business.
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Now, if you're not familiar
with the Pareto principle,
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really quick, it
essentially states that 80%
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of your results are gonna
come from 20% of your efforts.
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And again, 80% of your revenue,
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probably gonna come from
around 20% of your clients.
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If you offer multiple services,
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80% of those are gonna account
for only 20% of your revenue
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and 20% of those services
are gonna account
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for 80% of your overall revenue.
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So, again, looking at things holistically,
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when you map everything out,
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let's say you're offering
five different services,
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odds are pretty good
it's gonna be one or two
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that are providing the
most bang for your buck.
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Again, when you line
out all of your clients,
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it's probably going to be
those top 20%, top 30%,
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that are going to account
for most of your revenue.
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So what does this mean?
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Well, when you look at all these things,
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it's going to allow you
to identify those services
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that are actually profitable
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and really driving your business forward
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and the ones that you
can probably let go of.
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Same things with your clients.
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When you really look at them,
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it's going to allow you
to pinpoint the ones
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that are providing the most revenue,
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so you can not only do
a better job for them,
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but you can find the
traits that are similar
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between them all and go out
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and get more clients just like them.
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This next tip is one I've fallen victim to
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countless times before
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and essentially what you want to do here
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is give them what they
want, not what you want.
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Even though you are the
digital marketing expert,
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you know the business inside and out,
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you know what's probably best for them,
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they may come to you looking for something
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completely different.
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Now, it is obviously going to be wise
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and ethical and honorable and authentic
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to end up giving them
what they need in the end,
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but at the beginning,
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if they say they need just
social media management,
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you're best to approach that
conversation and the client
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that way and then pitch
them on the other things
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that they really should
be doing after that.
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So, it's really hard to
sell someone something
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that they don't want or
don't think they need.
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It's a lot easier to
give them what they want
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and then convince them
afterwards by showing them
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what you've done for them but
how it could be so much better
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and really that's the way that you want
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to approach this direction.
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When it comes to running a
digital marketing agency,
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there's a number of different
things that go into it.
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There's obviously the sales,
there's the marketing,
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there's the fulfillment or the operations
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of the client work,
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there's the finance side,
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and then there's all of the
other areas that go into it
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like the mindset and the team building
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and the leadership and the management,
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all that other stuff.
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Well, you as the digital
marketing agency owner,
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you've got a very unique skillset
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and essentially you want to stay operating
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in your zone of genius.
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Maybe this is actually doing
fulfillment for clients
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or maybe it's getting on the
phone and signing up clients
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or maybe it's just
designing all the marketing
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behind the scenes and letting someone else
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handle the sales and
operations of the business.
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Whatever it is, the better
that you're able to identify
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and really articulate what you do best,
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the better you're gonna be
able to get everything else
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off your plate which means
you're gonna have less stress,
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you're gonna have more time,
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and your client results
are gonna skyrocket
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because you're gonna be
doing what you're doing best
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and other people are
going to be able to focus
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on doing what they do best.
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Win-win, all around.
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The next tip that we
have to cover if you want
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to grow your digital
marketing agency is that
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you do in fact need to niche down.
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I know you've heard this before,
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so before you skip the video
and completely write it off,
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there is some merit to this,
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but I want to put in a few caveats.
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I know you've heard that
you need to niche down
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and niche down again and niche down again.
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Well, this can in fact work
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and if you're just getting
started, it's great advice,
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but as you scale up, it's
harder and harder to do
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because eventually you're
going to run out of market cap
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of a super micro niche,
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so you're gonna need to
expand a little more.
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So what does this mean?
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Well, when it comes to going out there
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and acquiring new clients,
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you do want to be niche-specific
but there's no reason
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that you can't target
multiple niches at a time
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or subsequently or one after
another or whatever it is.
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When I'm talking about niches,
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I'm talking about not only the
industry of, say, dentists,
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or chiropractors, or legal firms,
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or financial investment
advisors or whatever it is,
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but also the services that you offer,
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whether it's web design
or SEO or online ads
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or whatever it is.
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Essentially, you can
choose either the industry
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or the service that you're offering
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and really focus on
that for the time being.
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Once you've built that up
to the level that you want,
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then you can move on to the next one.
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So, yes, you do need to niche down,
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but you are able to have
multiple different niches
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that you're targeting
with multiple different
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marketing campaigns in your own business.
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The next tip is one of
my absolute favorites
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and is largely responsible
for massive growth
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in the very early years of my business
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and this is the willingness
to outspend your competition.
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So what do I mean by that?
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Well, if you're operating
in say, a local area,
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all you have to do is take a look at
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what other local advertising
agencies or marketing agencies
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are doing in your area,
and then do more of that.
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Fortunately, in most cases,
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it's not too hard to run
a few more Facebook ads
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or allocate a few more
dollars towards your SEO
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or put out a little more
content than the competition.
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All you really need to do
is continue to outspend them
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and eventually, over time,
that gap becomes so large
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that they really will
never be able to catch you
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and never be able to take
over the market share
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that you've established.
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Now, the easiest way to kind
of ease your way into this
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is really to start small and
just allocate an extra five
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or 10% of your revenue to your
internal marketing budget.
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Over time, as your revenue grows,
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that budget is going to grow along with it
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and it becomes a lot easier to essentially
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take over the market with
content and value and more ads
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and staying top of mind
among your target market.
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You know, basically all the
things you're trying to do
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for your clients.
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Alright, so this final tip
should come as no surprise,
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but if you want to grow your agency,
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you're going to need to get more clients.
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Fortunately, I've got a video I'll link up
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right down below here
you'll want to check out
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which is all about how
to get more clients.
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Alright so thanks so much for watching,
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and I hope you enjoyed the episode.
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Make sure you check out
that video down below
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on how to get more clients.
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If you enjoyed the video,
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make sure to give it a thumbs up,
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subscribe to the channel,
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and say hello in the
comments section below.
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Alright so thanks so much for watching
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and I'll catch you next time
on The Modern Marketing Show.
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