Optimization and data-based marketing are very valuable when it comes to increasing traffic through search engines and social media platforms. This is a reality Jacoby Mondy, the CEO of Digital Brandz, understood before quitting his job as a car salesman in 2013 to start Digital Brandz, a company which he later built to what would now be referred to as “one of the world’s leading Marketing firms.”
Digital Brandz created an in-house systematic process as part of their optimization and was able to grow to a whopping 170% conversion rate in less than 6 months. This new development generated over a million dollars as additional revenue for Digital Brandz.
Your business can achieve this too, and even more. In this article, Jacoby Mondy presents you with 6 steps you should follow if you wish to run a profitable online business.
- Wisely select your clients
- Create an easy-to-use automation process
- Manage your clients’ expectations
- Manage feedbacks
- Create a good agency-client relationship
- Select and make use of the right tools
(P.S.: I am sharing Mr. Jacoby Mondy’s words so all instances of the first-person “I” refer to Mr. Jacoby Mondy’s words and not mine.)
SELECTING YOUR CLIENTS
As a businessperson, you must learn how to select your clients. I understand that there is always this temptation to say YES to every offer, but you must learn to select between right and wrong clients. You must develop the habit of saying ‘No’ to the wrong clients otherwise you may end up running down your business.
You might say, you want to tolerate them for a short while, but trust me, it only takes one or two clients consuming your agency’s time and paying peanuts in return to run your company to the ground. These clients do not only consume your time but also lower your morale.
Clients that are ready to pay as much as the service you provide them are the ones you should choose. Also, make sure your choice clients are those that pay on time. They are the best!
The process of choosing clients from prospective ones might be a tricky one. This is because you don’t just know who is willing to pay well for your services by merely looking at them or speaking to them over the phone.
Here is a list of things you should check out when choosing clients from prospective clients:
- How well they communicate
- How promptly they reply to mails
- Their reaction when you tell them prices. Do they haggle or ask for discounts?
- How responsive they are when you ask for information from them
- What expectations do they have of the outcome of projects? Are they realistic?
- Are their responses in the affirmative? If they are (especially to 1, 2, and 3) then they may just be the right clientele you are looking to build. You should at least give them a credible reason why you have chosen not to do business with them. While at this make sure you leave no room for negotiations.
If you are sure a prospective client is not right for you, you just don’t send them away without clearing the air.
Here’s a typical dismissal message for clients you do not want to work with
Dear Client,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Unfortunately, at this time we are not able to work directly with your business. However, we do offer DIY programs and direct access to freelancers who can help you achieve your desired goals. Click this link and you will see the options available to you to help you scale your business to the next level. Wishing you the best of luck with your endeavor.
Respect is essential regardless of whether you decide to say no to a client—they may know someone who fits your ideal client persona.
Saying no to clients that aren’t a good fit for your company will be the best thing you’ll ever do for it.
CREATE AN EASY-TO-USE AUTOMATION PROCESS
There are several ways through which you can maximize profit other than increasing your rates or taking on more work. Automation is one of those ways. Improving your automation system helps with cost reduction and by extension helps you maximize profit.
Systems and processes enable you to provide consistent experiences for your team and clients, which allows you to track and measure profitability.
Any repetitive operation or action in your business can be turned into a process. The idea is to write down your systems rather than keep them in your brain. You rely on memory to get things done if you don’t have sufficient documentation, which is how things tend to fall through the cracks—especially when you get busy.
Systematizing and automating processes also save time, allowing your firm to take on more projects.
For instance, a typical client on-boarding process may be as complex as a client reaching out to you, followed by you setting up a call, and some back and forth emails to finalize when you will schedule your call meeting; a call which would most likely be rescheduled. When the call is finally put through, you then listen to them share their problem, and then you share your agency’s solutions. After the call, you email a few other questions you may have forgotten in the course of the call. You then email your proposal to the client and hope for the best.
The complex process above can be automated following the process below:
- By filling out a form on your website, the client contacts you with a concern. They are automatically added to your email list and sent a link to your “Getting Started” page, which describes your services and how you work with clients. It answers all of the frequently asked questions you receive via email or phone. Client testimonials are also included. This would keep them reminded as to why they want to hire you
- There’s a link at the bottom of the page to fill out a project planner. A project planner is a free document that saves their responses and sends you an email when they’re finished.
- After they’ve completed the form, they’ll see a link to arrange a call on the final screen.
- The call booking form only displays available time on certain days. You’ll both receive an email with a call confirmation and reminder once they’ve chosen a time that works for both of you.
- Before the call, you send them the meeting agenda, which lays out in detail what you’ll be talking about. This keeps the conversation on course and ensures you don’t miss anything important.
So, by the time you speak with them for the first time, you’ve already set their expectations, they’ve responded to your exploratory inquiries, and they’ve arranged a call with you—all without you having to do anything…
From the client’s perspective, you’ve responded quickly, addressed their unasked questions on the “Getting Started” page, and promptly booked a meeting with you.
In their view, you already appear intelligent and professional. Your job is completed!
MANAGING YOUR CLIENT’S EXPECTATIONS
The single most critical part of having a healthy and lucrative relationship with your clients is managing expectations.
In your on-board improvement process, a platform is created whereby potential clients are directed to a “Getting Started” page. This page is the page where you set and manage your clients’ expectations.
As you may be aware, not every idea you have for your clients business will result in higher conversion rates. Sometimes your big ideas and plans just don’t work out. It happens to the most well-intentioned of us.
This is where you must educate your client on the various possible outcomes as well as how you will manage negative outcomes.
I set the following expectations for my clients:
- The services I provide, in detail. This helps my clients get intimated with the reasons why my prices are set at their mark. This is because some of my prospective clients may not know the extent of my services if they are not let in on them.
- The services I do NOT provide, to further give clarity on my services.
- An outline of the process involved in setting up and executing each project.
- Information on how communication will be managed, including email contact, phone, my project management tool (I use Trello). I also add information on my standard response time i.e., how soon they should expect me to reply to their mails.
- For approvals and signoffs, I make sure my clients have a single point of contact within my agency, and I make sure to create a single point of contact with my clients. This helps to avoid misunderstandings.
- I also include information on what I am guaranteeing my clients and also the requirements they have to meet to validate the guarantee. If you don’t provide a guarantee, you might wish to give reasons.
- Very importantly, I also add information on payment terms. This information includes percentage upfront payment, time of payment, the penalty for late payment – whether late fees or interest.
You start the relationship with your clients with clear expectations of each other by explaining your process and deliverables, as well as educating the client on your expectations of them.
MANAGING FEEDBACKS
It is important to get your clients’ opinions on your services. Whilst you get their opinions it is also important that you hear, comprehend, and implement (if possible) their relayed opinions. Some clients will have strong opinions on everything you do and expect to be carried along in the work you do. This is fine to an extent; however, they must be carefully managed, with clear expectations defined for each party’s involvement in the project.
Knowing when to say no is an important part of effective communication. The team should never make a promise they know they won’t be able to keep. Saying no from the outset could help you avoid a slew of difficulties later on.
But keep in mind that no one is born with the capacity to provide excellent feedback; it is a skill that must be developed just like any other. As a result, you’ll need to teach your client how to provide you feedback.
Below are some practices on how to give feedback I outline for my clients. You can feel free to implement them if you want your agency to be profitable:
- Ask them to explain why they believe something isn’t working as thoroughly as possible using their reasoning skills.
- They shouldn’t prescribe remedies since they’ll have to reverse engineer them to get to the root of the problem.
- They should feel free to explain why they feel certain decisions your agency has made are incorrect. Finding those holes is a necessary part of the process.
- Remind them that they hired conversion rate optimization specialists and your role as the company’s expert.
- Ask them to discuss the project’s objectives and priorities.
- Ask them to let you know what they do not like and make them know that if they do not let you in on them that you may continue giving them that thing they think is not working.
- Ask them not to change your existing designs in the course of their reviews and explain to them how counterproductive it will be if they do, that you will have to reverse engineer the entire system to figure out what problem they are attempting to tackle which may result in wastage of time and money.
Limit the number of persons who participate in the review cycle to allow for speedier, more concise comments and implementation where necessary.
CREATING A GOOD AGENCY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
You will need to maintain a good agency-client relationship with your clients. This is because you do not want to smear the good first impression you must have created for them.
It is almost impossible to find projects or relationships without issues at least on the part of a party. Maintaining a good relationship with your clients will enable them to overlook minor errors you may make in the course of doing business with them.
You must learn how to handle issues professionally. How you handle issues will tell to a large extent whether or not your agency is going to be a profitable one.
Two things I’ve learned over the years when it comes to crisis management as it relates to agency-client relationships are:
- Communication
- Honesty
Communication
Never sweep issues under the carpet because you feel your clients will forget about it or perhaps won’t notice. What if they do?
As a matter of fact, most times they do, and when they do you will look bad because you failed to notice the problem. Worst-case scenario, they will feel you knew about the problem and choose to sweep it under the carpet.
Also, never try to fix a problem before letting your clients in on them. You may think you can get the problem fixed before they know of it but trust me, things don’t always go as planned. The problem may take longer than you expected it, and you would then be labeled ‘incompetent’ when they notice it. They will feel you have failed to notice the problem or have noticed it and chosen to do nothing about it.
Don’t just assume your clients know about the problem. Remember they do not have special telepathic abilities. Immediately you notice something going wrong, make sure your client is aware.
Let your clients know you are aware of the problem and make them assured that it is under control and you update them as soon as you can.
No client will scold you if you get them informed of recent developments – even if they are problems encountered. Remember they are humans too and are also capable of making mistakes, so they will understand. Just don’t keep them in the dark,
Honesty
No one likes to work with a dishonest person. If you are to blame for things going south, let your clients know straight up and explain to them exactly what happened and why.
Also, honestly let them know the corrective measures you have taken or are about to take to remedy the situation. You should also let them in on the preventive measures you’ve taken to ensure the problem is not encountered again.
If the problem encountered is from your client’s end politely tell them. Explain the problem to them and provide a remedy to the situation at hand and let them know what to do to prevent it from happening again
THE RIGHT TOOLS
From page builders to testing tools, analytics, and support tools, there are loads of useful online tools you can use to run your marketing agency.
The tools you should select for your agency are those easy-to-operate especially because your agency is likely made up of a team with different people with different skill levels.
Below is a list of tools I would recommend you work with, in your marketing agency:
Email marketing and marketing automation tools
- ActiveCampaign
- InfusionSoft
- Woodpecker
- Drip; and
- ConvertKit.
I would recommend ActiveCampaign because of its high marketing automation features. This particular tool also has a very attractive interface. InfusionSoft and Ontraport are more expensive than ActiveCampaign and they offer 10 more percent of the functionality.
ActiveCampaign may be substituted with Drip and ConvertKit.
Project management tools
- Trello
- MeisterTask
- Asana; and
- Basecamp
I recommend Trello. The tool has a kanban-style board which gives you a great overview of all your tasks in a project. It also has a free plan.
A/B testing tools
- VWO
- Convert; and
- Optimizely
Optimizely has a limited free plan, but I would recommend Convert. This tool has unlimited tests as well as unlimited projects and collaborators/users on all their tests.
Convert has an excellent customer support system and is also easy to use. It is also cheap- cheaper than VWO and Optimizely.
Analytics tools
- Google Analytics
- Clicky
- Heap
- Mixpanel
- KISSmetrics.
The first two on the list are easy analytic tools but the latter are alternatives if you are looking for analytic tools with advanced cohorts and funnels.
Landing page builders
- Unbounce
- Instapage
- Wishpond
- LeadPages; and
- ClickFunnels.
Wishpond has highly recommendable features and a user-friendly interface. Instapage is also an easy-to-use tool. for its ease of use, but Unbounce is also a popular choice. ClickFunnels and LeadPages are also very popular page builders.
Customer support tools
- Reamaze
- Front; and
- Groove
- Visitor recordings & heatmaps
- ClickTale
- Hotjar
ClickTale is a pricey alternative while Hotjar is an alternative with a wide range of features such as surveys, visitor recording, heatmaps, funnels, and polls
Payment tools
- Stripe
- Snappy Checkout
- PayPal
- Paymill; and
- GoCardless
These online merchant tools help you collect payments from clients.
Paypal is a popularly used platform. I make use of Snappy Checkout and Stripe due to their ease of use. Snappy checkout has a special feature that enables you to copy and paste checkout forms for recurring or one-off payments.
Paymill and GoCardless are good options for those in Europe.
CONCLUSION
So, we’ve learned 6 proven steps in running a profitable marketing agency. Hope you’ve been able to take something with you? I’d love to hear about your agency scaling up after applying the steps in this article.
Connect with Jacoby on his website and social handles for success tips:
https://www.digitalbrandz.com/
www.instagram.com/digitalbrandz/
www.instagram.com/koolestnerdever