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Selling Review Management: How To Get Your Agency’s Foot In The Door
It's the end of agencies as we know it.
Agencies are no longer seen by clients as one-stop shops. According to pundits, the "Agency of Record" has died a slow and painful death.
The claim these days is that agency services are modular.
One agency to manage search, another for reputation management, another for PR. What's worse, the barrier for entry is so low almost anyone can start their own agency.
New competitors come with unintended consequences
The agency landscape is a convoluted mess.
The upper echelon of agency life forces firms to complete large amounts of spec work. Clients approach agencies with a laissez-faire attitude. Do free work for the chance to win... more paid work. Spec work has trickled down via design contests.
A cattle call that forces amateurs and professionals into the same muddy pen.
As an agency you're forced to deal with a variety of depressing and incredibly unfair expectations (e.g. SEO agencies that guarantee rankings or traffic). What's worse, most agencies accept these disturbing changes. They don't do it because they have to, they do it because they can't keep the lights on if they don't.
There's nothing special or unique about these agencies.
Which is precisely why most agencies are abused and mistreated by clients. There's no way to tell agencies apart. So clients construct their own abusive set of rules to get the results they want from their agencies.
Actually, no.
Clients care about the same things they've always cared about.
Uniqueness and results.
Clients in general and decision makers in particularly don't care all that much about specialization. Most don't care about modular services or any of the other problems I've just mentioned. Does that mean these problems don't exist?
If you're running an agency, you know these problems exist.
What exactly are you supposed to do?
It's tough to get clients to go for the big project or national campaign. It's not as easy to get a bigger piece of the pie anymore. These problems, specifically hyperspecialization, are getting worse.
Why?
There's a growing shortage of knowledgeable experts.
See for yourself.
What we have here is a meta problem.
Hyperspecialization is being touted as the wave of the future, but it's creating an even bigger problem. There will soon be a shortage of knowledgeable experts. Your clients need an advisor with an A-to-Z understanding of their situation.
They need you.
This is the situation for many agencies. Agencies are much more capable than clients realize. Agency typecasting means clients are far less likely to get the outcomes they actually want. Instead of relying on a few agencies with deep knowledge and a broad range of expertise (such as yourself), clients are cobbling large groups of "specialists" together.
There are two common routes agencies can take.
Generalize to keep your clients profitable and satisfied.
There are quite a few services you can use to get your agency's foot in the door. But the focus word here is quick win. If you want to attract your client's attention and work your way into a generalist role, you'll need to generate results quickly.
Clients are naturally skeptical.
Online reviews are clear. It's easy for customers to make the mental connection. The more reviews they get, the more customers they receive. It's simple and straightforward.
Here's why we recommend online review management and marketing.
Attract more positive reviews and your client's conversion rate shoots up. Bury your client's negative reviews and their conversion rates go up. Promote positive reviews to your client's customers via advertising/remarketing and their conversion rate goes up.
Get their existing customers to share their story and you have the potential to dramatically boost your client's revenue. With the right approach you can help clients 2x, 4x or even 10x their business.
No other marketing channel offers such a dramatic lift in such a short period of time.
It's a compelling reason for your agency to lead with online review management and marketing services. It's an excellent way for you to establish your agency as a trusted advisor, a role you can use to expand your role with each of your clients.
Read the rest of Andrew's post here. He goes on to list 4 steps for getting your foot in the door with online review management.
It's the end of agencies as we know it.
Agencies are no longer seen by clients as one-stop shops. According to pundits, the "Agency of Record" has died a slow and painful death.
The claim these days is that agency services are modular.
One agency to manage search, another for reputation management, another for PR. What's worse, the barrier for entry is so low almost anyone can start their own agency.
New competitors come with unintended consequences
The agency landscape is a convoluted mess.
The upper echelon of agency life forces firms to complete large amounts of spec work. Clients approach agencies with a laissez-faire attitude. Do free work for the chance to win... more paid work. Spec work has trickled down via design contests.
A cattle call that forces amateurs and professionals into the same muddy pen.
As an agency you're forced to deal with a variety of depressing and incredibly unfair expectations (e.g. SEO agencies that guarantee rankings or traffic). What's worse, most agencies accept these disturbing changes. They don't do it because they have to, they do it because they can't keep the lights on if they don't.
There's nothing special or unique about these agencies.
Which is precisely why most agencies are abused and mistreated by clients. There's no way to tell agencies apart. So clients construct their own abusive set of rules to get the results they want from their agencies.
- SEO agencies are expected to provide spec work and compete in “design contests” (on the design / content marketing side) to win clients
- Clients profit from an agency-created brand, campaign or product indefinitely. Agencies get nothing
- Agencies are automatically expected to give away the intellectual property they create
- More and more clients demand to know agency costs and other proprietary data – without assurances of how that data will be used
- This creates an environment where agencies are treated and paid for like utilities
- Clients are unwilling to pay for value, demanding to pay a rate that’s just above cost
- Agencies and clients aren’t aligned. Clients want to minimize hourly billings, agencies want to maximize billings
- Modular services and hyperspecialization erode profit margins overall
- A hyper competitive landscape and a lack of uniqueness means ex-employees become agency competitors. This erodes profit margins further
- Agencies, as knowledge workers, are purchased via a list of specs, and treated by clients like an assembly line product
Actually, no.
Clients care about the same things they've always cared about.
Uniqueness and results.
Clients in general and decision makers in particularly don't care all that much about specialization. Most don't care about modular services or any of the other problems I've just mentioned. Does that mean these problems don't exist?
If you're running an agency, you know these problems exist.
What exactly are you supposed to do?
It's tough to get clients to go for the big project or national campaign. It's not as easy to get a bigger piece of the pie anymore. These problems, specifically hyperspecialization, are getting worse.
Why?
There's a growing shortage of knowledgeable experts.
See for yourself.
What we have here is a meta problem.
Hyperspecialization is being touted as the wave of the future, but it's creating an even bigger problem. There will soon be a shortage of knowledgeable experts. Your clients need an advisor with an A-to-Z understanding of their situation.
They need you.
This is the situation for many agencies. Agencies are much more capable than clients realize. Agency typecasting means clients are far less likely to get the outcomes they actually want. Instead of relying on a few agencies with deep knowledge and a broad range of expertise (such as yourself), clients are cobbling large groups of "specialists" together.
There are two common routes agencies can take.
- Industry specialization: Focusing on a specific niche (e.g outdoor, financial or ecommerce review management) gives you a deep level of knowledge and expertise.
- Service specialization: Deep specialty in specific service areas (e.g. crisis management, review outreach) means you’re able to attract clients in need of a very specific skill set. This makes it easier to establish genuine uniqueness.
Generalize to keep your clients profitable and satisfied.
There are quite a few services you can use to get your agency's foot in the door. But the focus word here is quick win. If you want to attract your client's attention and work your way into a generalist role, you'll need to generate results quickly.
Clients are naturally skeptical.
Online reviews are clear. It's easy for customers to make the mental connection. The more reviews they get, the more customers they receive. It's simple and straightforward.
Here's why we recommend online review management and marketing.
- Reviews immediately boost your client's conversion rates. Research shows 50 or more positive reviews translates to a 4.6 percent increase in conversion rates. Four or more negative reviews and your clients may lose as much as 70 percent of their potential customers.
- A no/low quality review portfolio translates to significant drop in sales. 87 percent of customers won't even consider a business with low ratings.
- It has mainstream appeal. Online reviews are ubiquitous. Most people understand the value of an online review. The easier it is to generate quality reviews, the quicker the win.
- No extra/hidden fees. Clients don't have to increase their ad spend. They don't have to pay your fees on top of that. It's easy to understand so it's easier to sell.
Attract more positive reviews and your client's conversion rate shoots up. Bury your client's negative reviews and their conversion rates go up. Promote positive reviews to your client's customers via advertising/remarketing and their conversion rate goes up.
Get their existing customers to share their story and you have the potential to dramatically boost your client's revenue. With the right approach you can help clients 2x, 4x or even 10x their business.
No other marketing channel offers such a dramatic lift in such a short period of time.
It's a compelling reason for your agency to lead with online review management and marketing services. It's an excellent way for you to establish your agency as a trusted advisor, a role you can use to expand your role with each of your clients.
Read the rest of Andrew's post here. He goes on to list 4 steps for getting your foot in the door with online review management.
