Effective Marketing Strategies For Your Branding Agency
Here’s one thing you need to know about me. I will never stop talking about marketing your branding agency.
Ever.
It’s not only ingrained in what I do in my company and what I teach my students, it’s actually something that I find really fun, and makes a big impact in my career, and my life.
And I’d bet good money that you love marketing too. Even if you don’t know it yet.
Which is why I want to take a different cut at how to get the maximum bang for your buck when you’re growing and scaling your branding agency.
Why do you even need a Marketing Strategy?
I don’t think I’m preaching to the choir when I say this.
Because if you’re anything like I used to be, you just want to dive in and get’er done, instead of taking a beat, and doing the prep needed to set yourself up for success.
And the other thing about setting up a strategy is that you cut off ‘Bright Shiny Object Syndrome’ off at the knees. If it’s not in your quarterly plan, you’re not doing it!
So let’s get into this deeper, and figure out exactly why, and how, you need to set up a marketing strategy that’s specifically for your branding agency.
You may or may not be aware that most marketing experts say there’s 4 key types of marketing strategies:
Product-oriented - anything that’s telling you about the features (think any car commercial you’ve seen in the past 20 years)
Customer-oriented - anything that’s telling you about the benefits or acknowledging the customer (think any sales letter you’ve seen in the past 20 years, where they go heavy on the benefits)
Competitor-focused - the messaging is highly skewed towards why they’re better than the competition (anyone that’s competing with Apple will tell you how they’re better than Apple)
Market-driven - going by what the current market trends are (anything you see that’s sold exclusively through social media, or a lot of e-commerce, will be doing this)
Each has their pros and cons, and I’m not going to go that deep here (there’s plenty of places where you can go down that rabbit hole).
The reason I’m drawing this out is that I want you to get where your branding agency marketing efforts could sit, and how to get your message across to your target audience.
I suggest you focus 70% of your marketing efforts on being customer-oriented, and about 30% on being product oriented. As a branding agency owner, your ‘product’ is obviously the different services you offer.
Why this approach?
Well, let’s break it down.
We can rule out being competitor-focused or market-driven because, by our very nature of the type of business we’re in, there’s not much to set us apart from each other, and we’re all about building brands that last, not going with the latest trend.
That leaves us with the first 2.
It’s probably obvious that you need to be focusing more on how you’re solving the branding problem for your prospects, and delivering value in all sorts of ways to address that.
But it’s also true that your prospects, no matter what industry sector you serve, are savvy and want to know some more specifics about how you do what you do, so they can make an informed decision.
This is where you want to use your long-term marketing to show what a rockstar branding expert you are, but peeling back the curtain of your process, giving your audience a sneak peak of what it looks like to actually hire you.
Too much of that, and it becomes noise. But if you add this to your marketing ‘mix’, you’ll be building a tribe of followers, some of whom will become really great clients.
So what does this look like in practice?
Essentially, and great marketing strategy for a branding agency needs to have a few key things for it to work:
Super clear goals
You need to know what you’re doing in 2 years, 12 months, the next quarters, and then break all that down into monthly and weekly actions.
You need to make sure that you’ve got dollar amounts dialed in, so you know exactly how much you’re planning to make in any given time period. This might not be the sexiest thing to think about, or it may really turn you on! Either way, a marketing strategy that has no clear connection to revenue is dead in the water.Super simple
No matter what you think, you CANNOT build a successful marketing strategy, or a successful branding agency, by hopping on to the latest marketing fad that shows up in your news feed.
It REALLY doesn’t matter if you’re being old school and sending letters or gifts in mail, or being super high-tech and using AI-powered DMs. Whatever you choose, stick to 1-2 marketing channels, and give them at least 2 quarters to bear fruit, before you add on any more.
Remember, each time you add on a new marketing channel, you need to allocate time to use it properly. For example, if you’ve been crushing LinkedIn, and you now want to add organic FB, it’s more than just checking the box on your scheduling software that says ‘crosspost’.
There are certain things you need to do on FB, that don’t work on LinkedIn, and you also need to ensure you’re giving sufficient time for sending and responding to DMs, making and answering comments etc. Before you know it, you could end up in time suck.Track and measure
Kind of like point 1, and kind of not.
If you’re setting clear, revenue-based goals, you HAVE to know if you’re on or off track to get there.
You can’t rely on anything other than data here. Not how you feel when you woke up this morning, not whether or not the moon’s in Jupiter, and certainly not the warm fuzzies when you close a sale.
Celebrate the wins? Of course. But have a system in place, like a simple spreadsheet or scorecard so you know day-by-day, week-by-week, what’s going on across the different things you’re doing to bring in new leads and close more clients.
Target, niche, focus…blah, blah, blah…
I get it! A lot of the time, talking about ‘niching down’, targeting your offers really IS a lot of blah and bullshit.
It took me years to really get the value of this, and also when it’s really not that important.
Here’s what I’ll say about the Great Targeting Debate.
The best way to ‘niche down’ is to focus on your audience’s biggest problems and pain points FIRST, before setting yourself up to only work with a specific industry, location or any other demographic.
Why?
Well, as branding agency owners, we’re one of those ‘gifted and cursed’ group of people.
We have the unique ability to provide our services to practically anyone.
Seriously.
Name one industry sector that doesn’t need great branding.
Found one yet?
Thought not.
And so comes the curse. We are SO good at being the ‘everyman’ of the business world, that it’s really hard to pin us down to an industry sector, without risking cutting off other opportunities.
Quite a dilemma, huh?
So here’s where you can prise open a corner for yourself, even if it takes everything for you to focus down and choose an audience.
Brainstorm all the problems that people who need branding have.
What do they complain about all the time?
What do they try to do and keep failing at?
What do they hate about branding agencies?
What never seems to get fixed for them, no matter how much they try?
Now, take a look at what you do, and how you do it, that solves those problems.
What are you so great at, that it’s second nature to you?
What mistakes do you see people making time and time again, that you know you are fixable, that gets results?
What do you hate about branding agencies, that you have actively done differently in your own?
This is where to start when it comes to niching. When you speak to people in your 1-1 conversations, and they ask you about what you do and who you do it for, bring one of these problems that you solve.
On your website, make it really obvious on your homepage that biggest things that you can fix.
In your weekly content, pick a pet peeve and talk about how you approach getting rid of it.
Over time, you may find that some patterns develop, and it may be time for a messaging overhaul for your agency.
You might discover that you work REALLY well with mid-size companies in financial services, so you want to create marketing that only speaks to them.
You might also discover that working with self-funded startups costs you more than you bring in, so you may be really upfront about who you don’t work with.
The key is to make your niching and targeting more about meeting the prospective client where they are in their particular branding problem, and less about ‘clinical’ data points about their industry sector.
Balancing your budget with your marketing
Finance and marketing. Two words that you don’t often see together.
But every successful marketing strategy is successful for one reason.
The financial planning was done at the same time as the strategy.
Here’s what I mean.
At any point in growing your agency, you’re going to come up against a ceiling called ‘we don’t have the budget for that.’
It doesn’t matter if you’re in ramp-up or scale-up mode, there’s always going to be things you simply can’t afford to do right now.
It’s not a mindset thing about ‘thinking too small’. It’s just the facts.
So what do you do?
You look at what’s available to you, and what you’re likely to get back with the resources you have.
Sure, you can take some calculated risks, if you want to stretch yourself. A good example is FB Ads.
Getting a great ROI from FB Ads often needs a 4-figure monthly outlay. Sadly, that’s just the way the algorithm works. And if you’re in the early stages, or even more established stages of your agency, it’s out of reach for a lot of agency owners.
However, there’s a bunch of other things you can do for a low 3-figure or even a 2-figure monthly cost.
A great example of this email marketing.
I’m going to dive into this more shortly, but here’s the smart, financially savvy way to do this.
You can set up an account with an email service provider for somewhere between $10-$20/month, and depending on who you use, you could even get to email several thousand contacts before you need to pay any more.
Then you set up a simple weekly or twice-weekly email newsletter - some great branding tips, client testimonials, offers to get started with you etc.
You keep that running for at least 3 months, and you’ll probably land a client from there, who could pay you 4- or even 5-figures for a branding project.
And all it cost you was the monthly fee, and maybe a couple of hours of your time each week in writing and loading up the emails.
And if you want to ‘splurge’ a bit more, you can even hire someone off Fiverr or Upwork to write these emails for you!
Plus, anyone you add to your list is yours - you’re not at the mercy of FB crashing or pulling your ads.
Now, do this level of thinking with each marketing channel you want to use for your agency.
Do your research, break down the costs - both directly, and indirectly with your time, and work out the potential ROI.
As an acid test, ask yourself - ‘If added on this marketing expense, and it brought in NO money for the next 6 months, would I still be able to meet all my obligations?’
If it’s a clear yes, then it’s a keeper.
Email marketing - the agency owner’s secret weapon
If there’s one thing that my students love, it’s when we get to the module about email marketing.
I actually have a method I call TNRS™ (The Newsletter Replacement System)™ - it’s a cool way to show up in your prospect’s inbox, and turn them into a client, WITHOUT being boring or getting spammy.
I’m going to give you the basics here, and when you’re ready to take it to the next level, let’s talk!
You start with getting your tech set up - like I said in the previous section, you can get an account with an email service provider for peanuts, and then it’ll be a while before you need to pay any more.
Then, you need to figure out what to say - here’s the fun part!
I find it helps to have some sort of visual - a chart, a spreadsheet or something that you can see at a glance so you know what you’re writing each time.
Categorize the different things you want to talk about - client case studies, behind the scenes look at your branding process, branding strategy tips, topical ideas, just for fun etc.
Then brainstorm 5-10 different things you want to say in each category, and that will be what you will email out.
Set yourself a schedule to write out the content (or you can hire someone to do that) and load it up in the email software. The best frequency to email is daily - yes, you read that right. It’s NOT spammy if you’re giving people great content, that’s well written.
But I know that’s a stretch, and also those spambots and email servers out there on the internet don’t like you to go from 0 to 7 emails a week overnight - you’ll end up getting blocked and blacklisted if you try.
Instead, start off with sending out emails twice a week, and over time, increase that to a frequency that you can maintain reliably.
Mix up the content from your categories, and even ask fellow branding agency owners to give you some feedback and ideas to really make these emails pop.
Every so often, shout about special offers, or any limited availability for your services, and if you’ve been consistent with your great content, you’ll have a high chance of people taking you up on this.
And the best part? You’ll have this pipeline for life, that you can keep nurturing and going back to as you scale up.
Here’s what you need to get…
Get clear on what your marketing goals are for your agency - not just in the short term, but each and every quarter, and several years into the future. Doing that planning is critical to your branding agency’s success.
Don’t forget to keep an eye out on your ROI. Not all marketing efforts are created equal, so make sure you’re making the most cost-effective decisions that make sense for your agency.
Email marketing is a highly effective, and largely underutilized tool for generating new leads and closing more clients. With a few simple steps, this can become a major lead generator for your agency, for years to come.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to fast-track your way to using the right marketing activities and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!