Marketing Priorities For Your Branding Agency - What To Crush, And What To Drop (For Now)
Running a successful branding agency not only means you have to be a rockstar at turning out amazing branding projects (which, let’s face it, you already are), but also that you need to know what your marketing priorities are.
How’s that now?
Look, you can’t do ALL the things in marketing, no matter what your IG/FB feed or Google search tells you.
In this article, I’ll break down what you should be working on right now to scale up and generate consistent, high-quality clients, what you can drop, and how you can tell the difference.
The One Simple Rule
If you know me at all by now, you’ll know that I’m all about making things in your business super simple - the simpler they are, the easier they are to follow, and the more likely you’ll stick to them.
After all, the best marketing plan in the world is worth nothing if you don’t actually follow it!
So I just have One Simple Rule when it comes to generating clients and building momentum in your branding agency.
Ready?
Do the ONE thing that works.
Pia, really? That doesn’t tell me anything!
OK - didn’t I tell you it was simple?
And the truth is, our brains (and especially our highly creative brains) don’t like simple!
We want more angles, steps, concepts…
And that’s where we run into trouble, by doing lots of programs, listening to a bunch of gurus who tell us contradicting stuff (more on that later), and end up overwhelmed and broke.
So, to satisfy your highly complex mind, I’ll flesh it out a bit more for you.
When it comes to building up your client and prospect base for your 1-2 person branding agency, it’s not actually rocket science.
You create your offer or package, and then tell people about it.
Really, that’s it.
HOW you tell people about it varies depending on what business stage you’re in i.e. if you’re ramping up, scaling up, building an empire etc.
But 99% of the time, the quickest and cheapest way to get more clients is to nurture your existing networks - they’ll be a mish mash of past clients, past prospects, people you were in design school with, people you met at a networking event or conference that one time, people you’re in online networks with, people in masterminds you’ve joined, and heck, even your family, friends and people you went to high school with.
And if you’ve been doing a bunch of things to promote your agency, I’ll bet you good money that the quickest and most effective method is where you’re simply having one on one conversations with people in that network, and either you find out they could be looking for your service, or they know someone who is.
In other words, Do What Works.
I hate to break it to you, but contrary to what other people out there might be telling you, blogging, posting memes and reels on social media, being on lots of podcasts etc. DOESN’T lead to a quick influx of clients.
It IS essential, though, to getting you seen and out there for the long-term, but you can do just fine without it for right now.
Clients first, authority second
Which brings me neatly on to my next point.
I’m probably stating the obvious here, but you need to get cash in the door before you spend time crafting those beautifully insightful blog articles where people say ‘Oh that’s great’... and that’s it.
Building your authority and becoming an industry leader takes time. Not because you don’t know your shit (of course you do!)
It’s because we’re drowning in marketing messages and content hundreds of times a day. (In fact, I bet whilst you’ve been reading this, you’ve probably checked your Twitter feed twice and your IG DMs another three times. I see you.)
So, to make any big dent in all those other ways you can promote yourself, you need to show up consistently for a significant amount of time. According to some experts, people need to see you on different marketing platforms at least 7 times, before they’ll consider doing business with you. According to others, it can be upwards of 20.
Even if we go for the middle ground, and say people to see/hear/read about you 12 times, can your business sustain you to wait that long for a new client?
Probably not.
So you need to spend at least 70% of your business building time in things that will get you clients after just 1 or 2 interactions (which is why your immediate network is key) and the other 30% can be spent on any authority-building activity you want. It’s important, but not urgent.
And yes, of course it will pay off and you’ll reach a tipping point where you can flip the equation, and 70% of your leads could in fact come from all the online content you put out. But until you get to that point, let’s stick to the math that works.
How to use gurus properly
You want to know one thing that REALLY makes my blood boil?
The latest ‘guru’ showing off how they made 6-figures in 30 days through FB ads (or some other ‘easy’ method).
I’m not hating on their success.
I’m not even saying they’re lying.
What I AM saying is that a lot of background context is left out, in order to come up with a sexy headline that pulls you in and gets you shelling out for yet another online course.
If you do just a little digging, you’ll probably learn some not-so-sexy truths about how these experts produced miraculous results.
It’s usually something like this:
They had some sort of big list of potential prospects to pull from - a big email list, a large social network etc.
They’ve been running FB ads for years, and made a lot of costly mistakes until they found something that worked
They may have ‘made’ the 6-figures, but you don’t know if it’s revenue or profit. And you also may not know how many figures were spent over how long to get that result.
And yet, you may be tempted to go down that rabbit hole, or a similar one, and blindly copy them, and then wonder why it didn’t work.
Please, don’t be THAT guy.
You’re better than that.
You see, you’re working with incomplete information. So the best you’re ever going to get are mediocre results, if you get any results at all.
Instead, if you’re actively looking for an effective way to get more or better quality clients, and something pops up in your feed, take a minute and question the strategy.
Ask yourself:
What are the similarities between this person and my business?
What are the differences?
Does this work for my kind of business model?
Does this person run a branding agency?
If the answers to these questions aren’t clear for you, it’s hard pass to going any further.
And a complete no to spending any money on their courses.
However, if you go through the information presented and you can clearly see that there is real value in the strategy, and it WILL apply to your business, then go ahead and test it out!
That’s the difference between being passive and overwhelmed, and actually taking the lead in your business to get to go how you want.
What do the next 5 years look like?
As you start to implement the priorities and build up the momentum from the quicker wins, you’re going to want to start looking at the future, to what your next marketing priorities will be in your branding agency.
I like to look at 5 years at a time - it’s far enough into the future to set some realistic goals, but not so far that it’s overpowering.
An easier way to break that down is to have annual, and then quarterly goals.
Each quarter, you can look back at the previous quarter, and see what gave you the biggest bang for your buck in all your marketing, and what didn’t, and then plan out what you’re going to do in the coming quarter.
This is where you want to avoid cramming too many marketing activities into any 3 month period - less is more. Remember - do what works!
Here’s what you need to get…
When you break down your marketing into just focusing on what works, and parking the rest, life, and your business, seem to run a lot smoother.
It may be ‘sexy’ to copy other gurus who tell you their ‘secrets’ - but take a step back, and ask yourself if those strategies actually apply to you.
Before going down an ‘authority-building’ rabbit hole by doing loads of blogging, being on podcasts, doing all the socials, stop and give time to actually getting clients in. The other stuff takes time to generate results, so shift your focus to quick wins.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to deep dive on how to gain that laser focus on marketing priorities for your branding agency, and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!