Things to consider before engaging a white-label digital marketing agency
Your clients expect high-quality marketing services, and your in-house team aims to deliver.
However, your marketers might feel like there’s never enough time in the day to fill all client requests. They might not excel in certain marketing services that your clients or prospects are asking for. You might be turning away business and losing out on revenue.
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You could hire another internal team member to fill the gaps. Alternatively, you could also hire a white-label digital marketing agency to help deliver what your clients need.
If you need help and you need it now, then the agency could be your best bet. They’re also the right choice if you’re looking at sustained growth. They bring a team of experts who already have the experience you and your clients need to hit the ground running.
As with every hire, though, you need to consider the candidates. Here are a few things you’ll want to think about before you hire a white-label digital marketing agency.
What do your clients need from a white-label digital marketing agency?
The first step is to survey your clients. Which marketing services are prospects always asking you about that you don’t already offer? Which services would complement your existing offerings and benefit your existing clients? What do they need right now? What services do they wish you were able to offer to them? You might look at white-label digital marketing categories like:
- Social Media Content
- Content Services
- Digital Advertising
- Web Design
- Listings Management
- Reputation Management
Once you have an idea of what services your clients want to add, you can look for a partner who has the needed expertise.
Think about which services you need help offering
Some of the services a white-label agency offers may overlap with your own. These might be some of the services that your own team is currently struggling to keep up with.
Take, for instance, local SEO. One important part of marketing for local businesses is managing listings on Google, Yelp, and Bing. Other web directories can bring value too (Search Engine Journal).
Hunting down these listings and keeping them all up to date is important—but time consuming. In that case, you might team up with an agency that has expertise in this area. Strategic division of labor and playing to the strengths of both the agency and your own team is a smart move.
Once you know what services your clients value, you’ll want to survey your own in-house talent. Which services are areas of expertise for you? Which services are outside your wheelhouse?
Team up or solo service delivery?
You might also want to consider whether you want the white-label agency to be a collaborator on projects like social media marketing. Do you prefer them to deliver the entire service for your clients?
In the Do It With Me (DIWM) model, the agency team will work alongside your own to get the job done. Under a Do It For Me (DIFM) model, the agency team works under your brand while fulfilling your client orders. They do all the work on your company’s behalf.
Either model can be a good fit, depending on both your own in-house talent and the services your clients need.
How can the white-label digital marketing agency help you grow?
Another consideration to think about: which services line up with your ideal customer profile? If your ideal client needs video campaigns, then you’ll want to add video services to attract them.
A white-label digital marketing agency can help you here too. The white-label agency can assist in the areas you want to start offering and grow into without making a large up-front investment in new team members with the necessary skills.
By adding these services, you can offer more services, not to just your existing clients but to prospects as well.
Take another look at the kinds of services you can provide with ease in-house. Then take another look at the needs of your ideal customer profile. Add any extra services to your “wish list” for a white-label agency partner.
Avoid growing pains with a white-label digital agency’s help
If you’re scaling your business, you know that you need to have the right number of team members at all times. That’s challenging in an environment where hiring can take time. Retaining employees can be even tougher in the era of the Great Resignation.
You also know that hiring, training, and retaining take valuable resources. In the meantime, your team is overwhelmed. Your customers aren't getting their orders on time. Your growth is stalling as you turn away local businesses looking for services you don’t yet offer.
The white-label agency can help you solve these common growing pains. They provide the marketing experts you need, when you need them. Whether you have a slow month or you’ve added a large number of new accounts, the white-label agency is ready to scale with you.
Your budget
Your next step is to make sure that partnering with a white-label agency makes financial sense for you. To that end, you’ll want to calculate potential cost savings, as well as potential revenue increases.
What will it cost you to offer these new services to your existing clients? You might also think about the cost of bringing in more team members instead. It’s estimated that businesses spend around $4,000 to hire and train every new employee (Business News Daily). Given that, which route is more affordable?
Next, you’ll want to think about future growth. How many new clients will you be able to bring in with an expanded suite of services and more capacity? How many extra team members would you need to add if your business were to grow without the help of the agency?
Project revenue increases
You should also calculate your potential revenue growth. The white-label agency offers their services for a set price, which you can then mark up and resell to your clients.
What are your current price points for certain services? The cost of the agency’s help will come out of the client price, but being able to serve more clients can mean increased revenue.
You might be able to sell new marketing services at a higher markup. Partnering with a white-label agency can create more opportunities to grow sales.
Look for proven processes
You’ve run the numbers and found a few agencies that match your wish list. You’re ready to bring the white-label digital agency on board so you can better serve your clients.
Before you sign on the dotted line, though, make sure you’ve thought about the process of working with the agency. Will clients communicate with the agency team, or will you act as a go-between? What kind of turnaround times do you need, and what can the agency provide?
If you handle SEO and the agency is doing web design, then you may need to collaborate with them to a greater extent. After all, web design plays a role in SEO (Search Engine Land). What will that collaboration look like? What systems will you use to communicate? How will you organize teams?
You might want to think again about the DIWM model versus the DIFM model of agency collaboration.
Look for expertise and achievements
Finally, before you choose your agency partner, you’ll want to take a look at their accomplishments. What other brands have they partnered with?
You’ll want to ask about their team member qualifications as well. Are they working with certified marketing experts? What kind of experience and expertise do they have?
Transparency is another key to a great relationship with your chosen white-label agency. Check out their processes and ask them about their communications policies. Finally, check out what others are saying by looking at testimonials and reviews.
Scale your business the smart way
Whether you’re hoping to attract new digital marketing clients by adding new services to your list of offerings or expand services for your existing clients, teaming up with a white-label agency can be a great move. With their expert team and technology on their side, they can help you deliver more for your clients.