| Oct 18, 2016 | | 5 min read

How to Increase Your Web Agency MRR & Passive Income

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I bet your web agency makes awesome websites. Beautifully designed, fully-responsive, search-engine optimized, etc. And I bet your clients LOVE them.

But have you sometimes felt like you’ve just made a billboard in a desert?

Billboard in a desert, Web Agency tactics to increase monthly income

You know what I mean by a “billboard in a desert,” hey? A beautiful piece of art that only the tumbleweeds will see. Let’s face it, your clients aren’t all wizards at marketing, and what they do with your website after you give them the keys can be cringe-worthy!

I feel you, friend.

If you’re like me, your biggest #win moment is seeing your clients actually gain customers and fill their cash registers because of the stellar websites your agency builds. You really want to impact your client’s bottom line.

So, a well-designed website with good SEO is a great start, but did you realize there are actually five pillars to a successful website?

Are you doing all five?

Five pillars to local search, more than website, reviews, social media, listings and advertising

Why should you be interested in all five?

Monthly recurring revenue, that’s why!

MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is that passive-income, monthly-cheque-jackpot you’ve been searching for to grow your agency without working 70 hours/week.

Jackpot!

I know what it’s like. I’ve personally worked 70 hours a week making websites and videos for clients, and at the end of the week, my agency wasn’t any further ahead. I had to start working smart (not hard) to earn growing passive income.

So where will your recurring revenue come from?

The five pillars to successful website marketing

There are five pillars to a website that brings in more business, gets more eyeballs and attracts more attention.

These five pillars are part of a local shopper’s marketing funnel:

Web agency knowledge graphic: Five pillars to local search, more than website, reviews, social media, listings and advertising

Let’s look at these pillars through the eyes of a local shopper (you know, your client’s clients).

These five pillars are buying influencers–the channels affecting buying decisions of the men, women and children of the world. And kudos to you, because your client’s credibility is judged 75% on their website’s design.

But, long before a shopper reaches your beautiful website, they are being influenced by other stuff: advertising campaigns, social media presence, business listings, reviews and online reputation.

In fact, if those other four channels are not being looked after, your client’s clients might never see your beautiful website.

Bad review? "No thanks!"

Saw an ad for a competitor? "I'm going elsewhere!"

Crickets on the Facebook page? "Is this business still open?"

Elderly lady searching her smart phone for a local business

"Do these clowns even know what they're doing?"

You see how important all five pillars are? So let’s connect the dots to monthly recurring revenue.

Keep the money flowing

The key to keeping a paying relationship with your website clients long after their website is delivered is helping them win in these other pre-website channels.

If you bring in more website visitors, you increase business, which in turn will keep your clients loving you, and happily cutting you cheques each month to keep up the fine work.

With the right platform, you can also easily take care of your client’s ongoing needs without burning yourself out:

  1. Advertising Campaigns
    Provide pay-per-click ads including Google and Facebook ads
  2. Social Presence
    Help with social network posting and interactions with fan-base
  3. Listings
    Create accurate business contact information that appears on more websites
  4. Reputation
    Provide review monitoring and management

How do you do it?

Have you been looking at these factors in only a limited capacity, or not at all?

Even if you wanted to do better after-website care, you might think you don’t have the time. Clock in, clock out... you’ve got more websites to build!

on-to-the-next-one

“On to the next one… on to the next one...”

Take better care of your clients without the 70-hour work week.

3 steps to generating monthly recurring revenue without burning out

Step 1: Supercharge your packages

Create packages for your local business clients that include not just a website and hosting fees, but monthly add-ons that ensure they are successful. Including other digital solutions is a fantastic way to build consistent touch point between you and your clients. Offering small advertising, social or reputation solutions is a good "thin edge of the wedge" to sign and retain clients who may not be ready for an entire website, but might be ready to start with a smaller digital offering. 

Step 2: Use an all-in-one platform

Use a web tool or platform that helps you easily manage all your channels (advertising, social media, reviews, listings) into one easy-to-use task-manager and reporting tool. Save yourself multiple logins and headaches by using one central tool (see suggested platform below).

Step 3: Increase touch points with reporting

Use reporting tools to stay in contact with your local business clients without running the risk of being annoying. If you send emails that focus on being helpful, rather than asking for business, with benchmark reporting and other useful information about their business's appearance online, you'll keep them engaged and impressed. The goal is to automate this as well by sending updates like "great work, you received seven new reviews this month and responded to all of them!” or "Did you know your business is listed incorrectly on 5 websites? Here's how to fix that..." (see suggested reporting tool below).

Step 4: Offer fulfillment with a white-label helper

Increasing your offerings means new tasks for both you and your client, like responding to reviews, creating social posts and managing listings. To ramp up your monthly services without needing to hire anyone, you can work with a white-label digital agency–a 3rd party agent working under your brand. A good white-label agent will ensure your client always feels as though they are working with you/your company, and not a 3rd-party vendor, and have a “do it with you” approach with each client, so you’re still in control.

Of course, we don’t talk about problems without proposing a solution.

FULL DISCLOSURE:
Here at Vendasta, we’ve already cracked the case for you

Web agencies use Vendasta to grow monthly recurring revenue, MRR, passive income, and take better after-website client care

The Vendasta Platform and Vendasta Digital Agency was created specifically for you, to grow your web agency and increase MRR.

See how someone else has done it—download the case study of a digital agency that was able to increase digital revenue by 82% in a single year.

Contact Vendasta to receive a 30-minute screenshare walkthrough of Vendasta's platform from one of our expert sales reps. See exactly how your web agency can use the platform to take better after-website care of your clients, and make more passive income to grow your business.

We’ll show you how to:

  • Give your clients quality social media posting that doesn’t eat up your own time.
  • Provide your clients with dead-simple advertising options that you can make bank on.
  • Easily get your clients’ website and contact information accurately distributed on hundreds of the most important web directories, and maintained over time.
  • Help your clients take charge of their online reviews, so they look better to new customers.
  • Provide your clients with proof-of-performance reports on all the fantastic work you do for them each week.
  • and a lot more!

Shut Up And Make Me Money

Grow your agency! Learn how you can start taking better care of your clients today. Or don't. Up to you 🙂

About the Author

Josh is a professional filmmaker with Vendasta marketing team, specializing in digital media storytelling.

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