28 agency growth secrets from 12 leading digital marketing agencies

In addition, growing agency owners must take into account the rising cost of inflation and historical labor shortages. Gone are the days of agency growth at all costs. Owners need to be setting their sights on growing their agencies in the most sustainable and profitable way possible.

In this guide, we’re bringing together the best of the best. We reached out to 12 leading digital marketing agencies to gather and share their top 28 insights for sustainable agency growth and expanding profits in 2023 and beyond. With decades of experience under their belts, agencies can learn from these leading digital marketing agencies’ mistakes and take a page straight out of their playbooks for success.

Read on to gain strategies for managing high-performing teams, learn about some of the top challenges in today’s economic climate, and unlock a successful agency growth path with Vendasta.

CEO & Founder Chris Montgomery has grown Los Angeles-based Social Ordeals from a one-man agency back in 2012 to an operation that now employs over 30 staff and generates approximately $8 million in annual revenue by servicing thousands of small and medium businesses (SMB) across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.

So, what the agency growth secrets to his success? 

Simply put, guts and lots of hard work.

“In this business, you get knocked down a lot, and you have to learn to get back up and keep going. And you need to learn how to make hard decisions along the way: whether it’s with employees, clients, processes, or partners,” he says.

As he celebrates his 10th year of running a successful agency, Montgomery shares some of his top agency growth lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

1. Even when you’re a leader running a successful agency, you need to be on the phone

When asked about the biggest ongoing challenge he faces as an agency owner, Montgomery immediately points to training his employees and sales reps.

He’s learned that agency owners cannot afford to hire staff and simply become hands off.

“There are so many different facets of digital marketing, and you have to be able to explain them in a way that your customer can understand,” he says.

He strongly recommends that other agencies:

• Develop rigorous sales training and coaching programs including in-person and individual training sessions
• Ensure their reps become intimately familiar with digital marketing concepts including why and how listing management, reputation management, and social media play a key role in strengthening a small or medium business’s (SMB) online presence
• Ensure their reps are able to genuinely understand a client or prospect’s goals and objectives, and how the products they’re selling will help them achieve those outcomes.

2. You can’t grow a successful agency without impeccable service

Every agency owner’s dream is to build a profitable, successful agency—a repeatable, predictable, and scalable business. But that will forever remain a dream if exceptional service isn’t at the heart of your organization’s mantra.

“The one piece of advice I’d give every single owner running an agency: take care of your customer,” he says.

“Once you get your first few clients, you have to service them well. You have to make sure that you’re doing everything that you promised them that you would do, and you’re keeping your word on that.

“When I started growing a digital agency, I had a lot of customers that came on board and I had to work hard to keep them happy. And because I did the work, delivered results, and did the right thing by my customer, I grew a successful agency off referrals.

“And when you earn their trust and business, you need to give them incentives to bring their friends and families with businesses to the table,” explains Montgomery.

3. Get your boots on the ground to grow your agency

Whether you’re a new or experienced agency owner, it’s crucial that you don’t rely solely on calls and emails to win business.

“You’ve got to go and get boots on the ground,” Montgomery says.

Even though Social Ordeals has its own sales team, Montgomery actively gets out and about and capitalizes on opportunities to sell in person when he sees the right opportunity. He believes it’s a key to being a successful agency owner.

For example, he recently dined at a Mediterranean restaurant that served great food but didn’t have a strong online presence. Montgomery felt he could help the restaurant owner get more foot traffic by helping his business rank higher on search.

“I got to know the owner of the business who was making the food and running the place. He asked me ‘how did you find us?’ I said ‘I barely found you, but you had the best reviews’,” Montgomery recalls.

“We got into a conversation three weeks later. He became a customer of mine and I’m still a customer of his. So if you’re just starting out in the agency world, get out there and talk to businesses, understand what their challenges are, and then offer them solutions.”

4. Hiring staff? Don’t fall into this trap

The year 2022 was tough for agency recruitment given labor shortages resulting from an extraordinary set of factors. This included the pandemic forcing greater adoption, reduced migration, and the ability to work anywhere for many types of skilled professionals.

But Montgomery suggests agencies need to look at talent like they would the stock market: You don’t want to pay 3–4 times what something (or someone) is actually worth out of sheer desperation.

His solution? Look inside for marketing talent that can be nurtured.

“We don’t want to outbid ourselves in the market and get scared like a lot of businesses we’re seeing out there,” he says.

“We got into a conversation three weeks later. He became a customer of mine and I’m still a customer of his. So if you’re just starting out in the agency world, get out there and talk to businesses, understand what their challenges are, and then offer them solutions.”

He believes the labor market situation will eventually correct itself, and salary expectations will rebase themselves to more realistic levels over the coming year.

He believes the labor market situation will eventually correct itself, and salary expectations will rebase themselves to more realistic levels over the coming year.

5. Sometimes, it pays to fire clients

It’s an age-old problem among growing agencies: undercharging and overservicing. And often, you do it just to keep the client and maintain your cash flow.

But Montgomery says it’s critical that successful agencies take a commercial approach to their business dealings.

“You have to analyze your book of business and make sure that you actually have a profit margin with your clients because with some clients, you don’t.”

As an example, he had to let go of a client who was demanding a level of service that wasn’t yielding a sufficient margin for Social Ordeals while consuming too many hours for his team.

“That client wasn’t spending that much money with us. Sometimes, you have to make that hard decision. Sometimes, clients want to fire you because they want to try out something else. You as an agency owner can’t be scared to fire a client either,” he says.

Want to become like Chris Montgomery?

Chris Montgomery is one of Vendasta’s most successful agency partners. He’s been growing a digital agency for 10 years and has made more than $4.7 million in revenue by reselling products and services using our platform while deepening relationships and increasing retention among his clients. For more details, check out the Social Ordeals case study.

6. Seek alignment with your team early and often

When it comes to sustainable and profitable agency growth, Cheryl O’Hern, CEO and founder of leading digital marketing agency Spin Markket, relies on organizational alignment to achieve her goals. 

“It’s all about streamlining operations, and getting the staff onboard and understanding our benchmarks and goals,” O’Hern says.

“When you make changes to time tracking, for example, your team needs to understand it’s not a step to micromanage. All you’re looking to do is improve efficiency and understand what hours are being spent on which projects, so you can know if you’re running over budget or if there’s still some room left.” 

Not only can operational alignment within your team improve project estimation in the future, it allows you to gain buy-in from your team on targets and the overarching vision you have for your growing agency.

O’Hern goes on to encourage agencies to test out new operational adjustments. Even though mistakes might happen at first, overall you’ll be able to better understand how much of an investment you’re putting into the work for every dollar of profit you gain. 

Learn more about Cheryl’s journey to streamline her operations and boost profits earning $486K in new revenue with Vendasta. Read the full Spin Markket case study.

David Little is the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Comporium, a telecommunications company that operates a full-service digital agency known as Comporium Media Services. This leading digital marketing agency serves over 10,000 SMBs across the Carolinas. Under Little’s leadership, Comporium Media Services’ digital revenue surged 82 percent in just one year while his client retention stands at an enviable 99 percent. In this section, Little offers his agency growth success formula with his best tips for cultivating relationships and driving results.

7. Create a low barrier to entry as a marketing agency strategy

You and your sales teams may be excellent at building relationships with prospects, but if you don’t have a simple, low-cost offering that suits their needs, you may struggle to get them across the line. That’s why Little and his sales team do their homework on various customer segments and offer digital marketing solutions and packages that are cost effective and easy to sell. “It’s important that you understand and know your ideal customer profile. Then you need to really understand how to bring value to that customer,” Little explains. “I’m always looking for solutions that we can offer our local businesses that don’t require a large investment upfront. So things like software-as-a-service and cloud offerings where they have the ability to pay as they play and turn services on and off.” Agencies need to segment local business opportunities, assess the pain points of each group, and consider which digital solutions are easy to explain and cost-effective as part of a starter package. Develop a talk track that convinces your prospects and customers that you’re providing value, not just becoming an expense. It’s a vital part of the agency growth success formula David Little uses to succeed.

8. Leverage your team’s talents

Often, agency owners and sales reps put the weight of the world on their shoulders to speak with clients, close deals, or appear to be the expert. But from experience, Little says they shouldn’t.

Don’t be scared to align your team’s individual strengths and talents to tasks and opportunities that they are better placed to tackle.

9. Measure everything and have controls

Having been a business owner in the past himself, Little knows how important it is to have accurate data and consistent processes to create agency growth. One mistake he sees across sales organizations is different reps going off and doing their own thing and using wildly different talk tracks and reporting procedures.

“I would say measure everything, and trust the data to make your decisions. You also need to have controls in your process because, if everyone’s kind of doing their own version of the process, then your data’s flawed and you can’t really make good decisions off of that,” he says.

“Don’t be afraid to change, because every day that you don’t make a change, when you’re not getting the result that you need out of your process, then that’s lost revenue and lost opportunity,” he explains.

“Years ago, one of our processes was leading with the Snapshot Report, and we increased our revenue in one year by 82 percent by doing that. So again, you have to track, measure, and then make the appropriate adjustments when needed,” Little continues.

As part of the agency growth success formula, develop consistent processes, measure whether your marketing agency strategy is working, and adopt a continuous-improvement mentality. If something in your process isn’t working, be nimble and willing to change it to make it better. It’s one of the agency growth secrets to always keep in mind.

10. Keep a good local reputation to grow your agency

Digital agencies are in the game of helping local businesses improve their reputation, but how often have you thought about yours? It should be part of your marketing agency strategy.

“You can have a lot of different solutions, from PPC solutions, to your website to SEO. But at the end of the day, no matter how great your lead-generation tools or your awareness tools may be, if your reputation is not stellar, then you’re just going to send those leads to your competitor,” Little says.

Want to be a successful agency owner like David Little?

David Little is one of Vendasta’s leading digital marketing agency partners. Learn more about how he uses our platform to sell solutions and generate millions in revenue in this case study.

11. Retaining more business with consultative selling

As a firm that’s managed to grow their digital solutions revenue by 243% year-over-year in 2022, KOR | UNLIMITED Founder and CEO Robert Davis says agency growth is all relative. 

According to Robert, it entirely depends on each agency’s definition of the term. Some leading digital marketing agencies may view growth merely as profit, while others may view it as an expansion of their team. Robert defines true agency growth as the act of acquiring more business that requires less hands-on attention and energy as a mechanism to help him expand. 

“For us, this marketing agency strategy means that less labor and fewer resources have to be expended. We’ve tried to go down the path of niche-ing down and finding a specific vertical. What we found is that if we stay true to our name, KOR, which stands for knowledge, opportunity, and results, we win.”

Robert focuses on a slower, more intentional approach with client acquisition and onboarding. He begins sales conversation with education, then heads into digital product selection, and finally implements those solutions, sharing back performance.

“It’s truly a more consultative approach to client relationships. That has allowed us to bring on clients who stay with us. They’re not easily swayed. That has allowed us to have a very, very high retention rate. We have very little churn.”

Read Robert’s in-depth step-by-step acquisition workflow for agency growth in the KOR | Unlimited case study. 

With more than a decade of experience in the digital marketing and technology space and 30+  years of business experience under his belt, Bruce Tannenholz took up his post as president of pr.business in 2019. Tannenholz oversees the marketing, sales, and delivery of digital solutions to more than 23,000 local business clients across the United States.  In this section, Tannenholz shares how he sees the future of the digital marketing world evolving and critical agency growth tactics.

12. You can’t let technology outpace how you’re serving your customers

Particularly in the past decade, the biggest challenge Tannenholz says he has faced has been staying ahead of the curve when it comes to changes in technology.

“Through some really good partnerships, we’ve been able to continue to grow and move at the speed of sound and stay on top of the game,” Tannenholz says.

To maintain this competitive edge, Tannenholz recommends that keeping your cards close to your chest may not in fact be the best marketing agency strategy.

“We talk to people about what we would do. We’re not afraid of somebody stealing our agency growth secret sauce. We’re bigger than a secret sauce.

“If you’re not willing to talk freely and openly with other folks, you’re never going to really get to the solution. Everybody’s so worried: ‘They’re going to steal my idea.’ Yes, that can happen in some cases. I’m not worried about that.

“With the team we’ve built, with the way we know how to market, the way we know how to sell, it’s not stealing unless you steal all of my people,” Tannenholz says.

13. You never want to be the smartest person in the room

According to Tannenholz, by surrounding yourself with thinkers, strategists, and specialists who know more than you do, you can fast track the expansion of your own way of thinking to win.

“When I got into the sales world as an individual 30+ years ago, my goal was to sit around people who knew more than I did and be a sponge and learn from them something I didn’t know.”

“If you ever think you know it all, you’re going to lose. You don’t. Everyone always knows something else or has another idea or a way of looking at your idea through a different lens and that can give you more clarity on how to get down the road to where you want to go,” explains Tannenholz.

14. Let technology take the toil out of growing your agency

When asked for his top tip to attract and convert prospective new clients, Tannenholz says technology has been fundamental in the efforts of his organization.

“Technology’s been a big help. We’ve managed to use a lot of algorithms that allow us to feed conversion data back into these systems. And by utilizing a lot of that technology, all these platforms, whether it’s Google or social media, they’ve gotten very good at figuring out who people are, better than people know themselves. So we’ve leveraged a lot of that ability to figure out who the customer is.

“And then when it comes to the customers themselves, it’s about educating them. People have very unreal expectations at times. Not their wants or goals, but their expectations. And if you can manage those correctly, it will make your life much easier,” explains Tannenholz.

By taking advantage of the data and focusing on educating prospective buyers, owners can get themselves much closer to growing their digital agencies.

16. The future of local business online presence: Websites

With around 625,000 new businesses opening each year in the US, approximately 125,000 of these businesses will fail after that first year. It’s a staggering statistic that Tannenholz hopes to make a dent in by supporting more SMBs with their websites in the upcoming years.

“One of the areas that we want to expand into is in the website world. Because we deal primarily with SMBs, they need websites. It is a very big part. It’s amazing how many of these companies don’t have them. Beyond that, I need to be able to offer new things to my customers that they just can’t do on their own.”

“I have to be able to continue to keep everyone up to date on the newest, latest, and greatest. Everything changes quickly, and if you wait too long to get it in motion, it’s already changed again,” he says.

Surrounding yourself with the right people, being transparent with the right partners, and understanding the technology you can leverage to do the job better, those are the cornerstones that Tannenholz leans on to grow his agency.

If you would like to read more about Tannenholz’s success selling $2.5 million in digital solutions to local businesses, check out the pr.business case study.

17. Offer solutions that will have clients sticking with you

CEO of Slater Strategies, Mitchell Slater has grown his agency from a startup in 2012 to the thriving operation that it is today. With a growing team of 13 and more than $585,000 in annual digital solution sales, Slater’s successful agency has adopted a verticalized approach. They specialize in serving schools across the United States, helping them boost enrollment with websites, SEO, and other digital marketing services. 

For Slater, his key tactic for growing his agency has been offering more “sticky” solutions, or solutions that will keep his clients with him for a longer period of time, such as reselling ecommerce. 

“You need to offer more sticky products that are integral to your clients, so they don’t let you go because they truly need you.”

“Marketing companies that operate on the agency model can be replaced quickly and easily. If you’re providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) products or custom build outs, that’s a different story,” Slater says. 

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) products often are delivered to clients on a subscription basis. If the clients want to continue realizing the benefits of your product or maintain the website you’re hosting for them, they need to stick with you.

Not only do “sticky” offerings solidify your relationship with those clients, you also guarantee yourself consistent, recurring revenue coming to you month-over-month. It’s one of the most valuable agency growth secrets to remember. Otherwise, your agency might struggle to grow because clients don’t see your value. 

Find out more about how Slater has built a successful agency in partnership with Vendasta. Check out the Slater Strategies case study.

Agency industry veteran Mike Giamprini has decades of experience supporting businesses with their marketing and online presence. In 2019, he planted a stake in the ground, founding two of his very own successful agencies: Real Local Partners was created to super serve local SMBs. G Partners was built to serve national multi-location brands looking for a presence in local search.  Giamprini shares his advice for achieving agency growth and success, and it’s all about client education, employee retention, and a willingness to keep solutions simple for clients. 

18. Help SMBs battle the waves as a marketing agency strategy

It can be a rough go for small business owners out there trying to stay afloat. There are countless operational responsibilities—rent that needs to be paid, payroll that needs to be completed, customers who need to be marketed to. Often, they can feel like they’re drowning.  “We like to use the analogy of the sea turtle. Sea turtles, from the moment they’re born, struggle to survive. It’s a struggle to make it out to the sea, and then the surf pushes them back. It’s just obstacle, after obstacle, after obstacle.  “It’s the same thing with starting a business. The mantra that we live by is to keep it simple. A lot of the time, small businesses overcomplicate things and think that their go-to-market strategy has to be really loud and crazy complex. What I’ve learned over the years is that the simpler, the better, and the quicker,” Giamprini says. One of Mike’s agency growth secrets has been to streamline his own operations and marketing in order to do the same for his clients. He’s done this by investing in agency management software that could support him.

19. Employee retention is key to a scaleable, repeatable sales process

With challenges of the great resignation still lingering, it’s a difficult time for growing agencies to hire and hold onto their existing staff. Giamprini relies on some foundational retention tactics to ensure his people are taken care of. 

“Everyone’s reevaluated whether they want to be an employee and under what circumstances, so regardless of the size of your business, it’s difficult to find people,” he explains.

“Once you do find great employees, you have to treat them with a ton of respect. You have to compensate them really well. You have to make sure that they share your vision or at least that they can understand your vision. This is so that they can get on board with you every day in trying to do what it is that you believe is the right thing for your customers.” 

In addition, it’s important to build in opportunities for your team to grow professionally and within your agency.

“It’s not just hitting quotas and making commissions.”

20. Incentivized compensation helps keep profitability high

When asked about the ways he keeps his agency growing and his operations profitable, Giamprini shares his take on incentivizing great service and high customer lifetime value (LTV). 

“I’m very transparent with my team about pricing. They’re very conscious of margin because the bigger the margin, the bigger the share for everybody.

Giamprini recounts experiences at other organizations he’s worked for where a commission-based sales structure caused teams to be less invested in the long-term success of the client, as long as they managed to land the initial sale. 

“We have worked really hard to figure out a way to keep the customer with us for as long as possible and to keep the sales people incentivized to find those customers. It takes time to train a salesperson to be knowledgeable enough to qualify customers and to close them with a vision of keeping them. This is as opposed to just closing them with a vision of grabbing a commission and moving on to the next one,” Giamprini says.

It’s this customer-first mindset that has allowed Giamprini’s leading digital marketing agencies to flourish and to grow his team and grow revenue sustainably as the years tick on. Discover more about the agency growth secrets to Giamprini’s success, by reading the Real Local Partners and G Partners case study. 

Mike Giamprini sits down to share agency insights, growth drivers, and industry trends as part of Vendasta’s YouTube series: Scaleblazers.

21. Don’t skip out on regular client check-ins

Growing agencies can sometimes be distracted by the next big project or client acquisition coming down the pipe. It’s important not to lose focus and forget about taking great care of the existing clients you do have. 

The cost of losing an existing client in this economy is just too high of a price to pay for Janice Christopher, Marketing Consultant and Owner of The Janice Christopher Marketing Agency. Christopher relies on a monthly strategy call with her clients to ensure the relationship is on track. 

“It’s about letting the customer know how the process works. I have a format, process, and agenda that I use. It’s the same every month, clients know exactly what metrics we’re going to go over, and I compare this month with last month.”

 “I’m proactive about it, I don’t wait until I get to the meeting to know the problem, I already know the problem, and I already have a solution to their problem.” Christopher paints a picture for her clients and helps them understand the story that the numbers are reflecting to avoid any confusion. 

In order to give each client what they need to be successful, Christopher applies three simple steps to every client interaction. 

1. Listen to client
2. Identify client needs
3. Develop a personalized strategy that fits client needs

It was important to the Janice Christopher Marketing Agency that these three steps never be overlooked even as the agency grows. Transparency and communication are Christopher’s agency growth secrets to success in building relationships. “So much transparency it’ll make your head spin. That’s how you build trust with your clients.”

Learn more about how Janice has achieved $751K in annual revenue by partnering with Vendasta. 

OctoHub Founder Scott Sanderson started his career nearly two decades ago, a period when Google was still in its infancy, social media and iPhones weren’t even a thing, and marketing agencies found it impossible to serve small businesses due to the cost of delivery.

And yet, Sanderson has survived and thrived in an industry where disruption is the only constant by being remarkably adaptive. He knows how to move his business model, marketing agency strategy, and sales process with the times.

Sanderson shares insights on critical steps for finding leads and moving them through the sales funnel. 

22. How to build a sales pipeline

Sanderson prefers a targeted and technology-led approach to find potential customers. 

Step 1: Harness the power of Google Business Profile (GBP) to find opportunities in local areas

“Let’s say you find 50. Go check them out. What are they doing right or wrong in terms of their online presence? You can see it all there—the roadmap is in front of you. It’s just about having a process to identify the opportunity and then articulate it.”

Step 2: Tag them as a “suspect”

Once a sales rep has identified a potential opportunity, their details and contact information are added into a customer relationship management (CRM) system and they’re tagged as a “suspect.”

“We think it’s a real business, we found a contact email, we found a phone number, and so we’ve created this record of a suspect. And now we want to go to that business and target them with messaging around their online presence.”

A key tool for OctoHub during this step is to leverage Vendasta’s sales intelligence tool Snapshot Report in outreach emails to highlight deficiencies in a suspect’s online marketing performance.

Step 3: Move them to a prospect (and then an engaged prospect)

If the business owner clicks on the Snapshot Report, OctoHub’s sales reps are alerted to a genuine business opportunity and get in touch with the lead. The suspect then becomes an engaged prospect.

Step 4: To convert, you have to keep it simple, affordable, and tangible

At this juncture, OctoHub’s sales team moves to close the deal. Here’s Sanderson’s framework:

Don’t overwhelm the engaged prospect with information. Remember that they often barely understand digital marketing
Start small: Provide a solution or package that is affordable for the SMB and doesn’t tie them into commitments or contracts
Help them drive immediate results

Step 5: Always keep them engaged

After sealing the deal, OctoHub sends automated campaigns that drip-feed useful content such as:

• The why and how of keeping up-to-date listings information
• How reviews and reputation management software improve Google rankings
• Invitations to webinars where customers can learn how to improve their online presence

“We try to give them bite-sized actionable insights to keep them engaged, re-engage them, and earn their trust along the way. And if you look at our approach overall, that’s how we find opportunities, onboard them, and scale. With that marketing agency strategy, we’re sitting at over 2,100 customers today,” Sanderson says.

23. To build a successful agency, don’t put all your eggs in big relationships

By maintaining a smaller client roster with bigger budgets, Sanderson points out the risk agencies are taking if a client abruptly terminates a service agreement.

Agency owners should hedge against this risk by building a broad set of clients rather than focusing only on large brands or adopting the “80/20” playbook. It’s what the leading digital marketing agencies do.

“If you build out a really solid, broad base, and not only look after these big guys, I think you’ll have a much more sustainable business and a higher survivability rate.

24. Always manage your costs

In spite of soaring inflation, Sanderson encourages growing agencies to manage their expenses despite what’s happening in the economy. He is a strong fan of remote work in order to achieve lower running costs.

“Lease, rent, upkeep, somebody at the front who’s a professional greeter: We don’t do any of that. This is a virtual business. And so it’s really about being able to see into what’s happening from a central hub.”

“And the Vendasta platform provides that. We have dashboards showing you who’s moving people through their opportunity funnel, who’s adding accounts, and what’s happening with the engagement levels on these emails. I think even when you look at it from a sales CRM perspective, it’s doing all the heavy lifting and you can look into it from afar.”

Scott Sanderson is one of Vendasta’s most successful partners. He’s been running digital businesses for over 20 years and serves over 2,100 customers by leveraging his own offering with pre-vetted solutions every local business needs through Vendasta’s agency management software. For more details, check out the OctoHub case study. 

25. Weathering the storm: Showing up for your clients, rain or shine, as a marketing agency strategy

During times of economic slowdown, while agencies may experience a decrease in client calls and a lull of new work, luxury branding agency Retna Media says growing agency owners need to jump into action.

“At the onset of the pandemic, the sky was falling. Businesses were shutting down. You couldn’t get inside any business. They weren’t operating. We decided to implement marketing packages at no cost, for past and present clients,” says Retna Media Executive Creative Director Fritz Colinet.

“We created a package that was a template for a restaurant, professional business, or any business needing a boost online. This gave us an opportunity to really showcase that we cared about their business and about the survival of small business in the United States, and I was able to keep the staff working.”

Especially with a recession looming, showing up for clients in immediate need may not always make fiscal sense upfront. Through that program, however, Colinet was able to increase revenue overall and re-engage with customers past and present.  

Learn more about how Retna Media has leveraged their relationship with Vendasta to grow their agency.

26. Put as much effort into your own brand and marketing as you do for your client

SocialJack Media Founder and CEO Jack Pires has invested heavily in producing written, video, and SEO-optimized content for his own channels to boost client engagement and retention. It’s one of his not-so-secret agency growth secrets. “We have found that efforts towards retaining clients have paid off, so we have shifted part of our focus towards our agency’s content development in the form of blogs, video content, and SEO. We produce value-driven content across social media platforms and our YouTube channel, which has been a consistent platform for lead generation,” Pires says.  In addition, the SocialJack team ensures community participation is weaved into their marketing activities. It’s a key part of their marketing agency strategy for growth.  “Strategically, we have put extra labor capital towards positioning SocialJack Media as a dominant agency within local communities in New Jersey, New York, and California by becoming an active member of designated chambers of commerce and networking-type groups.” 

27. Remote work helps improve agency profit margins

Not only has a move to remote work benefited his business, but Pires says those cost savings are passed directly onto the client. “We have kept overhead costs low by forgoing a physical storefront location and having staff remain 100% remote. These savings have allowed us to provide competitive pricing to our clients without sacrificing speed, quality, or service.”  Pires has been steadily growing his agency since 2017, recently achieving a $1 million annual revenue milestone. Learn about agency growth hacks and how Pires has leveraged his partnership with Vendasta to reach success in the SocialJack Media case study.

28. Providing digital solution bundles as a marketing agency strategy

SEO agency Growth Lab has their sights set on high-impact product bundles as their vehicle for agency growth.

“The most important variable in creating sustainable and profitable agency growth is by creating specific marketing packages and solutions that provide immense value to your clients,” says Growth Lab Founder and CEO Will Palmer.

“Having reporting that gives full transparency into that value through results attribution is key. I think the best way to do this is to niche-down and provide a very specific high-value set of solutions to a very specific client avatar in a single industry.”

Focusing on the law firm vertical, Palmer says this marketing agency strategy has been instrumental in how Growth Lab has differentiated itself in the marketplace—by providing something no one else does.

Growth Lab claimed the top spot in the 2022 Vendasta Local Impact Awards in the Strategy Excellence category. To find out more about how they’ve expanded their successful agency with Vendasta, check out the Growth Lab case study.

Although their customer bases, approaches, and execution may vary, there are some common threads that these leading digital marketing agencies deploy to continue to grow their agencies sustainably and profitably:

• Making data-informed decisions is a marketing agency strategy that ensures you’re making the right changes to move your growing agency’s revenue needle. Without data, agency owners are left making decisions based on gut-feel which can get them in trouble, especially in challenging economic conditions.
• Taking care of your teams is paramount, making it one of the most vital successful agency growth secrets shared among these 12 leading digital marketing agencies. The labor shortage has posed a very real challenge for successful agencies looking to hire and retain top talent. By promoting and nurturing this talent from within, as well as fairly compensating and incentivizing your teams, you’ll be more likely to attract and keep great people on your team, maintaining superior service for your clients.
• Transparency both with your partners and your clients will always have a positive impact on your business. By being upfront and open with business partners, you can solve problems and improve profit margins to grow your agency. By maintaining transparency with your clients, you can provide a clear picture of how their investment benefits their business. This will build trust, turning them into customers for life.

Successful agencies that have a well-planned agency growth strategy and the ability to measure and execute on it effectively are more likely to achieve their goals and remain competitive in the market. We hope you’ve enjoyed the agency growth tactics provided by the leading digital marketing agency owners we interviewed. We hope you found them helpful in your own efforts to grow your digital agency.