The 4 big reasons agencies need marketing automation to survive

Agency life is hard. Everything is due tomorrow – or yesterday. Clients demand stellar results. Your competition is trying to underbid you. Your creative team wants tacos.

Meanwhile, you’re juggling:
1. Marketing your agency to bring in new business
2. Keeping current clients happy to gain their loyalty

There are ways you can accomplish both revenue and agency growth. The answer: Use marketing automation to increase sales revenue for both your agency and your clients.

The demand for digital marketing services has skyrocketed in recent years as more businesses – B2B and B2C – have shifted marketing spend away from traditional tactics. Traditional marketing and advertising services are moving in-house, and service lines are blurring. One-time projects, inconsistent income, lower value relationships and cobbled-together solutions with no unified reporting will lead to failure.

To survive you must change. The answer is a fully-integrated marketing automation solution where every piece works together to help you drive leads and sales for your agency and clients.

We’ve all heard it – deliver the right message, to the right person at the right time. Marketing automation delivers nurture tracks triggered by prospects as they navigate through your marketing funnel. It’s the service clients and agencies need to grow and cultivate leads to sales.

But there are four more reasons marketing automation is vital to agencies:

1. Research says you can’t afford not to automate
2. Higher-value relationships
3. Prove value to your clients
4. Recurring revenue streams

You can’t afford not to automate:

It’s time to face the facts regarding agency growth. According to Ad Age’s Agency Report 2018, U.S. agency growth is the slowest it’s been since 2010, except for those offering digital marketing services – those grew 7X the revenue.

Couple this with the fact that marketing automation spend is projected to grow 14 percent annually over the next five years, per Forrester. In addition, CMOs say they don’t have the data necessary to feel confident about their spend. Enter marketing automation. It’s the answer to what clients need right now. With marketing automation, you’ll create new revenue streams, attract more clients, provide iron-clad proof of ROI and provide a service that clients feel is just too big and complicated to do in-house.

Higher-value relationships:

Ever wish you had a stickier relationship with your clients? Ever wish you provided a service that not every agency you compete with provides?

Marketing automation is a service you can completely manage for your clients. Many agencies just haven’t caught on to the fever. And, oh my, the services you can provide:
1. Initial marketing automation technology adoption and strategy
2. Creation of email templates, nurture sequences and landing pages
3. Ongoing builds of campaign assets, metrics analysis and optimization
All of these services, plus the investment in the initial learning curve, makes it difficult for clients to change agencies.

Recurring revenue:

Cha-ching. Marketing automation is the key to recurring revenue. Why?
1. You’ll move from unpredictable project work to retainer-based relationships.
2. Marketing automation is necessary for most clients.
3. Clients struggle with the technology.
4. Clients are confused with how/where to personalize.

What this all adds up to is your chance for your agency to be a consistent go-to resource for marketing automation and digital marketing.

Prove value to your clients:

Ever had a client claim they just can’t see what they’re getting for the dollars they’re spending with you? Ever feel like all you do is run numbers and try to show worth, more than you are spending time creating – which was your dream when you got into the agency biz?

Marketing automation solves that, too. You’ll be able to show clients measurable results with comprehensive lead-to-revenue reporting. After all, marketing automation is rooted in data, providing the math you need to help your clients figure out what to double down on and what to toss. The investment in marketing automation and your agency pays off the longer you both use it. You can keep showing improved results month over month while you let the platform do the number crunching. You can make more time to do the things you love.

But not all marketing automation platforms are created equal. When considering marketing automation, keep in mind you want a platform that allows you to manage and control your clients AND gives you the margins you need to grow revenue for your agency.