How to build a scalable marketing agency strategy 

It’s official. We’re witnessing the golden age of marketing. We have AI, advanced data collection capabilities, personalization options, social media advertising, and other powerful options making marketing efforts more effective than ever before. 

All this is leading to astonishing projections claiming that global digital advertising and marketing will be a $786.2 billion market by 2026.

Which makes it an incredible time for marketing agencies. But building a sustainable business that’s also adaptable to the constantly changing marketing environment is no walk in the park.

So, in this article, I’m going to give you a closer look into everything your marketing agency strategy needs. 

But before we dive in, here’s a quick overview of the five major elements your marketing agency strategy should contain:

1. Building a strong foundation 
2. Understanding your clients
3. Marketing and growth strategies
4. Thought leadership and networking
5. Performance and optimization

Now, let’s have a closer look at each of these steps.

1. Building a strong foundation

These days, it feels like everyone is in the creative agency business. Everywhere you look there’s a new “boutique”, “full-service”, or a “digital-first” agency popping up. But these terms aren’t just cliches making their agency sound more cool – they’re the foundation of each of these businesses. 

Here are the two things to focus on when starting up your marketing agency. 

Define your niche

No matter what kind of business you’re building, you’ll need a competitive advantage, or in other words, a specific niche. In the world of agencies that’s that type of marketing services and clients you’re looking to attract. 

Are you the kind of marketing agency that specializes in health communication? Or a digital agency that helps a wide range of clients strengthen their digital presence? Maybe you want to niche down to a certain format like, say, POS marketing for consumer goods or TikTik videos for beauty companies.

Whatever the case, you need to have a strong stand point on what kind of agency your business is.

Here’s why defining a niche helps you build a sustainable business:

• You build a strong and specific reputation
• You attract the right clients
• Your business stands out from the crowd

Develop a digital-first sales culture

Having a marketing agency no longer means you can only serve local clients. With the rise of digital marketing and digital sales practices, agencies are now able to offer their services to clients worldwide. But for that, you need a solid online sales culture. 

Start by investing in digital marketing tools and technologies to streamline your sales process and improve efficiency.

Here are some helpful marketing agency software for establishing an efficient digital sales cycle:

1. Customer relationship management (CRM) software – Tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho CRM allow you to centralize customer data and interactions, track leads, and monitor the sales pipeline. You can also use these tools to automate communication and optimize your sales strategies with powerful analytics.
2. Email marketing and automation tools – Tools like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign allow you to automate your outreach campaigns and lead nurturing. You can track open rates, click-through rates, and conversions and segment audiences for targeted communication.
3. Sales engagement platforms – Tools like Outreach, SalesLoft, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator help you streamline communication across multiple channels, including email, phone, and social media. Plus, they provide templates and cadences to standardize outreach.
4. Analytics and business intelligence (BI) tools – Platforms like Google Analytics or Tableau track key performance metrics and help you identify bottlenecks in your digital marketing strategy. They help you analyze customer behavior and purchasing patterns and provide actionable insights for improving strategies.

Once you have your toolstack in place, focus on developing a sales culture that is data-driven and focused on delivering results for clients.

2. Understanding your clients

Once you have a good understanding of your niche, it’s time to focus on your clients. 

Having a marketing agency puts you in the service business domain which requires knowing, understanding, and having good relationships with your clients.

Here are the two important tips for getting a better understanding of your clients:

Get to know your potential clients

First things first – research your potential clients to understand their needs, goals, and pain points. You can Google them, use Chat GPT, attend their webinars or live conference, or even befriend their employees on social media like LinkedIn. 

Do whatever you can to learn about your potential clients. What are their biggest pain points and challenges, and how could your business help resolve them? Once you have all this information, it’s time to develop buyer personas. They can guide your marketing strategies and make sure you’re targeting the right audience.

You can also use data and analytics to gain insights into your clients’ behavior and preferences. You can then use this to adapt your strategies.

Build strong client relationships

Did you know that customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable than the companies that don’t focus on customers? So, the first rule for managing and growing an agency is fostering strong relationships with your clients through regular communication and exceptional customer service.

Here are the two things that will make your client relationships stronger and improve collaboration with agency:

• Client onboarding – Develop a client onboarding process that sets clear expectations. So you and your new clients both know at each point of the project what needs to be delivered and when.
• Client feedback – Use your client’s feedback to improve your services and demonstrate your commitment to their success.

Want to know what a day in the life of a 2040 agency will look like? We asked 31 agency creatives to give their predictions. Read the results.

3. Marketing and growth strategies

Every business needs good marketing to grow. After all, you’re in the marketing agency business so you’re probably pretty aware of this already. 

But let’s see what kind of strategic planning you’ll need to guarantee growth.

Invest in inbound marketing

By now, I believe we all know how powerful inbound marketing can get. But in case you need a quick reminder, here’s one: Inbound practices produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound practices.

Now that we’ve cleared the air, here are a few tips for kickstarting your inbound marketing efforts: 

• Develop a content marketing strategy that attracts and engages your target audience
• Use social media marketing to build your brand and drive traffic to your website
• Invest in search engine optimization (SEO) to improve your website’s visibility and drive organic traffic

Looking for ways to improve your inbound marketing efforts? Check out my tips on how to manage creative workflows with ease. 

Use automation and technology

Marketing automation tools can help you streamline your marketing processes and improve efficiency.

Here’s how: 

• A dedicated project management software for agencies like Asana or Monday improves the collaboration among your team and increases productivity throughout each marketing campaign
• A powerful client proofing software like Filestage helps you bring everyone together in one platform to streamline approvals for all your marketing assets
• Scheduling platforms like Trello help you keep your social media posting in order while eliminating lots of manual work
• Powerful data and analytics agency software like Google Analytics help you gain insights into your marketing performance and make data-driven decisions

4. Thought leadership and networking

Nothing beats building a strong personal brand these days. Agency owners, freelancers, or marketing agency employees can all build a strong personal brand to help grow a business. It will improve the reputation of your work and even attract new customers more organically.

Here are the two important aspects of building a strong personal brand:

• Establish thought leadership
• Network and build relationships

Establish thought leadership

When establishing thought leadership, all your focus should be on showing your and your agency’s expertise through various content types and formats. You can develop a strong persona on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, or even TikTok – it depends on where your target audience likes to hang out.

Then, you can write thought leadership articles on your website to share more in depth content about your expertise. Plus, you can attend live or digital events to speak about your expertise to a wider audience. 

Whatever approach you decide to take, it’s always important to invest in research and development to stay ahead of the curve and provide innovative ideas and solutions to your clients.

Network and build relationships

Networking and building relationships goes hand in hand with sharing thought leadership content. Attend industry events and conferences and use social media to build relationships with influencers and thought leaders in your industry.

All this will help you develop strategic partnerships with other agencies and businesses to expand your reach and offerings.

5. Performance and optimization

Nothing helps you scale your business like a good understanding of your performance and the ability to optimize your strategy based on that performance. But for that you need to excel at two different aspects of your business.

Setting clear goals and strategies

First and foremost, you need to develop a strategic marketing plan that sets clear goals and objectives for your agency. 

For example, you might have a goal to reach a certain number of clients by the end of the year and you plan on achieving that by focusing on inbound marketing and thought leadership content. In that case you can track the number of visits on certain pages, time spent on those pages, conversion rates, and ultimately how many clients these activities helped you convert. 

Once you get some numbers, you can then make data-driven decisions and iterate your strategy to boost your business development.

Using client results to your advantage

Another way to win over more clients and create a more sustainable marketing agency strategy is by using the success of your current clients for marketing purposes. 

You can create client success stories and case studies to demonstrate your agency’s value and build credibility. Plus, you can develop a client referral program to encourage happy clients to refer new business to your agency.

This is not only proven to be engaging content but also effective for winning new deals. 

Conclusion

If you want to build a successful marketing agency you’ll need a strong foundation, a deep understanding of your clients, and a focus on marketing and growth strategies. By investing in inbound marketing, using automation and technology, and differentiating your agency, you’ll establish yourself as a trusted authority in the industry.

And remember – setting clear goals and strategies, leveraging client results, and continuously optimizing your marketing efforts will be your ticket for success!