Build the marketing muscle behind your agency with white-labeling
You’re an ambitious marketing agency owner with three problems:
- You want to expand your agency and offer more services, but don’t have the time, technical expertise, resources, or revenue to make it happen.
- Speaking of time, you want to dedicate more of it to finding clients - which, in turn, would help with the revenue problem.
- You believe your agency can be more profitable by getting more work done for the same cost or less.
A white-label digital agency can be the solution to conquering these challenges and many others.
Why use a white-label digital agency?
White-label digital agencies provide the expertise needed to deliver a complete set of services, including the creation of digital ads, listings, websites, review collecting, and management. You name it and a great digital agency should have the tools and skills to deliver it.
White-label digital agencies are the agency-behind-an-agency, providing teams of experienced professionals that can be contracted to do the work while giving you all the credit.
If you have more clients and work than you can personally manage, or clients who need services you don’t currently offer, a digital agency can help you meet these demands - and at a lower cost.
White-label digital agencies have the solutions and seasoned experts to help you provide an entirely new catalogue of high-quality services for your customers.
Over the long-term, value increases as your white-label digital agency partner continues to understand your business, clients, and market, and learns to anticipate your needs and preferences.
How it works
Consider the following scenario to illustrate the value of a white-label digital agency partnership.
The client
Violet owns a bakery in Lakewood, New Jersey.
Business is going well. Violet is getting new customers every day, thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations, and hasn’t done much to promote her bakery.
She doesn’t have a business website and instead posts photos of her delicious treats on Facebook and Instagram.
However, another bakery a few blocks away opened its doors one month ago.
Violet is worried and noticing some of her clients shifting over to her competitor. She sees that the new bakery has a great website, a strong social media presence, and is running ads on Google and Facebook.
Violet knows her business needs to increase its online presence, but she’s too busy running her bakery and managing three employees.
Violet looks for help from a local marketing expert.
The agency owner
Victor owns Mountain Media, and Violet reaches out to him for help.
He has a team of five employees, including two marketing specialists, a designer, a pay-per-click (PPC) expert, and a marketing manager.
Among Victor’s biggest challenges is growing revenue faster than costs. He’s also trying to gather new customers, plus build his brand and reputation.
He’s passionate about helping local businesses succeed, and keen to help Violet, but also realizes he may not have all the resources to do it.
Victor identifies that Violet needs a professional website and a mix of Google and Facebook ads. Violet also needs someone to respond to her Google reviews, since she doesn’t have the time herself.
But, Mountain Media doesn’t currently offer most of these services and Victor is loath to turn away a new client. So he starts exploring his options.
Solution 1: Hire more people
The straightforward answer to Victor’s dilemma might be to simply hire more people.
But, as mentioned above, he’s trying to grow revenue faster than costs and doesn’t have many clients looking to build websites and run Facebook ads.
Hiring new staff would likely see Victor end up losing money by retaining skills he doesn’t always need.
Solution 2: Hire freelancers
Another option for Victor might be to hire freelancers.
He’s tried using websites like Fiverr and Upwork before, and discovered it’s not easy to find the right freelancer for the job.
Doing so means analyzing their portfolio, qualifications, and price. And there are thousands from which to choose.
Every freelancer operates in a different way, and the quality of their work can dramatically range from superior to subpar.
Victor also knows that hiring a freelancer offers no guarantee that they will keep working for him.
It’s just too risky. Victor has worked too hard to build his brand and reputation to risk having it damaged by poor work.
Solution 3: Use multiple vendors
Most vendors offer point solutions, meaning that if Victor needs websites, ads, and reputation management, he’ll probably need to hire three different companies.
That means three different profiles, three disconnected interfaces, and the major risk of a poor customer experience.
Victor and his clients want to see proof of performance, but every vendor might differ in how they create these reports and he knows that will likely confuse his clients.
And, when work is automated, it doesn’t feel like it was performed by his team.
The winning solution
Victor finds a white-label digital agency that offers everything his clients need from a single and integrated source. This includes digital ads, websites, social media, reputation management, content, and listings. All managed by experienced marketing professionals working for Victor’s brand and on his terms.
Furthermore, the white-label agency providing the work will do it at a cost that’s less than hiring his own employees.
Victor can build trust and a long-term partnership with his agency - something he isn’t always able to do with freelancers.
And, he doesn’t need to worry about managing multiple platforms and reports to deliver results.
It’s the kind of white-label partnerships Vendasta has created with marketing agencies across North America and around the world.
What should you look for in a white-label digital agency?
Always look for these characteristics:
- Expertise and action
You want a team that knows how to assess your agency and market, understands your dilemmas and the direction you want to move, and can then identify surefire ways to drive your success.
But vision alone isn’t enough without the skills and organization needed to get the work done. Read the agency reviews, ask for examples of their work, and talk to their team about specific ideas that can help your agency before agreeing to sign on. - Strong communication skills and frameworks
Nothing is more frustrating than radio silence when corresponding, providing feedback, and raising concerns with your agency. Always check out agency reviews and determine how well they communicate with partners, and how prompt they are with follow up.
Agencies that have communication and transparency tools built into their process and platform - things like regularly scheduled check-ins, routinely shared metrics and reports - are those more likely to be responsive. Meet the team and speak to their existing clients about customer support. - Review the website and marketing materials
Check the work an agency has done on its own website to verify the quality of their work. Examine what tools they have used to do their own work and, if the tools aren’t the same as the ones they’re trying to sell you, it’s a red flag. - Proof of performance
Ask to review case studies, particularly those that are similar to agencies like yours. Reach out to these customers who participated in the case studies for further information or advice in working with the agency.
