Scaling the revenue ladder with AI: Social Jack Media’s ascent to $2 million+
Wayne, New Jersey-based SocialJack Media celebrated its 5th anniversary in 2023
The agency achieved a $2 million ARR milestone, reflecting a 100%+ increase from the previous year
Expanding through referrals, SocialJack Media is now focusing on construction companies and contractors
Scaling agency revenue with Vendasta’s AI-powered tools
$2M
Annual recurring
revenue
100%
client retention
rate
3.48
Average product
basket size
The challenge
With a surge in business driven by client referrals, SocialJack Media encountered the challenge of efficiently delivering marketing solutions at scale to an expanding client base while upholding top-notch service standards and providing proof of performance.
Simultaneously, the agency aimed to optimize opportunities for sustainable growth by harnessing the potential of AI and automations to streamline and eliminate time-consuming processes so that its growing team could spend more time on sales and strategy.
Background
In 2022, SocialJack Media started hitting its stride as a digital agency, achieving a significant milestone with its annual recurring revenue surpassing $1 million for the first time.
With a dedicated team of six employees, the agency’s commitment to delivering high-quality service and results set it in the right direction to scale.
However, in the latter half of the year and throughout 2023 SocialJack grew far more quickly than expected, propelling revenue past $2 million and necessitating a doubling of the team.
Founder and CEO, Jack Pires, reflects on this rapid growth, “When we set our strategy for 2023 and 2024, we looked at who we really succeeded in helping in that rush to digital adoption by SMBs during COVID.”
“We did really well with construction companies and contractors, so we doubled down those spaces, acquired more clients, and because we were succeeding in these niches, the phones have not stopped ringing and the referrals have not stopped flowing through.”
As SocialJack scaled rapidly, operational complexity increased.
“As we’ve grown quickly we’ve had learnings in how we effectively serve clients. When you’ve got a lot of large clients coming in, you need to have plenty of consulting time with them and you need to consistently show proof-of-performance,” Pires says.
“At the same time, we also needed to set our business model up in a way where startups and mid-tier clients also get the tools, reporting and service that they deserve to grow and succeed.”
But in order to do all that, while driving sustainable growth and margins, Pires needed to weed out as many manual tasks for his own team and clients as possible so that more time was being spent with clients.
Approach and execution
At its current stage of business growth, SocialJack’s priorities, and how they were tackled with its Vendasta partnership, are set out below.
Big challenge 1: Efficiently packaging and selling marketing bundles at scale, while also implementing upselling or cross-selling strategies to align with client success.
To efficiently package and sell marketing bundles at scale, SocialJack leverages Vendasta’s white-label Marketplace which comprises over 250 resellable digital products.
Pires explains that the agency’s essentials package includes online presence services including Listings, Reputation Management, and Social Marketing.
Additional services, such as SEO and Digital Ads, are customized based on the client’s budget, needs, and strategic consulting requirements.
“That’s the core package which meets their basic online presence needs,” he says.
Did you know you can increase your client retention by 47% by offering a wide range of products and services and providing the digital solutions your local business clients need? With Vendasta’s Marketplace you can offer best-in-class products at wholesale prices, so you can remain competitive while still maintaining healthy margins.
“What we add to our core package from the Marketplace depends on the client’s budget, their needs, our ability to prove success and the amount of creative and strategic consulting they want from us,” Pires says.
Big challenge 2: Providing all clients with regular proof-of-performance to help them understand the return on investment from their marketing spend.
To provide clients with regular proof-of-performance in a way that doesn’t drain its team’s time on manual data crunching, SocialJack maximizes Vendasta’s reporting tools, including the Executive Report.
The Executive Report is an automated assessment that gives your single or multi-location clients direct access to proof-of-performance reporting and data-informed product and service recommendations. By opening and engaging with the Executive Report, you’ll be bringing your clients into their client portal where they can review their online weak points and explore the solutions you provide to fix the problem.
Additionally, he also utilizes specific product reporting, such as SEO reports and Google Analytics.
Using the Vendasta platform, SocialJack effortlessly sets up regular client reporting, providing complete visibility and transparency into their marketing performance with just a few clicks, and that helps build trust with local businesses and reduces the risk of churn.
“What’s really important here, particularly for lower-tier clients who get less time with our account managers, is that we ensure we explain during the onboarding and early in our relationship how to understand and interpret the data,” Pires says.
“When the reporting comes through to them, we want it to be clear to the local business owner how many more phone calls, leads and store visits they generated based on their marketing investment with us. That’s what they care about.
“The better a job we do of that upfront, the less likely they are to churn.”
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Big challenge 3: Leveraging AI and automations to eliminate manual processes
With rapid growth, a funnel full of referred prospects and high expectations from existing clients, Pires needed to ensure his team was investing more time in closing deals and activities related to customer success, rather than menial tasks and low-value fulfillment activities.
WIth those challenges in mind, Pires and his team have leveraged Vendasta’s new AI tools with gusto to do as much of the grunt work as possible for clients.
Examples of activities that have been largely automated include:
- Using AI in Snapshot Report to generate custom emails that highlight improvement areas for prospects and to improve prospect engagement
- Getting the agency’s content and social media specialists to use AI as much as possible to cut down on writing responses to straight forward reviews, copy for social media posts and scheduling content
- Creating accurate business profile descriptions with AI that can be synced with sites like Google and Facebook
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“The AI integrations within Reputation Management, in particular, are an absolute game-changer, providing us with significant time savings, and they continue to evolve and become even smarter over time. By leveraging this remarkable functionality, we free up more of our valuable time to engage with clients directly, enabling us to delve deeper into their marketing strategies and success.”
Jack Pires
Founder and CEO, SOCIALJACK MEDIA
Social Jack Media’s best-selling products
The conclusion
With the support of the Vendasta platform and its AI-powered tools, SocialJack Media is efficiently building its technology infrastructure to scale effectively.
Utilizing the Vendasta Marketplace, the agency packages and sells services seamlessly, while automated reporting provides clients with clear proof of performance, while fostering trust and reducing churn risk.
AI tools also save valuable time by handling repetitive tasks such as review responses, post scheduling and manually writing sales emails.
This approach allows SocialJack to grow sustainably, achieve favorable margins, and guide businesses towards marketing success with transparency and efficiency.
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