When it comes to winning clients as a marketing agency, invariably the best type of client has to be a corporate client. Indeed, corporate clients generally need more work from their marketers, and this can provide a long-term relationship for an independent agency. As such, winning these contracts with corporate clients can be a big boost for your agency, and can make managing marketing projects much easier if you know that there’s plenty of work coming in despite the pandemic.
Why Corporate Brands want to work with Independent Agencies
Generally speaking, when we think about corporate brands, it’s easy to assume that they’d only want to work with big agencies. Indeed, smaller agencies can seem like they’re at a disadvantage for winning corporate clients – however, this isn’t entirely true. Indeed, this is something highlighted by co-founders of The Agency Accelerators, Susan Werkner, and Peter Applebaum, who explain that many smaller agencies stick to juggling the books with small-scale clients because they assume they can’t compete with the big agencies from New York and the like. Of course, this can have a significant impact on the success of your marketing agency. What’s more, this assumption isn’t always the case in reality!
Why Small SEO Clients Are Problematic
For many small agencies, the thought of winning corporate clients can seem absurd. Indeed, it can seem impossible for these smaller digital marketing firms to compete with the big boys in the marketing agency business. As such, the Agency Accelerators explain that many stick to small-scale client procurement only – and this can be an issue. Indeed, for most small SEO agencies, small clients can be a real challenge to deal with.
These clients often ask for an unrealistic amount of work from agency owners for a small budget. This, in turn, can place real stress and pressure on your SEO agency to meet these demands while still keeping afloat and not getting overwhelmed with debt. What’s more, it’s pretty clear that these tactics from having a client base of primarily small brands can also be hugely damaging to the creativity of your marketing team. This could impact the quality of their creative work significantly, and reduce the overall customer experience for your client base too.
Corporate Brands Want to Work With Small Agencies!
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on our lives and has transformed the way that we do business, too. Indeed, decision-makers in independent and large agencies alike are taking the opportunities provided to them, and this means that there’s a growing demand from corporate brands to work alongside small firms.
But why is this? There are a few unique opportunities for small creative agencies and digital marketing agencies, most notably for the fact that their losses are typically lesser as a result of the pandemic. Indeed, while the big marketing agencies have suffered significant losses in terms of job losses, restructuring, and the like, most independent agencies haven’t suffered quite so severely because of their smaller scale.
Their lessened overheads have, during the pandemic, provided an opportunity and allowed smaller independent agencies to sweep in and provide creative work solutions for big brands when the large network agencies are no longer able to do so.
Meanwhile, for corporate clients, this unique energy, passion, and motivation is a key selling point of independent agencies. Commonly, small agencies are more invested directly in the work that they do, and this helps provide a better relationship and ensures quality work for corporate clients.
What’s more, for corporate big brands, small agencies also have lower overheads and so often provide a more affordable solution. Contrastingly, large marketing agencies generally don’t have quite as personal a connection to their clients as a small client might. Hence, while large agencies are still able to offer creative work of high quality, pairing with small brands may offer a unique attraction for these agencies.
So, it’s being increasingly realized by big brands that hiring a small SEO agency can be a better option than hiring new CMOs or working with big agencies. Indeed, these business partnerships can be beneficial both for managing marketing projects and for the big brand customer, too.
Reasons Why Agencies Are Missing out on Corporate Clients
So, we’ve clarified now that it’s possible for small firms to work alongside big brands. What’s more, there is a trend whereby more independent agencies win corporate clients now that the pandemic has shifted the trading environment. But why is it that some independent agencies are still missing out on corporate clients? There are numerous new business opportunities for independent agencies which team up with big brands, but first, you need to ensure that you know the reasons why agencies are missing out on corporate clients.
#1 You’ve Got “Imposter Syndrome”
One of the most notable reasons stopping independent agencies from winning corporate clients is for the “imposter syndrome”: the feeling that you’re not worthy enough of these high-profile clients. Indeed, this is a common issue among many small business owners. However, it’s something that can severely hold your business back. But, for the business development of your creative agency, it’s important to try and look past this. Indeed, you might not be aware that this is what’s holding back your company, and so, you should take some time to ask yourself: is this what’s holding your agency back from reaching its full potential?
#2 You’ve Not Got Time For Business Development
Business development is hugely important, but if your agency is already busy with new customers, you might not have the time. Indeed, business development is a time-consuming endeavor, and working with small clients too doesn’t help. Small clients with overwhelming requirements can leave you with little time left for anything else – and this can prevent you from finding time to contact corporate clients and promote your marketing agency‘s business development. This, in turn, can also lead to further feelings of “imposter syndrome”, which creates a vicious cycle of being overworked.
#3 Business Development Hasn’t Been A Focus
If your agency hasn’t focused on business development recently or has an inconsistent approach to this, then this could hold you back from winning the corporate clients you deserve. As explained by Darren Woolley, CEO of TrinityP3, a lack of vision and goals is one of the most significant limiting factors for business development and winning projects from big brands.
Strategies to Win Big Clients by Independent Agencies
If you’re still not sure about how to win corporate contracts for your agency, don’t panic. We’ve got some key strategies and tips to help independent agencies win corporate clients! As an agency owner, you should consider these carefully to give your brand the best chance possible.
First, you need to ensure you have a strong case. Corporate clients want to see the value you can offer to their firm. So, you’ll need to be familiar with procurement intricacies and ensure that your firm has a solid portfolio of work on sites such as LinkedIn to demonstrate your abilities and skills to the corporate client.
Furthermore, a common strategy used is the “land and expand” strategy. With this strategy, you can start your client acquisition anywhere; whatever you think is appropriate to get your name out there. This will give you some degree of a foothold in the industry, from which point you can begin to scale up.
Always ensure you are offering customized offers to your corporate clients, too. Show how you can meet the client’s exact requests, and use this time to demonstrate to the decision-maker why your agency can do so more successfully than others. Generic marketing strategies aren’t going to win over corporate agencies; they want a custom-designed solution that will work best for and add value to their brand.
The most important strategy for procuring corporate clients is to understand the firm you’re pitching your services to and demonstrate how your agency can provide superior solutions compared to other network agencies. This is the single most important aspect in winning corporate clients; show you understand their motives, their goals, their products, and what their clients want. This is exactly what the corporate client would expect from their CMOs, and it’s what your agency needs to understand too.
If you can demonstrate all of the above, you’ll be on the right path to procuring your first corporate client in no time. After all, small agencies can provide bespoke, personalized, and flexible marketing services with more care and greater affordability; so, corporate agencies already have an interest in working alongside your agency. The only thing to do is demonstrate why your independent agency is the best choice to promote their brand and add value.
Case Studies: How Independent Agencies Win Corporate Clients
Sometimes, it can be a little difficult to understand how small marketing agencies have succeeded in corporate client or holding company project procurement. Fortunately, considering case studies can be an excellent way to see how other small agencies managed to win their first holding company clients. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at a few procurement case studies to help you find the best solution for your agency.
Sujan Patel of Web Profits on How to Win Corporate Clients
Winning corporate clients can seem like a procurement impossibility for independent agencies, especially if you’ve never worked with a corporate brand before. This was the situation that Sujan Patel of Web Profits found himself in; and so, alongside his fellow agency owners and team, he set out to identify a target market.
Already, the team at Web Profits had gone beyond the self-belief limitations explained by Darren Woolley of TrinityP3 and had taken the first key step toward their first corporate client procurement. As such, at this point, they were able to begin looking for a suitable corporate client, and they isolated their target agency partner to Kabbage, a FinTech company.
In order to demonstrate their skills and how their support could benefit the Kabbage team, Web Profits composed a 12,000-word eBook and a webinar video to help demonstrate the firm’s existing strengths, weaknesses, and potential opportunities.
The Takeaway From the Web Profits Case Study
So, we’ve clarified that Web Profits were successful in gaining their first corporate clients thanks to the efforts they put in. But what are the key lessons that other small agencies can learn from their case study? The key points to take from the Web Profits example are the following:
- Be a specialist in your chosen field. Choose a field that your agency specializes in and target customers from that field. Corporate brands need your independent agency to provide specialist content for them – so, prove that you have the expertise in their field to do so.
- Managing marketing strategies is crucial. For many corporate clients, one of the biggest selling points is going to be whether your team has a consistent marketing strategy for their brand. Indeed, as explained by The Agency Accelerators, corporate clients want to see that you have a solution in place for their brand. Corporate clients often choose small agencies for the tailored, bespoke content solutions they can offer. Hence, showing that you have thought about the client and have a plan for how you can help deliver the solutions they specifically need is a sure way to impress the big brand and give your independent agency the best chance at corporate client procurement.
- Create a suitable approach that’s easy to implement and effective. A notable benefit of working alongside corporate clients is that they already have a certain level of know-how. Indeed, know-how is something that small clients struggle with, and many small customers need a lot of “hand-holding” to help them get the best from your services. By contrast, many corporate clients will have CMOs or a dedicated junior team ready to implement the strategies. Provide solutions that your client can implement easily.
- Be prepared to stray from your established plans for managing marketing. Sometimes, corporate clients will need a slightly different solution from the norm, and things can unexpectedly go wrong. As a result of this, an independent marketing agency should ensure that it is able to provide dynamic marketing solutions for their new corporate client for best results. This is a key benefit for corporate clients to hiring a small agency; so, if you cannot commit to this, you may not have as successful a relationship with your new corporate client as you’d hoped.
Conclusion
Many small marketing agencies assume that they will be unable to work alongside corporate clients. However, this is far from the truth; corporate client procurement by small agencies is actually growing, and now is the ideal time for small agencies to begin looking to big brands such as Amazon and the like for new procurement opportunities.
Indeed, growing numbers of corporate clients are looking to small independent agencies for SEO and social media optimization following the disruption and devastation that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused for large agencies. As such, for independent agencies, there is a huge amount of potential for business development in the digital marketing field, so long as you have the confidence and skills to offer high-value creative work to ensure corporate client procurement is successful.
