Want to grow your agency? Review management is key.
A lot has changed in the business landscape these last few years — and it’s probably impacted your marketing agency’s growth strategy. Going after new clients in high-demand industries or niches you hadn’t considered before is one way to stay competitive. But just as important is how you approach the services your clients need.
86% of digital marketing agencies added at least one new service offering in 2021. That same year, 95% of agencies met their revenue goals and 54% saw year-over-year growth.
No matter who you’re trying to reach, your growth strategy needs to be as cost-effective as possible. Capitalizing on quick, simple wins is a great way for your agency to stay on a growth path without bleeding money.
One quick win is online review management — a service that nearly all your local business clients can benefit from. If you’ve attempted review management in the past, it may not have been as easy, efficient, or profitable as you would’ve liked. However, with today’s automated technology, white-label options, and reporting capabilities, review management has renewed potential to become a powerful revenue generator for your agency.
2 Ways to Sell Review Management and Grow Your Agency
Offering review management services is a win-win for your agency and your clients. Customer reviews are crucial to local business success so review management meets an important need for many types of brands. And it’s a straightforward, no-nonsense way for your agency to earn more revenue or get your foot in the door.
At a practical level, review management can help grow your marketing agency in the following ways:
1. Sell it as a specialty service
With today’s efficient, automated platforms, review management becomes a low-risk, easy-to-understand, easy-to-assess service. Where you may have cobbled together inefficient or overly complex review management methods in the past, with mixed results, the latest technology enables you to truly focus on and specialize in the service. Specialization helps attract new clients who are specifically looking to optimize their reviews and business reputation. Just be sure to find a platform geared for use across multiple brands so you don’t have to set up the service on an individual brand basis.
2. Package it with other services
Clients who want review management are also likely to need advertising, web development, design, and copywriting services — not to mention core marketing services like organic and paid search campaigns and creative campaign development. While review management works great as a standalone service, it’s even better when combined with these other services — which can net your agency greater revenue and meet more of your clients’ needs in the process.
How to Use Review Management to Get New Business
Review management services are a valuable selling point for prospective clients who may have big challenges with their current online review portfolio but have few solutions in place — or simply don’t know where to begin. As you already know, going after prospects — especially when introducing a new service — takes precious time and resources which may already be stretched too thin. But offering review management makes targeting and outreach easy.
Offering review management can be an efficient and effective way of targeting, pitching, and — most importantly — converting prospects. In general, you’ll want to start with clients that would benefit from review management services. These businesses are easily identified as they’ll often have:
- Negative reviews, only a few reviews, or none at all
- Underperforming pay-per-click (PPC) ads
- Poor rankings in local listings
With that in mind, you can use the following guidelines to further narrow your focus and target one or both of the following:
Target Businesses by Industry
Choose an industry or vertical to target, such as restaurants, medical clinics, or law offices, for example. List out the review sites where those prospects can be found. You might look to Yelp, Facebook, and OpenTable for restaurants; Healthgrades, Vitals, and ZocDoc for healthcare and doctors; and Avvo and Lawyers.com for lawyers.
Then, spend time browsing those sites and searching for potential clients with poor review portfolios. Look for portfolios with no reviews, too many negative reviews and/or not enough positive ones, and reviews on some sites but not others (e.g., lots of Avvo and Facebook reviews, but no Google reviews).
Target Business Groups
Create a list of business directories and groups. Groups are ideal because business owners tend to congregate together — where you find one, you find many. These groups also function as a community in which they focus on improving specific areas of their business together, solving specific business problems, or meeting specific needs. Your review management service could be the exact solution many of these companies are looking for.
Groups and directories can be found online or offline, and they can be niche, specialized, or general. Start with Toastmasters, the International Association of Business Communications (IABC), Business Network International (BNI), and local chambers of commerce, meetups, and rotary clubs.
Craft Your Pitch
With a list of potential clients in hand, you can put together an outreach strategy and craft your pitch. Make sure your communications:
- Are simple, clear, and to the point
- Describe the problem(s) the prospect may be experiencing with online reviews
- Include an offer that’s irresistible to them — such as a free checklist, eBook, or other lead magnets, which are key to conversion
- Highlight the quick, measurable results they can expect to see from your offer, using specific, value-driven language
With prospects on board, you can sell them into a comprehensive review management platform that makes online reviews easier and more rewarding while driving business growth.
