It can be difficult to maintain the volume of demand in order to grow and scale your creative agency when so much of your time is spent on projects to grow and scale your client’s business. How can you be sure you would be able to take on more work in order to continue growing and scaling a creative agency?
Creative agencies operate in a highly competitive field with practically no entry barriers. Even if you have longstanding relationships with clients and have produced excellent work, you’re not immune to competition. Unless you’re constantly looking to increase the volume of demand for your creative agency, you could lose out to others.
The solution is to have the right processes and procedures in place that allow you to easily grow as you take on more work. SOPs, project management systems, and tools that support your business are all great things to have in place as you grow and scale your creative agency. Based on Heycollab’s learnings, here’s how you can do it.
Find your niche
The first thing you have to do is identify your space. Clients aren’t looking for generalists but specialists with unique insights and expertise in a particular domain. Instead of saying “we handle everything,” it’s always better to brand yourselves as “the… experts.
It could be NFTs, email marketing, online stores, B2B lead generation, small business marketing, influencer-driven campaigns, etc. Once you find your niche, go all out on understanding and building a compelling knowledge base on it.
Invest in your website
Whether you offer digital marketing services or traditional design services, your website is one of the first things a potential client will notice. For them to be interested in you, your website must interest them.
Your website should be imaginative, professional, and clean. After spending a mere five seconds on the homepage, the visitor should know what you specialize in and importantly, the difference you can deliver.
Build your authority
Before you start an outbound marketing campaign or invest in digital ads, you should build your authority on your niche. This is how you tell prospective clients that you’re the expert they should be talking to if they want results in that specific area.
Write blog posts and articles on leading industry publications, and share content on social media. Be patient with your efforts as it would take some time. But once you gain traction, clients will be approaching you instead of the other way around.
Start blogging
If you’re interested in growing and scaling your agency business, you should take blogging seriously. This is your chance to share your work, insights, and expertise with the world. The key to blogging is to regularly put out work. The quality is important but the frequency is more important.
So, what should you blog about? Industry developments, topics affecting your potential clients, benefits they can derive from a particular technology, etc. To amplify your presence, start blogging on popular websites and publications too.
Build a scalable pitching process
Yes, onboarding and client management are important but they’re irrelevant if you’re not getting new clients. While each client would need a customized strategy and creative renditions, creative operations can be standardized to save time and effort.
Develop a workflow for pitching that empowers units and team members to start work without having to wait for approvals. Make this process lean and efficient and remove administrative chores and bottlenecks.
Outsource all that you can
The biggest advantage of running a creative agency is that you can outsource several functions. You don’t need a full-fledged team or a fancy office. What you need is an efficient and lean system that attracts clients.
If you need to get market research, design, art direction, website development, app development, or social media management services, you can find professionals through third-party platforms. By only doing the core part of your job, you will reduce costs and turnaround time while building your expertise.
Use project management software
The right project management software can streamline your processes and remove inefficiencies. Heycollab is designed to help creative agencies grow and scale their business. With Heycollab, you get:
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- Boards for different clients allow you to separate work according to clients or teams, which will help you see the big picture.
- Copy boards and tasks for different clients with similar projects and tasks. This reduces time and effort and makes the system more responsive.
- Workspaces for different projects and teams to separate tasks and projects by teams and individuals. This is how you evenly distribute the workload.
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In short
.Growing and scaling a creating agency is easy when there’s an agile system with a niche focus, lean processes, and empowering tools.