How to Scale Your Agency with Productized Marketing Services written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
The best thing you can do right now to scale your agency is to productized marketing services.
Struggling to scale your strategic marketing agency? Working tirelessly on both big and small projects but feeling like your earnings don’t match your effort? This frustration is shared by many, where the hours poured into work seem to overshadow the financial return. I navigated a similar hurdle when I first started my strategic marketing agency, Duct Tape Marketing, working relentlessly but watching my earnings plateau. It was at that moment I understood things couldn’t stay the same.
Over 20 years ago, I pivoted from tailoring bespoke, effort-heavy marketing solutions that left me exhausted and my clients less than impressed to embracing a transformative strategy: productized offerings. productized marketing services. This strategy was a game-changer, allowing my agency to work smarter, not harder, and significantly increasing our revenue year after year.
Get a complete fractional CMO system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth.
Table Of Contents:
- The Essence of Productized Services in Marketing
- Crafting Your Productized Marketing Service Offerings
- More on the Benefits of Productizing Your Marketing Services
- Marketing Your Productized Services Effectively
The Essence of Productized Services in Marketing
Productized marketing services are fixed, repeatable offerings; most agencies offer services tailored to each clients’ unique needs. This is not to say that each client is not unique and should not be treated as such. But in the very beginning of an agency-client relationship there are certain things that every client needs and that is what can be productized.
The idea of productizing marketing service based business goes beyond marketing and can really be applied to almost any service-based industry.
Defining Productized Marketing Services
In marketing, productizing means turning your offerings into standardized packages. Like products on a shelf, these services have fixed scopes and price tags. Think Facebook ads or web design but sold like off-the-rack suits: they fit well enough for most businesses without needing tailor-made solutions.
This business model takes what typically might be custom work—say designing a website—and distills it down into something more tangible: “Website Design Package A includes up to 5 pages with basic SEO optimization.” It makes buying decisions easier because clients know exactly what they’re getting and at what cost—a powerful lure for small businesses watching every penny.
Benefits of Productizing Your Agency’s Services
If you’ve ever faced cash flow headaches at month-end or juggled multiple client expectations simultaneously, standardization could be your ticket to scalability heaven. By defining precise deliverables upfront—whether it’s logo design or web development—you let potential clients know exactly what they’re getting without any guesswork involved.
Productizing also allows agency owners to save time focusing on crafting high-quality content rather than being bogged down by project management intricacies every step along the way. You get more space to stay focused on market trends while fostering long-term relationships through reliable delivery mechanisms; ultimately leading not just revenue growth but also customer satisfaction due largely thanks in part because user experiences have been made so much better.
Crafting Your Productized Marketing Service Offerings
Turning your marketing agency’s services into well-oiled machines starts with a focus on productization. Creating a consistent experience for your customers through productizing is the key to providing an efficient and expert service.
Identifying Your Target Market
Before anything else, zeroing in on who will love your service is key. You want to aim for that sweet spot where 20% of customers bring in most business benefits—your ideal target market. Look at your data trends; they don’t lie. They tell tales of who your best clients and who’s willing to pay for the value you provide.
Once you have identified the top percent then dig deeper. You need to understand their pain points better than they do themselves because let’s face it, everyone loves someone who gets them.
Structuring Your Service Packages – Standardize
The art here lies not just in creating attractive bundles but ensuring each one has clear deliverables—a transparent blueprint clients can trust. With clarity comes confidence from both sides: agencies promise tangible results while clients grasp exactly what they’re investing in.
Pricing structures mustn’t be a puzzle either; transparency wins races here too. By communicating pricing models early, clearly, and often you can start to earn trust, something that is hard to do in the agency world.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Consistency
SOPs aren’t glamorous—but boy do they pack a punch when delivering consistent customer experiences. This step will take time. Even if it took 3 weeks, it would likely be the most beneficial 3 weeks you spent on one thing for you agency.
This structured approach helps teams stay focused so time isn’t wasted reinventing wheels but rather polishing those already rolling smoothly along tracks paved by streamlined processes designed specifically around efficiency—and ultimately leading towards predictable outcomes loved by all parties involved.
These SOPs are what will allow you to scale, to teach others how to run your processes almost as well as you would. This is what will allow you to start working on your agency instead of in it.
Key Takeaway: Turn your agency’s services into productized services, offering the same excellence every time—like a trusted cup of coffee.
Nail down who really digs your service. Use data to uncover their pain points and craft packages that hit home – For Them, Not You.
Create clear, confidence-boosting service bundles with straightforward pricing. And finally experience a trusted client relationship.
SOPs are your secret sauce for delivering spot-on customer experiences consistently—it’s all about precision and predictability.
More on the Benefits of Productizing Your Marketing Services
It’s about transforming those time-sucking, custom, often unpredictable service offerings into neatly packaged, expert solutions that clients can trust. Because you have done it before you know what the results will be. Your services are proven and not a test.
Streamlining Sales and Operations
By standardizing your offerings with productized services, you create a smooth-running machine. Your client knows the exact service that they will get with clear package outlines and pricing and you know exactly how to deliver that to them and how much time it will take.
Your team members will thank you as well because when they have clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) to follow, it takes away guesswork and streamlines training. And if there’s one thing employees appreciate, it’s knowing exactly what needs to be done without having to decode cryptic instructions every day.
Boosting Profit Margins
Once you’ve nailed down an efficient delivery method for your productized service—the kind that lets customers know precisely what they’re getting—you can actually charge more for them. Yes indeed. Because consistency breeds quality which justifies premium pricing all day long.
This model also helps keep cash flow steady since recurring services mean predictable monthly income streams—it’s like subscription models in retail but without needing fancy box packaging or catchy jingles.
Enhancing Customer Value Proposition
Last but certainly not least is how this approach elevates customer experience—a critical factor considering today’s consumer savviness where poor user experiences never go unnoticed (or so social media would have us believe). When clients understand exactly what they’ll get from each package offer—they’re happier because transparency builds trust.
The cherry on top? They start seeing results quicker thanks again to those standardized processes which make delivering high-quality work efficiently.
Communicating Value Effectively
Sell not just what it is but what it solves; paint a picture where their life gets easier because of your packaged solution—and yes, we mean literally spell out those benefits so they know exactly what they’re signing up for.
- Your Facebook ads management might save 10 hours per week—that’s binge-watching two seasons of “The Office” worth of time saved.
- Show them how speed optimization means no more spinning wheels on their website—which translates into visitors sticking around longer than a confused squirrel on a busy street.
Remember though—no amount of persuasive chatter will stick if you don’t deliver promised results. That said, once people see others singing praises about how much easier life is post-adoption (cue testimonials.), trust me—they’ll line up faster than kids at an ice cream truck.
Examples of Productized Marketing Services
- Social Media Management: Create tiered packages for managing different aspects of social media. These could range from basic content creation and scheduling to comprehensive management, including strategy development, analytics, and engagement across multiple platforms. Here is an example of Lyfe’s social media management’s packaged service.
SEO Optimization: Develop bundles tailored for different levels of SEO needs. Services could include keyword research, on-page optimization, technical SEO audits, content strategy for SEO, and backlink building strategies. - Content Creation: Offer monthly subscription plans for creating various types of content. Depending on the package, this could include blog posts, articles, video scripts, and infographics, with different volumes and frequencies of content production.
- Email Marketing: Provide structured packages for designing and managing email marketing campaigns. This can include newsletter design, list segmentation, campaign automation, and performance analysis to optimize engagement and conversions.
- Marketing Strategy and Consulting Packages: My personal favorite and expertise. Offer a comprehensive package that includes market analysis, strategy development, and implementation guidance. This could involve competitor analysis, identifying target demographics, developing marketing strategies tailored to the client’s business, and providing ongoing consulting services for strategy refinement and execution. At Duct Tape Marketing we offer this in just one inclusive and expertly crafted package through our Fractional CMO+ System.
Marketing Your Productized Services Effectively
Give Your Productized Service a Name
Name or brand your service to help sell it. For example, I created Strategy First, which is the name for my marketing system that I offer to clients. That itself became it’s own brand. I created materials, elements, and graphics just for Strategy First. This showed my clients exactly what they were going to get and familiarize themselves with the concept.
Leveraging Social Media and Content Creation
According to a survey by Databox 47% of agencies are not happy with their self-marketing when compared to their competitors. Social media isn’t just for cat videos anymore—it’s a megaphone for your marketing message. Educate your audience on the problems that this productized approach solves for them and use social media to amplify that message. Craft high-quality content around pain points, showing them there’s light at the end of their problem-riddled tunnel through your well-defined service packages.
Field Testing and Refinement
Rome wasn’t built in a day—and neither will perfect productized service models be conjured up overnight either. Once you’ve created some stellar packages based on your best-selling services it’s showtime: field testing with actual paying customers who’ll give honest feedback. This stage is crucial since customer insights help tweak those initial assumptions made during development.
Key Takeaway: Market your productized services: Give your productized service a brand, name and voice.
Build trust through content. Use social media for more than just posts; tell stories that resonate with your audience’s challenges and spotlight how your services are their light at the end of the tunnel.
Leverage SEO to make sure those searching for what you offer find you first—optimize content, clarify deliverables, and use internal linking to drive conversions.
Test & refine.
Embrace productized marketing services, and you transform chaos into clarity. Embrace standardization, and you give your clients the gift of certainty. Embrace scalability, and watch your business grow.
Finding that sweet spot in pricing models takes finesse but gets you closer to predictable cash flow and agency expansion. Crafting these services means tuning into your top clients, taking the time to standardize, and locking down SOPs—because consistency is king.
Your marketing strategy and expert-level productized services should make you the trusted advisor in your clients eyes. Ultimately, enhancing customer experience through clear deliverables that secure trust and those long-term relationships crucial for sustained success for any strategic marketing agency.
Free up your time, increase ROI, and finally learn how to scale by licensing a complete fractional CMO+ system for your marketing agency. We have helped 1000s of agencies scale and clients soar with this proven marketing system, check it out.
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