Agencies know how to market, but they often forget to do the same with their own company. It’s imperative that agencies remember to market themselves; otherwise how will they get more clients and continue to be successful? While this seems like an easy thing to, it can be difficult to set aside time for these sorts of tasks.
We’ve asked 14 Forbes Agency Council experts to share their best tips for how agencies can market and promote themselves. See their suggestions below.
Members share how agencies can better promote themselves.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Make Yourself A Client
It’s incredibly challenging to prioritize “unpaid” work over paid work. However, it’s imperative to keep marketing yourself or there won’t be any more paid work! One of the best ways we’ve achieved this is by making ourselves a client. Schedule meetings with team members to brainstorm and don’t reschedule them. Then, schedule the work in the weekly schedule along with all other paid projects. – Chelimar Miranda, iHealthSpot
2. Be Authentic With Your Content
Successful agencies are those that build fantastic client relationships, and those can only be built when your team is authentically themselves with each interaction. When creating marketing material, give consideration to whether the tone sounds phony. If it does, that’s a good sign that it’s not representative of you. – Catherine Seeds, Ketner Group Communications
3. Self-Promote
Never skip an opportunity to self-promote. If you are presented with an opportunity to be part of a reputable blog, podcast, interview, article or news story, take it. The value of your brand is reliant on the perception of it. Positive perception is built through repeated strong performance, referral and, ultimately, visibility. Do good work and take every chance to get your name out there. – Lucas Miller, Moment Creative
4. Empower Your Employees
One of the most underutilized resources at many agencies is its employed media — the people. Give your agency the tools and encourage them to share what they love about the agency, the city/cities you operate in, their work, etc. Empower them to use social media, blogs, podcasts and industry events to organically spread the word about who you are and what you stand for. – Blair Brady, WITH/agency
5. Be Consistent
One of the problems we had early on is we weren’t consistent. It is consistency and persistence that pays off long term when promoting your agency. Make it a priority to be one of your own clients, but you have to keep sharing the message. That is where the magic happens over the long-term. – Justin Christianson, Conversion Fanatics
6. Remember You’re A Brand, Too
We sometimes are so focused on client work that we forget to take care of our own branding, but agencies are brands, too. They should have the same branding and communications standards that their clients do. Staff should understand the agency’s core value proposition, its mission, reason for being and differentiation. The same rules for consistently communicating those elements apply, as well. – Fiona Bruder, George P. Johnson (GPJ) Experience Marketing
7. Focus On In-Person Networking
When your agency becomes successful, you start relying on organic lead generation and forget to promote your agency. This comes up often at cocktail parties and social engagements when people simply ask, “What do you do?” One tip is to always have an exciting and non-salesy answer to that question. So many people are looking for quality marketing nowadays. – T. Maxwell, eMaximize
8. Show Who You Are
It’s great to showcase your work, but companies also like to get a feeling of the company’s culture as well. Use your social pages to not only promote work being done but also the team behind all of that effort. Put faces to your agency so that others can see the human side of the company and who they may be working with if they sign with you. – Rebecca Kowalewicz, Clearbridge Branding Agency
9. Promote Your Clients
The best way to promote your own company is to promote your clients. If you’re in PR or strategic communications, for example, don’t talk about how awesome you are. Talk about a major client win that your services helped achieve. Not only does it follow the axiom of “share credit, shoulder blame” that good people appreciate in all walks of life, it also demonstrates real results, not platitudes. – Brian Reisinger, Platform Communications
10. Leverage Testimonials
Use client case studies, testimonials and successes as a means of marketing yourself. As a professional services agency, the best way to build a marketing strategy is by tethering it to your clients’ achievements in smart ways. – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications
11. Test Ideas On Yourself First
Your internal marketing needs a team just like any other client. Agencies need to remember that they are setting their own example, and they will be their longest-running, most important client. They must be willing to test the latest and greatest strategies on themselves first and foremost. Treat your company just as you would any other paying client — with care. – Bernard May, National Positions
12. Showcase Your Culture
Besides an agency’s accolades or awards, showcasing the company culture and the strength of its employees helps give the agency a living identity. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, HAWTHORNE LLC
13. Practice What You Preach
You can make the most amazing, dynamic content for your clients, you can be the best of the best, but if you don’t practice what you preach, it can hurt you. Audiences reflect on your content as recommendations. If you produce and display strategies and tactics for your clients that you aren’t in some way using for yourself, why would they trust it? To truly resonate, you need to lead by example. – Kirk Westwood, Glass River Media
14. Share Case Studies
You get great results for your clients, so be sure to capture those stories — especially when supported by outcomes such as increased share of voice, shorter sales cycles and increased customers — as case studies. You can add these client success stories to you agency proposals and presentations, capture them on video during in-person meetings, post on your website and promote on social media. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
