4 ways marketing agencies can win and retain clients: Insights from the experts

Reading Time: 7 minutes

All agencies share one common struggle: finding and retaining clients. 

Sometimes you lose clients for reasons that are clearly beyond your control, while other times you may lay awake at night wondering what you could have done differently.

There’s also the other end of the spectrum, which is onboarding clients at the right pace. There’s a balance to be found between not having enough clients, and not having the adequate processes to support more clients as you grow. 

Omnisend recently hosted a webinar with experts who shared their battle-tested tactics on building a high-performing team, establishing yourself as an indispensable strategist, and auditing client accounts to drive performance and revenue. The result? For your agency to expand without the chaos.

Read on for the four top tips from the experts, and if you’d like to hear the advice firsthand, you can catch up on the webinar below:

1. Structure for growth

With a global workforce, it’s not uncommon for teams to be made of people working remotely from different countries. This can work, but isn’t optimal for scaling. But what’s the alternative, you ask?

According to Nick Shackelford, of Structured, the answer is pods.

The idea is simple: instead of having team members working in silos of their own expertise, they’re grouped in cross-functional pods that form mini-agencies. Each pod is responsible for a shared group of clients and has clear revenue targets.

So instead of having a group of writers together, a separate group of paid media experts, and another group of graphic designers, each pod would combine all three. Every pod is a self-contained unit that handles planning, execution, and optimization of the marketing efforts for its clients.

Nick highlights multiple key benefits:

• Better collaboration
• Faster delivery
• Stronger client ownership
• Improved client retention

The reason this is so powerful for client retention is that in addition to the service improvements, clients feel well taken care of when there’s a cross-functional team that understands their business holistically and has the expertise and flexibility to make marketing decisions quickly.

And because each pod has autonomy, leadership can remove themselves from daily micromanagement to focus on other areas of the business, like scaling services and reducing bottlenecks.

2. Become the strategist your clients dream of

Client retention isn’t solely about great results, nor is it solely about having a good relationship. Both of those things matter, but you can go much further — and reap bigger rewards.

Sydney McCarthy, the manager of Omnisend’s Account Expert team, explains that you can take specific steps that elevate you from a service provider to an indispensable strategic partner. In other words, think about offering value earlier than delivery and the bottom line. Here are Sydney’s three top tips:

Think like a Account Expert

An account expert is a dedicated resource who helps clients proactively. That means instead of waiting for the client to ask a question about a problem, the account experts guides the client from the outset. They act as consultants, aligning strategies with business goals, demonstrating how to get the most out of their marketing, and ultimately contributing to their growth in a hands-on way.

As an extension of this, try to pre-empt what a client may eventually ask for. Are the performance metrics on the low side? Could their email and SMS strategy be stronger? Are there any tactics not being utilized? Proactively introduce these points to your client where possible. Not only will it help their bottom line, but it also positions you as an expert who’s crucial to their ongoing success. 

Sydney also recommends setting the tone early, with an effective onboarding process followed by quarterly business reviews to discuss opportunities, updates, and goal alignment.

Make results tangible

We’ve all heard of “death by Powerpoint” — and we all want to avoid it. That includes your clients.

Instead of speaking in marketing terms and bombarding your clients with graphs and data, zoom out and ask yourself not only what they want to see, but why they want to see it. This helps you distill the information to the important essence.

What is the story inside the data? What are the wins, the issues, and the impact of campaigns on tangible business outcomes like revenue and retention? 

Build relationships, not reports

Clients stay with agencies they trust. If you want your clients to stay with you for the long term, you need to earn trust and respect. That means consistent and honest communication, leading when possible and adapting when necessary. 

Loyalty is earned over a period of time and comes from a potent cocktail of performance and respect — there are no shortcuts here!

3. Audit email & SMS: Agency best practices

Next comes wisdom from the email marketing legends and co-hosts of the Send It podcast, Jimmy Kim and Chase Dimond.

In their experience, an agency that doesn’t offer audits is leaving money on the table. These audits are also relevant to the advice given by Sydney in the previous section, because they can help to build credibility with your clients and prospects. 

To make the most effective audits, make sure to start with outcomes, not with tactics. 

Here is the framework suggested by Jimmy and Chase:

Platform and technical setup

Identify the email and SMS marketing platform(s) the company is using, check that any integrations are set up and working correctly, and validate the technical setup (e.g., SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.). For example, it isn’t uncommon for brands to have multiple apps that either don’t talk at all or have been disconnected, resulting in siloed data and inconsistent messaging.

Strategy and content review

Look at how often campaigns are being sent, their messaging cadence, the mix of promotional vs. relationship-building messaging, and the consistency in brand voice. Check if the brand is using segments, and using them appropriately. Also consider if there is a clear differentiation between email and SMS use cases.

Attribution and performance analysis

Analyze the revenue attribution percentage, flow to campaign revenue ratio (ideally close to 50:50), revenue per recipient (RPR), open and click rates, and conversion performance. Also consider demographics when reviewing the revenue performance of the channels — for example, if their audience skews older then it may not be a surprise if SMS isn’t driving much revenue. On the other hand, if SMS is underperforming and their audience is 18-25-year-olds, this could signal the SMS strategy needs improving.

Deliverability assessment

Look at inbox placement rates at the top-level domain (TLD) level, and compare open rates with industry benchmarks. Monitor spam complaint rates, but don’t only rely on the rates given by the ESP. Instead, set up accounts with Google Postmaster and Yahoo Sender Hub for a better understanding of the data. Finally, examine the client’s bounce rates and overall list hygiene. 

Audience and list health 

What is the growth rate of the audience list, and what are the main sources driving this growth? The next question is how do you improve this e.g., optimizing your popups to convert more, embedding email collection forms in blog posts and high traffic pages, or leveraging back-in-stock reminders. At this stage, also consider the sophistication of audience segmentation, how to re-engage inactive subscribers, and the purchase behavior of the audience. For example, creating a VIP segment of people who almost always purchase when they receive a campaign. 

Flow and automation review

How effective is the welcome sequence? Is the abandoned cart email successfully recovering lost sales? Is the post-purchase journey working to turn new customers into repeat buyers? Finally, how effective is the win-back campaign when a customer starts to become less engaged? From here, you can get more advanced, such as the sophistication of the workflow, how much personalization is included in the messaging, as well as A/B testing and trigger timing optimization.

Campaign performance analysis

Spend time to understand how the brand currently does campaigns. Do they have a campaign calendar? Are they using segmentation? If they are running tests, are they reviewing the results and implementing changes? How are the subject lines and content performing, e.g., do they know if their audience prefers serious or funny subject lines? By gathering this information during the year, it’s on-hand during the busy seasons like Black Friday, when you can use it for incredible results. 

Segmentation strategy assessment

Review the current segmentation approach: is the brand doing segmentation at all? Are purchase behavior, engagement, product preferences and demographics being considered? How sophisticated is the segmentation?

When it comes to delivering this audit, remember that nobody wants to be told they’re doing something wrong. So start with what’s working well, and contextualize findings against industry standards to demonstrate where the opportunities are. Chase and Jimmy also recommend using clear visuals to show complex metrics to keep the audit accessible, and map out a framework that helps clients understand what to tackle first.

4. Scale with systems

Last but certainly not least, Jesse Kay from Vyber Media explains the importance of having processes in place before onboarding lots of new clients. The question Jesse asks is, could the agency handle it if growth doubled? If the answer is no, he knows there needs to be a focus on improving systems and resources.

This doesn’t simply mean hiring new people. In fact, without appropriate infrastructure in place, an expanding headcount can cause chaos, not to mention damage your profits. Instead, the infrastructure should come before new people.

Ask questions like:

• Is there a repeatable onboarding process?
• Are workflows and expectations documented?
• Could somebody step into a role and know exactly what to do?

If the answer to any of these is “no” then it’s clear a system is needed.

Jesse explains that standard operating procedures (SOPs) are a powerful weapon, because they’re documented processes that anyone can follow, making delegation and employee onboarding far simpler and more effective.

To create his SOPs, Jesse starts by recording a Loom video that provides a walkthrough of a task or process. This video is then given to ChatGPT with a custom prompt to generate a step-by-step SOP using the information from the video. Both assets are saved in a central location to be used for onboarding, training, or quality assurance. 

Jesse has also built systems for communication with existing clients. A firm believer that you can’t over-communicate but can definitely under-communicate, he has established the following:

• Weekly KPI check-ins with every client
• Shared Slack channels for real-time updates
• Proactive outreach on relevant trends or challenges
• Regular syncs with client-side teams or other agencies

Finally, Jesse leverages a lot of automation, including using AI to analyze subject line performance, summarize campaign testing data, and to help with making strategic creative decisions based on historical performance. 

Wrap up

Being an effective marketing agency isn’t necessarily about doing more, but about doing the right things consistently and optimizing along the way. 

There’s a reason why these experts shared multiple tips, and that’s because there isn’t one magic solution that’s standing in your way. Instead, there are things to consider at every step: when you’re finding clients, servicing existing clients, and retaining them.

From team structure to adding value, and audits to communication, these strategies offer a clear template for agencies to deepen client relationships and, crucially, provide better results.

If you’re ready to scale with a partner who understands agency growth, join Omnisend’s Partner Program to access 125,000+ brands as well as unlock exclusive tools, training, and revenue opportunities.