Organic business growth is revenue growth that comes from your existing client base. It can come in the form of optimization of your current mandate, ongoing maintenance (website, always-on content, etc.) or by proactively offering an entirely new service. However, the key to successful organic business growth is not selling to your clients, it’s earning their trust.
Know the basics
Organic growth comes from putting a client’s business first and making sure their needs and challenges are front and centre in all your decision-making. It should never be approached from a place of needing to sell more of your agency’s offering but instead, should stem from a desire to do what’s best for your client’s business.
You can’t go down this road unless you truly understand a client’s business. To do that, there are some important questions you’ll need to explore:
1. How does your client make money (do they sell products, services, SaaS, etc.?)?
2. Who are their priority audiences and do you fully understand their users’/customers’ needs?
3. What is your client’s business landscape and what are their competitors up to?
Conducting a good ol’ SWOT analysis is extremely helpful in getting a 30,000 foot view of an industry. You have to step back and take in the whole picture to see the dots you’d otherwise have no way of connecting.
4. What are their business objectives?
5. What are their biggest barriers to, or challenges in, meeting those objectives?
Armed with answers to these questions, you’ll better understand your client’s business. You’ll be better equipped to offer informed, strategic recommendations aimed at helping them overcome a business challenge or spur growth. The by-product for your agency? Incremental revenue.
Know the details
You have to earn your right to bring a little something extra to the table. After all, your clients can easily spot when you’re trying to sell them something for the sake of selling. They can smell it and it smells bad! So instead of selling your solution, solve their problem.
To do that, you should :
1. Know your key clients really well. As people.
What motivates your client’s decision-making? How can you help make their day-to-day life easier? How can you make them look good to their boss? What are the biggest challenges they face in their role?
Remember, your clients are people. If you want to develop trust and be seen as an extension of their marketing team – an actual partner – make sure you communicate with them on a personal level.
Understand the challenges they face and empathize with them. This is key for client-service professionals because they are in a position to develop truly authentic relationships with clients given the access and engagement they have. Sometimes being a compassionate friend goes a long way.
Does your client have a big presentation coming up? If so, can you help by adding your thought leadership? Do you have a POV on the latest trends in UX, web design, or email communications? Share your expertise and resourcefulness with them. Your clients will remember you the next time a big project comes up or even long after they’ve moved on to another organization.
2. Read the room
Knowing when to pitch is just as important as knowing what to pitch. If a client is in the final stretch of a launch, if they’re prepping for the holiday rush, or if they’re in PR crisis mode, hit the brakes. Pitching work at times like these will either be forgotten by the end of the meeting or, worse, make you – and by extension, your product – seen as an annoyance or a sign that you don’t know their business as well as you think.
This delicate time balance comes down to knowing your clients – as clients and as people. Knowing their business cycle will save you from pitching a holiday idea in November. Knowing their child is having a rough time at school or their parent isn’t well will tell you to leave them to focus on themselves instead of you.
3. Make their business opportunities yours
Know the industry in which your clients operate. Know your client’s business model. Stay up to date on the relevant industry news.
What is at the core of their business challenges? Do you have a proactive idea on how to help? For example, are they missing the mark with Gen Zs, and you happen to know why (perhaps because you’re a Gen Zer)? Do you think that their website is not doing the job, that it’s missing content, not written well, or poorly designed?
Find where they’re tripping up and do what you can to smooth the road. When you bring up opportunities that stem from your desire to solve their problems, they will have a hard time saying no.
4. Think about who you’re designing for
Knowing your client is one thing; knowing who they’re marketing to is quite another. Know the who and you can build the RIGHT solution, not just the one you think is right.
Where are the gaps in the current creative solution? How can the experience (or whatever you are building) be enhanced? Knowing the end user really well comes into play here. Make recommendations that are rooted in user insight.
Some clients have a hard time seeing certain opportunities until they are validated by user research and testing and you can help there. Is the content written clearly for their audience? Are there specific gaps in the content that end users need filled?
5. Think about the user journey
Awareness doesn’t impact the bottom line the way conversion does so look at the entire journey, from OOH to online checkout.
Don’t just think about whether your idea is smart and engaging. Think about the additional (and perhaps more important) stages further down the funnel.
Is there opportunity for your performance + digital team to drive conversion through targeted ads, social posts and custom landing pages? What about CRM opportunities and lead nurturing? What are you doing to stay engaged with the customer post purchase? What is your plan to convert a customer to an advocate?
The more you show your client that you’re thinking through and about these stages, the more likely they are to engage you when it comes to optimizing different parts of their journey. That’s when organic growth goes from bringing a solution to your client to your client bringing a new challenge to you.
6. Think about ongoing optimization
Our work is never done. You would never launch a website or provide one-time SEO and say, ”Here you go, client. Good luck!”
Think about further optimization, developing always-on content, seasonal campaigns, accessibility enhancements, web performance enhancements, ongoing SEO blog content, analytics reporting, or just good ol’ maintenance and keeping the lights on.
7. Know your agency’s offering well
This should be a no-brainer. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should know whether the agency can serve the client further if the opportunity arises and who the agency expert is to bring into the conversation. Understand what skills and services your agency offers so you can bring the right individuals into the ‘room’ with clients at the right time.
8. Solve. Don’t sell.
Ultimately, it comes down to establishing trust and knowing your client’s business, knowing their industry and knowing them as people. Know your agency’s offering well enough to make the right connections and you’ll help deliver solutions.
Remember, it isn’t about selling, it’s about solving. Sell and they can say no. Solve and you’re way more likely to get a yes.
Date Published: June 20, 2022
Author: Trent Thompson and Ivana Musich