How can you prove that you are a powerful email marketing agency? What can you do to get hired by big companies and international brands more often? How can you encourage clients to choose you from the results that Google prompts them with?
What is really crucial for your potential clients
Guess you’ve already seen this data. Statista states that global email marketing revenue is expected to grow to $17.9 billion by 2027. Litmus provides data showing that, on average, 1.5 billion email opens were recorded monthly in 2022. That’s 490 million more email opens than for the 2021 average.
Make every effort to take a big bite out of this pie. Here are eleven key traits businesses look for when choosing an email marketing agency. If you show each of them in the best light at the first meeting, chances are you will gain a client.
1. Flawless reputation and social proof
If potential clients come to you because someone recommended your agency or they read convincing reviews on your site and third-party review sites, that’s half the battle. Guest posts, partnerships with ESPs, and automation platforms also help build a reputation.
Tip: Make sure that new reviews appear regularly in all sources—ideally, at least once every three to four months. If reviews haven’t appeared for more than a year, it’s suspicious.
Notice how the agency in the example shows the rating, the review on the third-party site, and the list of clients simultaneously.
(Source: FlowCandy)
2. Memorable portfolio and case studies
Show projects you’ve worked on before. Tell potential clients about the challenges you faced and how you solved them. Show what kind of work you’ve done for different companies. Add a pool of key clients to the website to show that you are in this business for the long haul.
Tip: Collect cases from project to project. You should always have strong examples for different industries at your fingertips.
Look at this great example of a case study that examines an email marketing campaign with an interesting challenge and specific results. The same agency, the Good Marketer, has a lot of other cases on its website, too.
(Source: The Good Marketer)
3. High email quality
Be prepared to show examples of emails your agency has worked on.
Strong agencies:
- pay attention to design and texts because well-thought-out beautiful designs increase the effectiveness of marketing strategies, encouraging visitors to interact with content;
- create accessible emails, as they show brands care about subscribers with different abilities;
- create brand-consistent emails that become part of the brand’s overall marketing strategy using tools such as brand guidelines and brand assets;
- use modern technologies in email newsletters, creating, for example, AMP emails with image carousels, accordions, open forms, or gamification;
- conduct A/B testing of different send parameters to find the best approach for the brand.
Show that you are great at creating emails to remove any doubt that you can handle the specifics of the brand.
Tip: When preparing your agency’s presentation for a meeting, prepare sample emails for that brand immediately.
(Source: SmartMail)
4. Expertise in tools for creating and sending emails
It’s important for any business to be sure that it works with professionals who know all the industry tools at the expert level.
Show that you have a pool of industry-proven tools for every email marketing task, including:
- a drag-n-drop and HTML email builder, such as Stripo, to create memorable emails and save time;
- a proven ESP or automation platforms such as MailChimp and GetResponse, or proprietary software;
- tools to increase email deliverability and avoid spam filters like MailTester and Folderly;
- a system for setting tasks and collecting precise analytics.
Tip: Show your deep expertise in all email marketing tools. You should have experience with various email platforms and client strategies based on business size, marketing team, and goals.
See how full-service email marketing agency InboxArmy shows that it is an expert in digital marketing tools and services.
(Source: InboxArmy)
5. Precise positioning and niche specialization
Consider your positioning. Decide which sector you work in—complex digital marketing services, all email marketing services, or perhaps just some narrow niche in the email marketing sphere.
Brands rarely need just email marketing. They usually require a full range of digital marketing services: branding, content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, B2B demand generation, and all the other elements in the digital marketing mix. And you can be the one who handles everything for the business simultaneously.
However, niching can also be a successful strategy. Sometimes clients want to work with someone who doesn’t just offer email marketing strategies for everyone but works specifically with eCommerce, for example. By choosing a narrow specialization, you will be able to strengthen each of the previous points, as you can be as specific as possible in examples, results, and promises.
Tip: Remember that, regardless of positioning, all companies expect you to create not only beautiful emails but also to offer an email marketing strategy and new ideas for email campaigns.
Look at a niche specialization example here:
(Source: Flowium)
6. Results of achieving key performance indicators
It is essential to show the results you have achieved in client projects. Potential clients of an email marketing agency may expect to see indicators of successful campaigns, such as email open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, or average check.
If a company has already tried to start email marketing or has already worked with someone, it knows exactly what results it wants.
Tip: Therefore, before showing the average results of your work or key performance indicators (KPIs) of specific cases, ensure they aren’t below the industry average.
For example, you can use this source:
(Source: Campaign Monitor)
And here’s an example of how you can visually show results:
(Source: The Good Marketing Agency)
7. Clear analytics and reports
The aim for a brand at any level is to get high results for the company and for these results to be trackable by the company’s marketer at any time and in an understandable format. Companies always want to be able to work with analytics and build further strategies based on it.
So try to show what the analytics will look like when a company is working with you. How will you track KPIs? How will you visualize them?
Tip: Give customers confidence that they can access all their data at any time and understand how things are going.
8. Data security
You may not even be asked about it, but companies will certainly expect this information. Data security is now one of the key priorities when choosing an email marketing agency.
Brands understand the value of the information they provide to an agency. And the data requires special care. Therefore, be sure to talk on your site and at the initial meeting about your strict data security policy:
- who can access the data;
- how long information is stored in the agency;
- what happens when someone leaves the company.
Tip: Place a data security label at all essential contact points with potential clients.
9. Reasonable price and transparent payments
Explain what is included in the cost of your services and how it is calculated. It should be clear to potential clients how reasonable your price is reasonable and how it fits their budget.
Show the financial benefits of working with you compared to the in-house marketing department in the company. You also need to show why you are more reliable than freelancers.
Put all the information on the pricing page so that potential customers can immediately understand the costs of your services.
Tip: Avoid hidden fees—don’t risk your reputation.
10. Optimization of the leading resources: Time and money
Show that you take care of client resources at all stages of cooperation—from completing a task to its implementation. You can bill for many hours of work by the designer and content managers, or you can use ready-made templates or content modules like those available in the Stripo editor. Which option do you think the client will like better?
Tip: If your work can be made easier and faster with tools, use them. Doing so will leave you more resources for coming up with strong email marketing strategies.
(Source: Rejoiner)
11. Premium service
What brands typically expect from a premium service:
- 24/7 support—even if for an additional fee;
- dedicated specialists who are ready to thoroughly understand a client’s task and offer the best solution;
- multilingualism at the level of service and work on emails, allowing easy communication with clients and subscribers from all over the world in their native languages;
- a customized approach—be ready to build a workflow that fits the needs of the brand, offer solutions that fit seamlessly into a company’s workflow, and simplify the work for everyone involved in the process.
Tip: Show how exactly you can provide the best service as a digital marketing company and do it as specifically as possible.
(Source: SmartMail)
Wrapping Up
While some marketing companies focus solely on user acquisition, lead generation, or beautiful design, they are not the best. Great agencies understand that the ultimate goal of any marketing initiative is to drive business growth, user engagement, and revenue.
Show that you care about the success of the brand first and foremost, not money and that you are ready to work as part of a company’s team on all tasks related to email marketing to reach this goal.
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