We held our fifth educational webinar about what it’s like managing an agency during COVID and how to help your clients succeed. In this session, we heard from these experts in the industry:
Catch the video replay of the entire session at the bottom of this post.
Here are the questions and key takeaways that we learned:
Q1 / Give us a little bit more background on your business and how you’ve been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
Monte – Started the business because he saw a hole in the market. Small or medium sized companies did not have access to ad services because they did not have big budgets and were essentially shut out of the market.
David – Focuses on not just digital marketing, social but also SEO, video marketing and PR. Has written several best selling books and eBooks on how to market, with a particular interest and aptitude for video marketing.
Q2/ Did you have to make any changes in order to keep your business running? How about your clients? Have you seen any changes in requests from clients/customers? Have lockdowns or restrictions affected any of your team members that may be in other parts of the world?
Monte – Lots of tactical changes. Imagery has changed. No images with crowds, content and or stock images that include masks and have a different focus. Clearly people recognize imagery “Pre-COVID-19” and post as well. Putting a clear emphasis on the changes in the world and reflecting that. Produced 3 new pieces of content, pushing both organically and on paid platforms so that I am “eating my own dog food”.
For the pandemic, several clients had to completely close down. They were offices or retail business and were not allowed to remain open, even lawyers. Those folks had to take the time to ‘reimagine’ their business. Several of them decided to double down on advertising to bring the revenue in and others paused and are just now able to start opening their doors again. The key here is to shift gears but not give up on them. They clearly need help and this is their livelihood we’re talking about.
David – Working on content that is timely and relevant now, using SEO and some paid to promote this content. Using this time to create processes and train new sales or outreach people. Also preparing webinar and video series to help local companies recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. Due to the structure of the business, the impact has not been as severe, and is actually scaling UP. Many agencies are already ‘remote’ by nature and so making a transition to ‘totally’ remote was easier than other types of businesses. Some of the tools needed were already in place.
Q3/ How have your social posts and customer communications changed to reflect your current state of ‘normal’? What feedback are you seeing from your customers?
Q4/ What tools and software are you using and recommending for your clients? What advice are you giving on how to communicate and even thrive during this time?
Q5/Are there any brands in your space right now that are inspiring you with what they’re posting online, or how they’re handling business?
Q6/ What advice do you have for other agencies to foster success during this time? What advice have you given to your clients?
For clients:
For agencies:
Q&A
For Monte:
Q/ What was the business that got you started in the industry?
A/Big Frog T-Shirt printing. I found that I needed to get into Google Ads and no agency would touch me for less than $5,000 per month – and I was looking to start out at $5,000 for the YEAR. I used my technical background to just ‘figure it out’. In our first year, we spent $6,000 in Google Ads and had $100,000 in attributable revenue.
Q/What types of products are available for businesses to use, what do you recommend as far as a business starting out or trying to stay afloat?
A/Project Management: Trello, Basecamp
Video for Customer Testimonials, using cell phone editing or promo.com for producing content
Fiverr or Task Rabbit for outsourced help
Q/How do you attract customers in this time?
A/Start with a 30 minute strategy session. Reach out to local authorities for webinars, share your knowledge. Help people where they are. It plants a seed when it’s time for them to open back up.
Emailing, reaching out by phone or using sales teams. Finding easy problems we can solve that may lead into more. Examples like:
Use research tools to find out this information or hire someone through Fiverr or other services to do that basic level research and then pass off to a salesperson.
For more information on our panelists, you can find them on the web.
Monte Raynor at Market Screamer:
David Wright, at W3Group Marketing:
Watch the full video here:
To register for our upcoming webinars, click here.