This article is from our Agency Playbook—a collection of guides created to help local SEO agencies grow and succeed. It is chapter six of ‘Part One: Pitching and Onboarding’.

It’s exciting when a new lead comes into a marketing agency! The excitement makes it tempting to dive in right away and brainstorm the many ways you can help. However, without understanding a lead’s specific goals, any solutions you come up with are based on assumptions. Even after your initial sales call with an exciting new prospect, most of what you’ve written down will still be assumptions—yours and theirs. 

A prospect will answer your questions to the best of their ability, but they may be clouded by their own emotional investment in the project or by misleading data and reporting from a current marketing vendor. Until you get a good look behind the scenes, you have no business making recommendations or assigning budgets to projects. 

This guide teaches you how to scope and execute a paid (yes, you should be paid for this work) discovery period for new clients. You’ll learn how to get buy-in, structure discovery projects, frame further phases, and build ongoing partnerships. You’ll walk away ready to communicate project needs and constraints more clearly, and you will be more confident in the plans and budgets you present to prospects and clients.

What is discovery work, and why is it key for marketing agencies?

Discovery work started in agile software development and UX so teams could understand and define a project before jumping head-first into development. The purpose of this work was to: 

• Address uncertainty
• Support cross-functional collaboration
• Explore iteratively
• Validate or disprove assumptions
• Define a clear roadmap

Five years ago at Kick Point, we had an inkling that we were not approaching digital marketing and website design proposals in a sustainable way. We either put together proposals based totally on best guesses of what a client would need (and then had to make big pivots down the road), or we would do unpaid exploratory work before putting the proposal together. That free exploratory work took valuable time and energy.

We first started experimenting with a paid discovery phase after one of our team members enrolled in digital project management training through the project management consultancy Louder Than Ten. 

Louder Than Ten championed the idea that discovery should not be a phase within an already fully budgeted and scoped project. It should be a completely separate project with its own budget, accounting for the expertise and effort that goes into uncovering complex problems and determining the right path forward.

For us, discovery for marketing and website projects came from a desire to dedicate time to exploring and understanding before committing to executing certain tactics or agreeing to rigid budget constraints. Of course, we’ve always had time to figure out what our prospects need; we just hadn’t historically been compensated for that time. 

Without discovery work, agencies jump right into prescribing and executing before researching and planning. This leads to unclear expectations and misunderstandings about the project scope, causing significant issues and ultimately compromising the potential of the relationship.

If you’ve been feeling some of this, your typical lead process might look like the following:

1. Take a call with a potential new lead.
2. Request access to all relevant accounts (Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Search Console (GSC), Google Ads, Meta Business Manager, their website backend, etc.).
3. Look through previous strategy documents and reports.
4. Make assumptions about what the client needs and put together a proposal based on that OR.
5. Recommend the client follow a set package based on work you’ve done for other clients.

Sound familiar?

Here are some of the problems we’ve come across with this approach:

• You might create a proposal that is too open and run into issues where the client expects more than you’ve budgeted for. In this case, you’ll either have to ask for more budget (hard) or undervalue your work (hard).
• You might create a proposal that is too strict, and the scope doesn’t allow you to change tactics as you get to know the client and their business better.
• You might find that those improperly scoped projects are taking more time than you’re being paid for, which means you’re losing money, potential new clients are suffering, and timelines for other existing clients are suffering.
• If you try to fit every potential new client into a set package, you might find that you’re not moving the needle because you’re focusing on the wrong things for their specific situation and losing their trust by the day.
• You’re in a situation where you’ve become an “order-taker,” where instead of building and executing a well-researched strategy, you’re just doing what clients have decided is right at any given moment.

What a mess!

Guesswork is not honest, fulfilling, or sustainable. The flip side is that doing research and developing plans for free is spec work and devalues our industry’s expertise. Paid discovery work leads to strong, lucrative marketing partnerships, happy teams, and, importantly, happy clients. It will improve the reputation of the marketing industry as a whole.

What happens during discovery?

That depends on your expertise and area of focus as a marketing agency.

At Kick Point, we specialize in PPC, SEO, Analytics, and Web Design and Development. Our Discoveries always include an expert from each area. If we know that we won’t be looking at a specific area (e.g. a client already has an agency handling PPC), we don’t include someone from that area. However, there is still a lot of value in our team having a holistic view of a client’s entire marketing ecosystem. So, we still request that they provide access to all accounts if they are comfortable.

We also ask questions. Lots of questions. Here are a few examples of questions that will help you get to the heart of what is important to your client and what makes their business unique:

• Which KPIs/metrics would you be evaluated against when it comes to a performance review? (What will demonstrate to your leadership that you’re doing a great job?)
• Imagine three ideal clients/customers. Write a 100-word bio for each.
• What are some things you’ve tried in the past in terms of marketing (or seen tried) that you felt failed or didn’t have the impact you expected?

Once we have access to their accounts, each team member on the project digs into their own specialized area:

Our SEO team members run website crawls to look for glaring technical or on-page SEO issues, review the site architecture, examine the client’s GSC to see how they are performing in search, review any existing keyword research, and spend time in a keyword research tool to get a sense of the keyword landscape.

Our Ads team members review the client’s existing PPC accounts, including Google Ads and any social ads accounts. They look at how the campaigns are structured, how they are performing, and whether there are any obvious issues like high click-through rates (CTR) but low conversions, etc. They review important landing pages to see if CRO best practices are being followed or if ad copy matches the messaging on the page.

Our Analytics team members dig into Google Analytics 4 accounts and Google Tag Manager accounts to see their existing setup, looking for any obvious issues and determining whether there are small tweaks that need to be made or if a major overhaul will be needed to make it possible to track the metrics that the client needs to make good business decisions.

Our design and development team members review the site from a UX perspective, determining if there are major issues around speed, usability, visual hierarchy, etc.

Our team notes what we’re seeing and then develops an initial plan of attack to make the biggest impact for the client. For example, instead of conducting a huge content audit that will take weeks, our SEO team may already see that service pages need serious help, and we should start there.

How long should discovery projects last?

The correct length will depend on the scope of the discovery and the areas of expertise your agency is focused on. At Kick Point, after a client has answered our discovery questions, our involved team members meet on Zoom or a Slack Huddle to do their deep dives and talk through any issues and ideas that come up. While this discussion is happening, a document is being prepared to summarize everyone’s recommendations, red flags, and time/budget needs. 

Sometimes, during this team meeting, a few more questions will pop up, and we send those to our client right away. Once those additional questions are answered, we finalize the Discovery Review Document and send that off to a client to digest before meeting with them to walk through our findings. After that, we send off a Phase 2 proposal. All up, this process can take as little time as 7-10 days. Website discoveries are often much more in-depth and typically take our team 3-4 weeks to complete.

How do you sell discovery projects?

The first step to selling discovery projects successfully is to truly believe that they are necessary. You must commit to insisting on them. As soon as you say, “We usually do discovery projects, but in this case, maybe…” you are unlikely to be able to sell a discovery project. Instead, try, “All of our projects begin with a discovery project.” There is no other option!

You wouldn’t expect a home builder to build a new house without blueprints. And you wouldn’t expect to get totally custom blueprints from an architect for free.

Remembering that discovery projects are not just good for you as the agency, but they are better for the client also helps. Clients will get better outcomes working with an agency that is committed to doing the right thing and not just what they’re assuming is the right thing—or, worse, that they have time for because they didn’t quote enough. Paying their agency fairly results in the right amount of time and effort being spent on problem-solving and well-thought-through implementations, which leads to more leads, sales, and engagement. It is a proactive, long-term approach.

Not every business or every marketing lead you pitch discovery to will get it. That’s okay. They don’t need to get it. Those that do will be the clients that you do great work with for years to come.

How much should a discovery project cost?

We’ve experimented a lot with this over the years! 

Our first discovery proposal was sent (and accepted!) in September 2019. It was beefy and not so much a discovery as a “let’s fix the blatant issues before getting into a monthly management situation.” We priced it at $7,000.

Our first 15 discovery projects were very in-depth and took up to a month to complete because we included some research and strategy work as part of discovery at the start. The average price was $6,700, and our close rate was about 44%.

At the end of 2020, we changed things up so that all of our marketing discovery projects were structured to be very efficient and economical. Up until 2023, our projects were priced at an average of $2,690 only, and our team could usually do one from start to finish in a single afternoon! Our close rate at that time was 60%. 50% of those projects turned into further long-term marketing work, and 11% into large custom website projects.

From 2023 until now, we have taken on fewer projects overall as we’ve invested time into our marketing training platform, KP Playbook, and we’ve focused on growing and strengthening our existing partnerships (many of which started with discovery!). We have been selective in taking on new marketing discoveries and are now at an average of $4,920 a project. Our custom website discoveries now average $19,000 a project.

We are continuing to experiment with the scope and scale of discovery projects, but one thing remains the same: the discovery project itself is not a set package. Have a massive site with user logins, hundreds of pages, a complex lead to CRM integration, and three subdomains you’d like us to look at? That’s going to be more work to dive into than a small business with a homepage, contact page and three service pages, and no Google Analytics or Ads accounts.

What happens after discovery projects?

Ideally, after completing a discovery, you have a Phase 2 proposal ready to share with the client, with recommendations clearly mapped to the goals they’ve shared with you.

What that looks like depends on what you’ve found during discovery. That’s the whole point!

For some clients, that might mean a research-based project to set a good foundation and then a couple of months of training so they can manage and grow their marketing efforts from there. For others, it might mean setting up a monthly ongoing relationship with a set number of tasks that you’ll complete each month from the roadmap you’ve created.

For us, not every discovery project turns into a long-term partnership, and that’s a good thing. We are not the right long-term fit for every client we do a discovery project with, but they will always walk away with a clear direction of where they should go next if it is not with us. In many cases, the answer from discovery was to provide training to a team so they could execute recommendations in-house. 

Regardless of what comes next, you can feel confident that you’ve done your due diligence before making those recommendations. You also have set up a relationship with a client where you are paid fairly for your efforts from day one, have set the expectation that good work doesn’t just happen without research, and that learning and changing course is a natural part of the process.

In this blog, we will explore how to create effective client reports with BrightLocal, ensuring that you provide your clients with the information they need to make informed decisions and see the impact of your work.

Step 1: Choose Your Metrics Wisely

Before diving into report creation, it’s essential to determine which metrics are most relevant to your client’s goals and the services you provide. BrightLocal offers a wide range of metrics, including local search rankings, online visibility, citation tracking, and more. Select metrics that align with your client’s objectives and KPIs to keep the report focused and actionable.

BrightLocal provides a feature called Location Summary, which offers a consolidated view of essential local search data specific to a particular business location. This summary can be easily customized and shared with clients. You have the flexibility to remove any unnecessary data from the Location Summary page or even exclude the Location Summary page entirely from the white label dashboard.

You can generate reports for internal purposes without including them in the white-label dashboard. Some local SEO experts suggest keeping rank tracking internal while still running those reports for your own monitoring. 

In certain reports, specific data can be hidden from the white-label versions as well. For example, the Local Rank Tracker report allows you to hide certain elements.

The Local Search Audit report permits the omission of any sections you deem unnecessary. Simply go to ‘Edit Report Settings’ and use the checkboxes in Report Sections to choose what you don’t want to be included.

Step 2: Set Clear Goals and Benchmarks

Establish clear goals and benchmarks with your clients from the outset. What are they hoping to achieve with your local SEO services? Are they looking to increase website traffic, boost online visibility, or improve their local search rankings? By setting specific goals, you can tailor your reports to showcase progress and success in a meaningful way.

Step 3: Customize Your Report Templates

BrightLocal provides customizable report templates that allow you to tailor the report’s appearance and content to your client’s brand and preferences. You can add your agency’s logo, choose color schemes for all BrightLocal reports, and arrange the report sections to highlight the most critical information first. Customization helps create a professional and branded report that leaves a lasting impression.

Step 4: Include Actionable Insights

Don’t just present data; provide actionable insights and recommendations. Use the metrics and data from BrightLocal to explain what the numbers mean for your client’s business. For example, if local search rankings have improved, explain how this translates into increased visibility and potentially more leads. Offering actionable insights demonstrates your expertise and value as a digital marketing partner.

The Notes Module in Brightlocal is a useful way to leave notes for your clients in their report dashboard or Location Summary page. They allow you to provide further value beyond statistical reporting by adding your expert insights, explanations, and suggestions alongside the charts and graphs. You can also use the Notes Module to leave internal notes for yourself or your team and hide these from your clients.

Here’s how you can add, delete, edit, and hide a Notes Module on a Location’s summary page.

Step 5: Visualize Data Effectively

Utilize charts, graphs, and visual representations of data to make the report more engaging and easy to understand. BrightLocal allows you to create visual reports that provide a quick overview of key metrics. Visualizations can help clients grasp trends and improvements at a glance.

Bonus Tip: Utilizing BrightLocal Data with Looker Studio

For agencies and marketers seeking advanced reporting capabilities and data visualization, BrightLocal’s flexibility extends beyond its native reporting features. You can leverage BrightLocal’s data by downloading and incorporating it into powerful reporting tools like Looker Studio. Doing so can unlock even more extensive data analysis, create interactive dashboards, and tailor reports to specific client needs. This empowers you to take your client reporting to the next level, providing in-depth insights and data-driven storytelling. 

Step 6: Provide Historical Data

Comparing current data with historical data can illustrate progress over time. Use BrightLocal’s historical data tracking to show how key metrics have evolved. This not only highlights improvements but also reinforces the long-term value of your services.

Step 7: Schedule Automated Reports

Save time and streamline your reporting process by scheduling automated reports through BrightLocal. You can set the frequency and recipients, ensuring that clients receive updated reports regularly. Automation helps you stay organized and ensures that clients are consistently informed about their progress.

Step 8: Review and Discuss the Report with Clients

Don’t just send reports and leave it at that. Schedule regular review meetings with your clients to discuss the report’s findings, answer questions, and align strategies. These meetings provide an opportunity to strengthen your client-agency relationship and adjust strategies based on client feedback and changing goals.

Summary

Creating effective client reports with BrightLocal goes beyond data presentation; it’s about delivering value, fostering transparency, and building trust. By choosing the right metrics, customizing reports, providing actionable insights, and maintaining open communication, you can ensure that your client reports serve as valuable tools that demonstrate the impact of your local SEO efforts. BrightLocal’s features and automation capabilities make the process efficient, allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional results and client satisfaction.

With eleven years of insights behind us, we’ve reported throughout some of the biggest and most unprecedented events to shake the industry, and the wider economic environment as a whole. 

The information provided by local marketers enables us to compile the current picture of the industry, from salary averages and overall satisfaction at work to a run-down of how agencies and freelancers are offering and billing for their services. 

So, let’s dive straight into this year’s findings. 

Local Marketers at a Glance

Firstly, who do we mean when we talk about ‘local marketers’? We surveyed 534 representatives with roles in marketing or SEO functions involving a local focus. This included freelance consultants and representatives from agencies, small businesses, and multi-location businesses. 

While you can find the summary of this year’s survey participants within the research methodology in full (at the bottom of this page), it’s important to note that 72% of this year’s respondents identified as local marketers based in the US. The remaining 28% represent the UK (6%), Canada (5%), Australia (3%), and 24 other countries (14%). 

For that reason, salary averages have been converted into US dollars at the current rate, so that we can provide an accurate representation.

Salary averages

We compared the average and median salaries of local marketers in the US to data from our 2022 and 2021 surveys.

As well as a clear upward trend in the average US pre-tax earnings since 2021, we can also see that the increase in 2023 is significantly larger than that seen in 2022. Between 2022 and 2023, the average local marketing salary has increased by 15%, compared to an increase of 5% between 2021 and 2022.

Interestingly, while the median salary range has also increased since 2021, the percentage increase is 6%. Comparing the increase in average salary to the increase in median salary, it tells us that there are outliers weighted much more towards the high-earning end of the scale.

Correspondingly, as we’ll delve further into in a few sections’ time, 71% of survey respondents self-described as being in ‘Senior’ positions within their organizations.

How satisfied are marketers with their salaries?

It’s one thing to measure average earnings within the industry, but how satisfied do marketers feel with their salaries in general?

• The majority of local marketers feel ‘somewhat satisfied’ with their salaries (46%).
• The percentage of local marketers feeling generally unsatisfied with their earnings has increased from 14% in 2022 to 19% in 2023.

Broadly, it appears that most local marketers feel okay about what they’re taking home, and this has not changed from 2022—with 46% of marketers responding as ‘somewhat satisfied’.

However, there also appears to be a trend showing that more local marketers are unsatisfied with their salaries in 2023 compared to 2022. 19% reported feeling unsatisfied in 2023, compared to 14% in 2022, while the percentage of satisfied respondents has decreased from 39% in 2022 to 35% in 2023.

So, while it seems that local marketers are earning more on average in 2023 than in 2022, they’re also feeling less fulfilled by it. There could be several reasons causing this, with the biggest and most obvious external factor being the rising cost of living across so many parts of the globe.

And, although salaries tend to increase annually in line with inflation, it could also be the case that some marketers are not feeling enough of a difference against rising costs elsewhere.

Do job seniority and knowledge levels affect earnings?

We wanted to take a closer look at factors specific to the local SEO industry and how they might affect salary satisfaction. First, we examined the relationship between job seniority and salary satisfaction.

• 42% of senior local marketers are ‘Very’ or ‘Extremely’ satisfied with their salaries, compared to 21% of mid-level marketers and 17% of junior marketers.
• Junior local marketers are the most unsatisfied with their salaries, with 48% reporting being either ‘Not very’ or ‘Not at all’ satisfied with their earnings.

The chart presents a clear picture: senior local marketers are much more likely to be satisfied with their salaries than those working at mid- or junior levels. It makes sense, considering it is generally the case that more senior roles have higher salary bands attached to them.

However, as noted previously, 71% of survey respondents identified as senior-level marketers, including a significant amount of business owners, CEOs, and directors, so you would expect to see these within the high-earning bracket.

So, we analyzed the relationship between salary satisfaction and expertise, first asking: how do local marketers rate their levels of local SEO knowledge?

• 92% of local marketers rate their local SEO knowledge as ‘Good’ or better.
• Just 1% of local marketers believe they hold poor levels of local SEO knowledge.

We can see here that being more senior doesn’t necessarily equate to being an expert—in this case, holding ‘Excellent’ levels of local SEO knowledge. Just over a quarter of respondents rated their expertise as ‘Excellent’.

Generally, though, local marketers rate their knowledge levels as good, with only 8% highlighting ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’ knowledge levels.

So, with this in mind, would we find a relationship between expertise and better salaries? We took the pre-tax earnings of our US respondents to calculate the average earnings against the level of local SEO knowledge.

The results speak for themselves, but we were still surprised by the jump between salary averages from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Excellent’ knowledge levels. It goes to show: the more you know!

Now, returning to all local marketers and not just the majority earning in USD, we compared salary satisfaction against self-proclaimed knowledge levels.

To quote a certain US sitcom legend, could it be any clearer? Not only are individuals who possess ‘Excellent’ levels of local SEO knowledge earning the most on average, but they’re also the most satisfied with their salary.

The biggest takeaway here for local marketers should be that you don’t necessarily need to reach director levels to become an expert in your work. Honing your expertise within your field and building on your local SEO knowledge will help you to become a subject matter expert and, as it happens, you can put a price on that!

Working in Local SEO

We’ve compiled a snapshot of the individuals working in local marketing, but what’s it like to work on it, day-to-day?

Annual revenue for agencies and freelancers in the local marketing industry

Looking at freelancer revenue alongside marketing agency revenue can be a useful measure for freelancers when considering billing methods and pricing services.

• More than half of freelancers see less than $50,000 in annual revenue.
• 22% of agencies earn between $1mil-$5mil in revenue.

We can see that revenue is fairly evenly distributed across the range for agencies, reflecting the various sizes and types that make up our agency participants. 71% are earning up to $1mil a year in revenue, 22% see between $1mil-$5mil revenue, and 6% earn over $5mil in revenue annually.

For freelancers, however, we can see this is very heavily weighted towards the ‘lower than $50,000’ bracket. 52% of freelance local marketing experts earn less than $50,000 in revenue.

While it should be noted that many of our freelance respondents told us that their consultancies run part-time alongside other employment, this finding still highlights the challenging environment for the self-employed—or those thinking about becoming self-employed.

• The percentage of freelancers earning less than $50,000 in annual revenue has increased from 24% in 2021 to 42% in 2022 and 52% in 2023.
• 94% of freelancers are earning less than $250,000 in annual revenue in 2023.

When we isolate freelancer revenue and compare it to 2022 and 2021, it tells an even clearer story: we can easily see that freelancers are bringing in less revenue each year.

Annual revenue for single and multi-location businesses in the local marketing industry

Looking at annual revenue for single and multi-location businesses, we can see it is more weighted towards the higher end of the revenue brackets.

• 61% of single and multi-location businesses see over $1mil in annual revenue.

This information is useful for freelancers and agencies assessing their service pricing. Freelancers, particularly, may find they are pricing services too low—or perhaps billing in ways that end up disadvantaging themselves—so, it’s always good to see what businesses and brands are bringing in.

What are the most important local SEO metrics for success?

Everyone sees success slightly differently, which of course is why we have metrics in place to measure how we’re doing on the local front. But even key metrics tend to vary from business type to business type.

So, how do those marketing in-house measure local marketing success, compared to agency and freelance local SEOs?

• 45% of businesses highlight Google organic rankings as important for local marketing success.
• 44% of businesses highlight Local Pack rankings as important for local marketing success.
• Google Local Pack rankings is the most important metric for both agencies (54%) and freelancers (50%).
• The top three local SEO metrics for agencies are Local Pack rankings (54%), new leads (45%), and Google organic rankings (39%).
• The top three local SEO metrics for freelancers are Local Pack rankings (50%), phone calls (45%), and new leads (35%).

We can see that businesses across the board are in agreement that Local Pack or Local Finder rankings in Google are one of the most important local SEO metrics. This makes sense, given the hierarchy and visibility these results tend to have within the SERPs. If you’re not displaying in the Local Pack, potential customers are not going to have easy access to key information like your business name, description, address, and phone number.

It is interesting to see that a higher percentage of agency marketers place high importance on new leads (45%) compared to businesses (40%) and that businesses are the most concerned with their organic rankings overall (45%).

Of course, improving (or maintaining) organic rankings have long been a desired goal for businesses of all types in the SEO world. But, with agency marketers highlighting new leads and freelancers highlighting phone calls (45%) as important success metrics, perhaps this goes to show that they are more familiar with the fluctuating tendencies of organic ranking and are more concerned with contributing to their clients’ bottom lines, showing value in doing so.

Generally, SEOs with wider industry experience keep abreast of things like algorithm changes, industry news, and ranking fluctations on behalf of their business clients. So, it makes sense that agency and freelance marketers look outside of organic rankings to secure local SEO success—because we all know unpredictable it can be out there!

Reacting to Changes in Local SEO

Each year, we ask local marketers a variety of questions around core elements of local SEO, namely whether reacting to algorithm updates continues to be a priority for them and their clients, as well as their thoughts on how, or if, key products like Google Business Profile (GBP) have improved.

• 61% of marketers agree that reacting to algorithm changes is an important priority, down from 64% in 2022.

The numbers haven’t changed drastically year on year, but we can see a slight shift in how marketers are perceiving the importance of algorithm changes.

Google can take many months to confirm algorithm changes and, with so many unconfirmed updates throughout the year so far, you can’t blame SEOs for perhaps prioritizing them less than before, perhaps ‘waiting and seeing’ rather than reaction right away.

While fluctuating or disappearing rankings can be confusing and frustrating, it’s fair to say marketers are much savvier to the various different ways local SEO success can be achieved.

• 43% of marketers think GBP has improved in 2023, compared to 57% in 2022.
• 24% of local SEOs feel GBP has not improved in 2023, compared to just 9% in 2022.

It feels like Google Business Profile has changed a lot already in 2023, but it’s interesting to see that local marketers just aren’t loving it this year.

It’s worth noting that 2022’s survey was conducted and published before changes such as the NMX came in, bringing that flurry of bugs and annoyances along with it towards the end of the year. So, while a lot of significant changes have been made to GBP through 2023, it’s quite likely that some marketers are still pretty put out by those events.

Still, the floor is open. We recently reported on some positive new updates to GBP in July, so perhaps attitudes will change. Or could it be a sign that change is on the horizon? Perhaps local marketers are simply spreading their efforts across more local SEO tools and tactics.

A Day in the Life: Agency and Freelance Marketers 

It’s always interesting to gauge how many clients local marketers have. In 2022’s report, local marketing agencies averaged 19 clients, while national marketing agencies averaged 16, and freelancers averaged 14.

How many clients do local marketers have?

• 69% of freelancers have between two and ten clients.
• 33% of agencies have over 51 clients!

The sweet spot for freelancers appears to be having between two and ten clients (69%), but we were pretty shocked to see that a third of all agencies said they had over 51 clients! Even for some of the larger organizations, this seems like a lot.

Of course, all clients are different. You may have a variety of clients on retainer while working on one-off projects at the same time, and clients may come to you for very different services. Yet, seeing the polarizing results for freelancers and agencies here, it feels like a similar pattern to what we saw in annual revenue; freelancers way down at the lower end and agencies at the opposite side of the scale.

While freelancers don’t have the luxury of multiple colleagues on hand compared with agencies, it does raise the question of whether freelancers might simply be offering their small sets of clients too much in terms of services or output. If this is the case, time could easily be eaten up by a small number of clients, making it a challenge to find time for new client acquisition.

Average Client Lifespan 

It’s interesting to consider the average lifecycle of a client partnership: if you have five clients that you’ve worked with for several years, that could be a highly valuable relationship. But if your two to five clients are turning over every six months or so, you may find yourself scrambling to pull together pitches for new business.

• 25% of freelancers have clients with an average lifespan of 12 months or less, compared to 12% of agencies.
• 23% of agencies and 22% of freelancers have been working with clients for five years or more.

On the whole, it looks like agencies and freelancers are doing well at maintaining some lengthy client relationships. 96% of agencies work with clients for at least a month, although this is lower for freelancers at 75%.

It got us thinking, though: does a turnover of clients affect revenue? Would working in shorter cycles be more costly to the marketer overall, or would long-term partnerships end up benefitting a client more? What would be the ‘sweet spot’? 

We took US revenue ($) and calculated the average for each client lifespan bracket.

There’s clear evidence to show that local marketers should be aiming for anything over 12 months for a more fruitful partnership. Meanwhile, the Goldilocks duration appears to be between two and three years. But don’t take that as a sign for binning off any of your long-standing clients! You obviously know what works for you, but it’s a really useful indicator to bear in mind.

What local SEO services do agencies and freelancers offer?

Seeing what local marketing services are—or aren’t—widely available is a great way to understand opportunities to expand the services you offer.

The graph above highlights the top five most commonly offered SEO services, and charts the changes year-on-year since 2021. These areas have largely held steady across the years, highlighting how they remain fundamental local SEO services.

As for a full run-down of services, let’s take a look at who’s offering what to their clients:

It’s no surprise to see that all of the ‘core’ local SEO services such as GBP management, content creation, auditing, analytics, and citation management are high up there for both agencies and freelancers. Although, there are some notable discrepancies:

• 72% of agencies offer reporting and analytics, compared to 56% of freelancers.
• 76% of agencies offer technical SEO, compared to 53% of freelancers.
• 64% of agencies offer PPC, compared to 33% of freelancers.

As agencies tend to have a variety of different experts in a team, it makes sense that they can offer such a breadth of local SEO services. However, as we discussed earlier, around the value of becoming a subject-matter expert, the lower figures for services provided by freelancers highlight some niche areas that could be very lucrative for clients. As we’ll come to below, clients do place value in some of the more niche marketing specialisms. 

As well as technical specialisms like analytics, PPC, and technical SEO, there is a huge gap in the percentage of freelancers offering video (17%) or influencer marketing (5%).

Despite being low down among the services offered, we can also see, however, the growth for video marketing and influencer marketing since 2022. With the introduction of video content to GBP profiles and Google Perspectives now rolling out and incorporating user generated content (UGC), it seems some local marketers have already switched onto the opportunities to offer services in these areas.

Moreover, the Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 found that 20% of US adults are using TikTok for new business discovery. Whether inciting influencers to create video content or encouraging local businesses to get on the platform themselves, it’s a lucrative area for local marketers to get involved in.

What local SEO services are considered the most valuable?

You know how it is. You’re proposing a strategy based around several key tactics, and a client chimes in with something like “oh, but I saw this thing on TikTok and…”

It’s always interesting to see which services marketers feel are the most valuable for their clients. However, this year, we also asked them what they think their clients believe are the most valuable.

• The top three local SEO services that marketers see as most valuable are: GBP management (76%), content creation (53%), and citation management (43%).
• The top three local SEO services that clients see as most valuable are: GBP management (52%), content creation (39%) and website design (34%).
• 29% of clients see PPC as one of the most valuable local SEO services, compared to 23% of local marketers.

It’s encouraging to see that clients are fairly aligned with marketers in terms of priorities, which hopefully makes collaborating on strategy or getting buy-in from other stakeholders a little easier. However, it’s clear with services like website design, PPC, and social media that clients place importance in services that involve very immediate or visual changes.

It makes sense, in many ways: clients like seeing where their money is spent—or, even better, where the return on investment is coming from—but it can make pushing the case for more technical and behind-the-scenes elements like technical SEO a challenge.

You’ll note that citation management is not seen as a priority for clients, with less than a fifth of agencies and freelancers saying that their clients (18%) would highlight it as one of the most important services. As you may already be aware, citation management can be a tricky service to explain, and clients may not always understand the full scope of it as a service.

Local Listings Management Explained: Google Maps, Apple Maps, Facebook, and Bing

Learn more

How are agencies and freelancers billing their clients?

It’s always useful to see what other people are doing, particularly if you are a freelancer or starting out as one. How should you bill your clients? There are a variety of methods by which agencies and freelancers prefer to bill, so we summarised the findings:

It’s interesting to see that very few marketers are working on day rates, whether freelance or agency-based. It appears the general way to go is charging clients a monthly fee based on the deliverables they receive, with 61% of agencies and 53% of freelancers opting for this method. 

However, 43% of freelancers are still billing at an hourly rate. Of course, it always comes down to preference, but hours can be a tricky figure to quote for some local SEO services—particularly in more creative areas such as copywriting and content creation or social media management, where tasks can end up taking a lot longer than you’d planned (or hoped).

Local Marketer Learning and Development

This year, we wanted to introduce the theme of learning and development, to find out not only where local marketers are seeking expertise, but whether they’re afforded the benefit of professional development as part of their employment.

As we know from the findings above, the more knowledgeable employees are the most satisfied with their salaries, so it should make sense that businesses want their employees to continue developing. But, how many local marketers have the opportunity?

Do local marketers have personal training budgets?

• Just 39% of local marketers are certain they have a personal training budget in their role.
• More than half of local marketers do not have a personal training budget.

It’s quite a sorry picture, with 54% of marketers not given a personal training allowance. Meanwhile, 7% of marketers were unsure, which suggests their organizations either do not offer the benefit or do not communicate them well enough. It’s a familiar sight to see vague mentions of ‘professional development’ and training within job specifications, but it’s very different for businesses to actively encourage their people to learn.

Despite this finding, local marketers are undeterred. A whopping 98% of marketers are putting time aside to learn within their roles, budget or none, with nearly two-fifths of those spending two hours or more learning. We love to see it!

Where are local marketers seeking expertise?

• 81% of local marketers are spending time researching to build their local SEO knowledge.
• 66% of marketers learn via webinars.

Unsurprisingly, the top methods of learning on the job (considering so few marketers have access to dedicated budgets) rely on the do-it-yourself approach. Research, webinars, YouTube, and industry news are generally all free—albeit timely—methods of learning, and it’s very encouraging to see there is a strong level of commitment in the industry.

Looking to the Future: New Tech, Optimism, and Hiring Trends

We’ve got a clear picture of how marketers are doing in local SEO right now, but what about next year—and beyond? With much of 2023 already dominated by discussion around developments in generative AI, competitor brands, and changes to SERPs, how do marketers feel about achieving local success in 2023?

There has been a decrease in the percentage of marketers feeling optimistic about achieving local SEO success in the next year, from 23% in 2022 to 19% in 2023.

Alongside this, we can see a corresponding increase in the percentage of marketers feeling pessimistic about their chances of local marketing success, from 36% in 2022 to 46% in 2023. 

As well as the aforementioned developments in generative AI that have hit marketers thick and fast so far this year, there have been other significant changes within the industry that could contribute to feelings of apprehension about 2024.

Despite this fast-growing innovation, the start of 2023 saw plenty of turbulence with lay-offs affecting some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Not to mention the chaos at Twitter, now X, which impacted businesses of all sizes as marketers grappled with the potential loss—and still ever-changing nature—of this important marketing channel.

Moreover, with Google’s new generative AI-led search functionality, Search Generative Experience (SGE), likely coming at some point in 2024, this adds another key component to marketers’ growing lists of things to master.

POLL: Are Local Marketers Ready for SGE?

Spoiler alert: No, not really. Read on to discover who feels confident about the imminent roll-out of Search Generative Experience (SGE), and how marketers feel it will affect local search results.

Read

Will marketers be hiring in the near future?

With a sense of apprehension around achieving success in the industry, how does this leave marketers feeling about growing their businesses with new hires? 

• 44% of marketers will not be hiring this year, compared to 36% in 2022 and 30% in 2021.

The chart shows a clear trend in business hiring activities, with decreases in the percentage of marketers looking to hire since 2021. The most significant drop comes under the ‘definite’ statement, from 21% in 2022 to just 14% in 2023.

Although there is evidence to suggest that inflation is easing in the US, the cost of hiring and retaining employees is often the biggest outgoing for businesses, so it’s a decision that can’t be taken lightly.

Generative AI in Local Marketing

Meanwhile, local marketers are feeling hopeful about developments in generative AI and what it could mean for business.

While our recent generative AI case study highlighted that 73% of US adults have not used generative AI tools, it’s a very different story within the local SEO niche. Just 7% of marketers have not used generative AI to experiment within their roles. Of the 93% that have, these are the tools they’ve used:

And it seems, for the most part, local marketers are impressed by what they’ve seen so far. We presented several statements around the use of generative AI within local marketing, whether for their roles or wider businesses as a whole.

• 83% of marketers are actively looking to incorporate generative AI into their roles.
• 73% of marketers are actively looking to incorporate generative AI into their business.

• 75% of local marketers feel that generative AI will bring new business opportunities.
• 75% of marketers expect potential tech partners or new tools to be actively incorporating generative AI into products.

So, while we’re not saying you absolutely should be jumping on the bandwagon, it’s good to keep in mind what your peers and competitors are doing with generative AI. With 75% of marketers agreeing that generative AI will bring new opportunities, it might be worth carving out some time to discover what these might be for yourself.

Moreover, for digital marketing or web design agencies and marketing software organizations, the finding that 75% of local marketers expect tech partners and tools to be actively incorporating generative AI into their products definitely cannot be overlooked!

Generative AI in Local Search: A Case Study About Pizza

Read case study

Share your thoughts with us

Thanks for reading this year’s Local Search Industry Survey report, and we’d like to say an enormous thank you again to the local marketers who participated in the survey!

We hope you found these benchmarks useful. Does the information ring true for your experience in local search, or do you have any differing experiences you’d like to share? Please consider joining the conversation with our community of over 2,000 local SEOs over on The Local Pack, drop us a tweet, or mention us on LinkedIn.

About the Local Search Industry Survey 2023

Local marketing audience data

The Local Search Industry Survey was conducted via SurveyMonkey and received a total of 534 responses through our subscriber channels, customer base, social media, and peers within the community.

Although SurveyMonkey only asks participants for binary gender information and therefore doesn’t provide a wholly accurate representation of our audience, 37% of respondents identified as female, 60% identified as male, and the remaining 12% preferred not to disclose their gender.

We surveyed local SEO and marketing representatives from the following business types: 

72% of this year’s respondents identified as local marketers based in the US. The remaining 28% represent the UK (6%), Canada (5%), Australia (3%), and 24 other countries (14%). 

Publishers are welcome to use the charts and data outlined within this report, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this article’s URL. If you have any questions about the report, please contact sammy.paget@brightlocal.com or research@brightlocal.com.

But… do you have the necessary tools, support, and the know-how to dive in and build a successful business?

In this brand-new BrightLocal Academy Course–How to Build and Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency—aspiring agency owners will learn how to build and grow their agency from the ground up, and current owners will learn to scale their agencies to even greater heights than they’d ever imagined. 

Local SEO expert Greg Gifford, who has a long track record of turning small agencies to multi-million-dollar endeavors, teaches this course and shares the necessary technical knowledge and skills to help you create the agency that you’ve been dreaming about. 

Throughout the 11 lesson videos, Greg covers how to:

• Define your agency by identifying target markets and potential clients as well as your services and packages;
• Master the “adult stuff”—from legal entity formation to financial management;
• Build and maintain a robust, capable team through strong management and a fulfilling work environment;
• Develop a value-aligned pricing strategy and stay true to it with excellent sales strategies;
• Make sure it all stays running smoothly, with a consistent team and customer base

By the end of the course, you’ll come away ready to take your agency to new heights.

Here’s Greg with an overview of the course: 

Who is this course for?

The course is targeted toward freelancers who are contemplating the prospect of building their very own agency and agency owners who have a strong desire to propel their existing ventures to even greater heights. 

How can I join?

Whether you’re a BrightLocal customer or not, you can get access to this course. You can also be among the first to find out when new courses drop by enrolling for free. Here’s how:

If you’re a BrightLocal customer, you can access the academy via your BrightLocal account. Simply log in, click ‘Learning Resources’ at the top of the screen, and select ‘BrightLocal Academy’ from the dropdown menu.

You’ll need to create a free BrightLocal Academy account before you can enroll in the ‘How to Build and Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency’ course.

If you’re not a BrightLocal customer, you can join BrightLocal Academy for free and follow the same steps above to enroll in the course.

Want to know more about BrightLocal Academy? 

Check out the official BrightLocal Academy FAQs here: 

What is BrightLocal Academy, how does it work, and how can I enroll?  

What courses does BrightLocal Academy offer and how long do they take?  

If you have any questions of your own, feel free to get in touch with us or leave a comment below. We hope you find this fresh new course useful, and can’t wait to hear how it’s helped you improve your local SEO skills.

Today, I’ll be looking at one of the last problems you may run into when executing a local SEO effort—making sure the brilliant plan you’ve come up with can effectively be carried out across every single franchisee/location.

However, before we get into those specifics, it should be noted that your first item of business should be coming up with an effective plan that makes sense for your organization. However, since that is a bear of a topic all on its own (and one we’ve touched upon in our previous installments), we’re going to skip that and go right into what you should do once the plan is settled and agreed upon to make sure it is successful across all your locations.

01 – Know Each Local Market

Regardless of whether or not your organization has hundreds of locations across the entire country or just a few in one particular region in one particular state—each location is unique and brings with it opportunities for customization.

While adherence to the overall plan is paramount, it’s also critical that you allow the local team managers the flexibility to make slight changes that will speak to the local clientele (more on setting up the local managers for success will be found in the next section)

The impotence of doing the research to know all of your local markets can’t be overstated, nor can baking into your local SEO plan the flexibility to adapt slightly depending on the location.

The process of researching your local markets is a fundamental step in crafting a successful local SEO strategy. It’s not just about understanding the demographics or the economic landscape, but also about grasping the cultural nuances, local trends, and consumer behavior. This knowledge allows you to create content that resonates with the local audience, use local keywords that improve your search engine rankings, and offer products or services that meet the local needs.

Flexibility is another crucial aspect of local SEO. While it’s important to have a consistent brand message and a unified SEO strategy, each location might require a slightly different approach. For instance, a promotional campaign that works well in a bustling city might not have the same impact in a quiet, rural town. Therefore, your SEO plan should allow for some degree of customization based on the specific characteristics of each location.

Moreover, collaboration with the local teams running each location can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your local SEO efforts. Local teams have a deep understanding of their respective markets. They can provide valuable insights that can be used to fine-tune your SEO strategy. They can also help in executing the local SEO plan, from content creation to community engagement.

Remember, local SEO is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s a dynamic process that requires continuous learning and adaptation. Regularly review your SEO performance in each location, gather feedback from locals, and stay updated with the latest local trends. Use these insights to refine your SEO strategy and make necessary adjustments.

02 – Give the Local Teams the Power

Related to item one, it’s important to give the people who are actually doing the work and have a strong connection to each location the power to manage their own campaigns. This can be a somewhat delicate dance—you need to make sure they adhere to the major components of the plan, but you also need to make sure they know that they can adjust some of the minor details in order to make their efforts more effective to the local customer base.

If it is your job to oversee the entire campaign across all locations, make sure you clearly explain to each location manager both A) the things that cannot be altered under any circumstance, B) the ones that they have full autonomy to edit/adapt based on their own judgment, and C) any other items that they will need to consult with you first about.

This communication is vital to maintain brand consistency while allowing for local customization. For instance:

A) could include the company’s logo, brand voice, and key messaging, which should remain consistent across all locations.

B) might encompass local content creation, event promotions, or social media engagement, where location managers can exercise their judgment to cater to their specific audience.

C) could involve larger strategic decisions, like partnerships or major campaign changes, which should be discussed with you first.

Regular check-ins and open channels of communication can help ensure that everyone is on the same page. Use these meetings not just to monitor progress, but also to address any concerns, share best practices, and celebrate successes. This can foster a sense of teamwork and shared ownership of the campaign.

Moreover, provide ongoing training and resources to the location managers. This can empower them to make informed decisions and feel confident in their roles. Remember, their local expertise is a valuable asset to your campaign.

Clear communication, regular check-ins, and ongoing support are key to successfully managing a campaign across multiple locations. By striking the right balance between consistency and customization, you can create a powerful local SEO strategy that resonates with each unique market.

03 – Make Sure Your Branding is Consistent

Consistency is one of the most important elements of a successful branding campaign, and it’s just as vital with a local SEO campaign. This might seem to be in direct opposition to the previous point about giving local teams the power to customize elements of the campaign, but the core branding ideals should never change.

Odds are good that if you work at an enterprise-level organization, there is already a well-established style guide that everyone in the marketing department is intimately familiar with. But in case you don’t have one, or if you don’t have high hopes that everyone involved with the project is as familiar with it as you are, the main elements that should (likely) never be changed are the logo, the typography, the overall brand voice, and the color scheme.

Try your best to make sure the local teams read up on your brand guide, and be sure to put the above items in the “things that cannot be altered under any circumstance” category we highlighted in the previous section.

Ensuring that local teams are well-versed with the brand guide is fundamental to maintaining brand consistency across all locations. The brand guide serves as a blueprint that outlines the key elements of your brand identity, such as logo usage, typography, color palette, and tone of voice. It’s a reference tool that helps local teams align their efforts with the overall brand image.

However, understanding the brand guide is just the first step. It’s equally important to ensure that the guidelines are implemented correctly. Regular audits can help check for any discrepancies and rectify them before they impact your brand image.

Moreover, encourage local teams to ask questions and seek clarification if any part of the brand guide is unclear. This not only ensures that they fully understand the guidelines but also fosters open communication and a collaborative work environment.

Remember, while the brand guide provides a framework, it doesn’t restrict creativity. Encourage local teams to infuse their unique insights and ideas within the boundaries of the brand guide. This can result in innovative campaigns that resonate with the local audience while staying true to the brand identity.

A thorough understanding and correct implementation of the brand guide are crucial for maintaining brand consistency. By fostering open communication and encouraging creativity within the framework of the brand guide, you can create effective local campaigns that strengthen your brand image.

04 – Take Advantage of Technological/Automated Solutions

There are so many tools that you (and your various teams) can and should be taking advantage of that will save you time and effort when it comes to local SEO. We are not going to be covering AI (artificial intelligence) in this particular section, but it is worth noting that while this area is still very new, there are already some exciting ideas, possibilities, and examples of people leveraging the amazing power of AI to boost their local SEO presence. For now, however, let’s focus on the more traditional technology tools.

If each local franchise or location has its own website, be sure everyone is using the same content management system (CMS) to save time when updating content across the entire organization. You probably already are, but using a unified customer relationship management (CRM) platform will help manage inbound customer requests and gauge success as you go. And we’ve talked before about the importance of regular posts/content on the various Google Business Profiles for local SEO—look into solutions that can automate GBP posts for you to allow synchronicity across all locations.

Incorporate marketing and SEO tools to streamline campaign management and implementation processes. Utilize content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, and automation tools to ensure consistent content distribution, customer engagement, and data tracking across all locations. This enables centralized control while allowing for localization as needed.

05 – Continually Monitor Performance

I’ll be brief here—it’s important that you regularly check in on the performance of ANY digital marketing campaign. As you likely are aware, your higher ups are likely going to be looking for a near-constant evaluation on ROI—if you can’t show them the effectiveness of what you’re doing, you likely aren’t going to be doing it for very long.

We’ve touched upon this before in previous installments, but whatever your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are, you need to be monitoring them constantly. You might be looking for increased foot traffic, a spike in inbound calls or emails, or even just to start outranking a single competitor for a single keyword—whatever it is, check in on the status of your goal(s) constantly. This will give you ammunition when your bosses are looking for good news and help you stay ahead of any potential roadblocks or bottlenecks in the campaign.

Monitoring your KPIs is an essential part of any successful SEO strategy. These metrics provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your efforts and help you identify areas that need improvement. They serve as a compass, guiding your strategy and helping you stay on track towards your goals.

For instance, if one of your KPIs is increased foot traffic, you might monitor local search rankings, website traffic from local search, and online-to-offline conversions. If you’re aiming for a spike in inbound calls or emails, you might track metrics like call volume from online sources, email click-through rates, or lead conversion rates.

Regular monitoring allows you to spot trends, measure progress, and make data-driven decisions. It enables you to adapt your strategy in response to real-time data, ensuring that your efforts are always aligned with your goals.

Moreover, constant monitoring provides you with tangible evidence of your campaign’s success. This can be particularly useful when reporting to higher-ups, as it allows you to demonstrate the value of your work with concrete data.

Constant monitoring of your KPIs is not just about keeping track of your progress. It’s about using data to inform your strategy, demonstrate your value, and ultimately drive your campaign toward success.

06 – Encourage Communication

Making sure all of your teams are in communication with each other is another topic we’ve covered before, but it’s important enough to go over here since most communication breakdowns in enterprise-level campaigns occur between the locations themselves.

Regular contact with all key players across all locations will help not only make sure that everyone is still on task and no one is falling behind, but you might also learn that one of your franchise locations has experimented on something and it’s seeing dramatically positive results. Things like that are worth sharing, and making sure everyone is in constant contact with each other will reduce the likelihood of things falling through the cracks.

Conclusion

Well, I hope this Local Search at Scale series has been useful to you. In my (many) years of SEO experience, I can say that executing a local SEO campaign for a major enterprise is one of the more challenging undertakings. Between making sure everyone is on the same page, to getting buy-in from the corporate executives to finding out what you should focus on, and everything in between—it’s a lot!

However, with a solid plan in place from day one, a streamlined method of communication between all involved parties, and helping each individual location thrive by providing them with the tools they need, enterprises can effectively make a huge impact on their bottom lines by devoting the time and effort that local SEO deserves.

Indeed, managing a local SEO campaign for a large enterprise can be a complex task. It requires a deep understanding of both the global brand strategy and the nuances of each local market. It also demands effective coordination among various stakeholders, from corporate executives to local teams.

However, the challenges are not insurmountable. With a well-thought-out plan, clear communication, and the right resources, you can navigate these complexities and create a successful local SEO campaign. The key is to start with a comprehensive plan that outlines your goals, strategies, and KPIs. This plan should be flexible enough to accommodate the unique needs of each local market, yet consistent enough to maintain a cohesive brand image.

Communication is another crucial element. Regular check-ins, open channels of communication, and a collaborative work environment can ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals.

Lastly, empowering each location with the tools and resources they need can help them thrive. This could include training on the brand guide, access to SEO tools, or insights on local market trends.

In conclusion, while executing a local SEO campaign for a major enterprise can be challenging, it’s also an opportunity to make a significant impact. By investing time and effort into local SEO, enterprises can enhance their visibility, engage their local audiences, and ultimately, boost their bottom line.

Listen to Learn

• Why businesses often struggle to identify conversion events
• The importance of making a business easy to work with
• Why agencies should prioritize reporting on leads and conversions
• The role testing plays in optimizing conversion funnels
• What to look out for in Google Business Profile’s conversion points
• How authentic media and social proof can skyrocket conversions
• Aaron’s five quick tips for improving conversions

Watch the Video

Resources

• Follow Aaron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronweiche/
• Follow Aaron on X: https://twitter.com/AaronWeiche
• Check out the Leadferno blog: https://leadferno.com/blog
• The Leadferno podcast, Conversion Cast: https://leadferno.com/conversioncast

We discuss what makes for an impactful local marketing strategy, what marketing clichés he’d stick in Room 404 forever, and what goes wrong when no one really understands strategy.

Listen to learn:

• The difference between strategy and tactics
• The biggest mistakes often found in a marketing strategy
• How to build a marketing strategy that aligns with your local business strategy

Watch the Interview

Resources

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/1846684811

Mark Ritson: https://www.marketingritson.com/

Subscribe Today!

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• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
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• Subscriber on Stitcher

Welcome to Advance Your Agency, a series devoted to helping digital marketing agencies grow and succeed.

“Employees leave their managers, not their companies.”

It’s one of those quotes that we often hear, or see plastered all over LinkedIn, but probably don’t know whether to believe. 

Yet, the statistics suggest that managers really do hold the keys to an employee’s engagement at work. In the US, a study by DDI found that 57% of people leave managers, not companies.

It’s similar in the UK, too, where a study by Totaljobs found that almost half (49%) of employees in the UK leave their jobs because of their line managers.

Furthermore, Gallup found that 70% of team engagement is determined solely by the manager. And, in the UK, another study conducted in late 2022 found that employees who feel well-supported by their line manager are 3.4 times more likely to feel engaged at work.

Here’s an overview of what I’ll be covering in this article:

The world of digital agencies isn’t immune to this phenomenon. If you’re running an agency, or even just managing an individual, you need to understand the impact you can have on their engagement. If you mismanage someone, it could spell disaster for your agency.

How Managers Make the Difference

I’ve always been a firm believer that your experience in a workplace is largely determined by the manager you have. But the concerning thing for many agencies (and something which has probably led to the stats shown above) is the varying styles and abilities of those placed within these all-important people-management roles.

Agencies, in particular, often have issues with progression. They fall into the trap of “progression=line management”, rather than just increased responsibility as a reflection of their experience. This can often lead to incredibly clever people doing something they just aren’t good at or don’t want to do—managing people—simply because it’s the only way for them to move ahead in their business.

Our direct managers have such an influence on the way we work. They provide our sense of purpose, direction, and autonomy. Plus, they support our professional development. If they aren’t equipped with the skills to effectively deal with people, then this can have a major impact on the experience we have at work.

Yet with Gallup finding that only 20% of employees ‘strongly believe’ that they are managed in a motivating way, it shows that managers get it wrong far more than we may think.

The Pandemic Made This Even Worse

A lack of proximity and distance from the wider organization means that employees with particularly poor managers are struggling even more since the pandemic.

A shift towards far more remote and hybrid working has meant many develop closer ties with those they immediately work with, but looser connections with colleagues in other teams or departments. 

The result? More day-to-day exposure and reliance on the line manager. And if they aren’t great at their role, this impacts the experience of the employees reporting to them in a staggeringly negative way.

Marketing agencies make up one of the prime sectors that can work fully remotely or with effective hybrid working. But if an agency isn’t careful with how they implement this, they can cause real issues for employees and managers alike.

How to Create Better Managers

So, we’ve established that managers play a crucial role in employee engagement. But, what can be done to make them better? 

Determine Whether It’s Something They Want to Do

This is the first question that really needs answering. Is managing other people something that they actually want to do? 

In far too many organizations and especially digital agencies, management is the main step to higher seniority. Many accept that this is what they will have to do to achieve more status and gain a higher salary.

But being a good individual contributor on a technical or practical level does not equal being a good manager.

They are completely different skill sets, with behavioral traits like empathy and adaptability far more important than the technical skills that they may have previously relied upon. 

I would always urge any organization to not put employees into management roles if they don’t want to be spending a large portion of their time dealing with people and motivating them to become the best they can be.

That’s quite the problem, so how do you get around it?

Establish Different Progression Tracks 

Set up and showcase progression tracks that don’t rely entirely on managing people. Have one that includes management, but also one where your employees can simply become more senior as an individual contributor. This means that star employees have options about how they develop in your organization, and they don’t feel ‘forced’ into a management route if this isn’t something they will enjoy, or don’t have the natural skillsets to take on.

Set Clear Expectations and Make Them Accountable

People who do want to go into management need to clearly understand what is expected of them.

This means ensuring that they are accountable for performance around various people-related metrics. These include things like employee satisfaction and engagement scores, probation pass rates, retention, and promotion rates. 

All managers should have relevant goals set for their performance in that role, and be reviewed against them throughout the year. Encouraging them to constantly reflect on their experiences and iterate their approach as they learn to deal with new situations and challenges will help to equip them to approach them far more effectively in the future. 

Afford Them the Time

A common complaint I hear from managers, especially in organizations where their people management standard is not particularly high, is that they don’t have the ‘time’ to deal with people matters alongside their day-to-day work.

In agencies, where so much of an employee’s time is billable, giving managers the time to manage is often treated like a luxury.

Yet managing people takes a huge amount of time and effort—and even more to do it well. In fact, once a single manager gets to the point where they are directly responsible for anything upwards of five people (and certainly once they reach seven), management pretty much becomes a full-time role in itself.

I have to stress that time spent on ‘managing’ is an investment in the future of others.

As we have seen, managers have the potential to have a huge impact on employee engagement and happiness; this ultimately hits the bottom line through reduced employee churn, more focus, and a better quality of work.

As such, it’s crucial that managers are afforded the time to focus on developing their employees. Expecting them to deliver the same amount of ‘work’ as before is only going to end up creating a bad experience for your team.

Provide Them with Training 

Offering support in the form of training and coaching helps you to develop the skills and confidence of your managers. It also indicates to the rest of your organization that you’re willing to make the investment in improving everyone’s working lives.

As mentioned earlier, many end up in management positions with little to no prior experience or training to get them there. This makes it crucial to introduce them to a range of concepts that they may not have dealt with before, such as having challenging conversations, theories around human motivation, fostering psychological safety, and diversity and inclusion.

One-to-one coaching can also be a highly effective way to get your managers chatting to someone about certain challenges or situations they have faced, and reflecting on how they have dealt with that experience and what could be done differently next time.

The overall aim here is to empower them to ‘own’ their development as a people manager and increase accountability for their performance within that role.

Creating better managers benefits everyone, from the top to the bottom of the business. Whether that’s helping people advance, or creating a better culture. We’d love to hear from you in The Local Pack or on social media about your thoughts about the manager’s position in improving employee engagement.

It’s okay to feel like this. We know there are some experiences working as a local SEO freelancer, consultant, or agency that cause a great deal of stress. However, there are also really great experiences that can make you truly enjoy work. 

These are what we call ‘green flags’; the signs you might see in a potential client that indicates whether the two of you are a good match and if there’s potential for a strong working partnership.

1. The client follows your onboarding process to a tee

The clients who collaborate with your onboarding processes effectively are the ones to look out for. 

They don’t ghost you for a few days when they’re meant to be giving you access to their Google Business Profile and Google Analytics account, and they don’t ask about cancellation processes as soon as they’ve signed up.

In our Facebook group, The Local Pack, Melanie Diehl shared one of her big lessons from the past year. 

“If the client asks about the cancellation clause DURING THE ONBOARDING CALL, don’t be surprised when they cancel before the contract period ends.”

Melanie Diehl shared her learnings from the past year. 

2. They don’t shy away from telling you their budget and their long-term business goals

They don’t try to get your price down or get you to do more work for less money. They don’t err on the side of caution when it comes to marketing budgets or suggests they might only have enough budget to pay for a short SEO campaign.

They’re willing to invest in marketing and they understand how essential local SEO is to their business. It’s great when a client is open with their plans and wants you to join them for the ride. 

3. They show they trust you and your local SEO skills 

It’s great when a client is genuinely trusting of your skills. They respect your experience and the success you’ve had with other clients. They’re excited about how you can help them. 

They might share an idea or two, but they don’t tell you how to do your job. They give you a clear brief and are open to hearing about your priorities and strategy for their local SEO campaign. They listen to what you say and implement your findings. 

Marina Milutinović also shared her experience in our Facebook group, saying she loves when clients participate in the work they do: 

“We can always do research on our own but their input is really important. And it has happened before that when we suggest improvements they ignore them and just stick to their methods that haven’t really brought any benefits.”

Marina Milutinović explains what she looks for in a client. 

It’s also great when the client commits to collaborating with you.

Reuben Colazo shared his positive experience with clients, saying:

“[It’s great] when they work with you to form a system for gathering content (ie. photos) as well as taking your instructions on how and what to ask for in a review. I generally tell them that as a behind-the-scenes person, some of these things are out of my control so it’s up to them to help grease the system and keep it moving. Oh yeah, and immediate trust is nice.” 

Reuben Colazo explains how he works with clients. 

4. They wait for your updated monthly reports about project progress

We know that SEO is a slow game, but do our clients? The best clients don’t ask why they’re not number one in the map pack after two weeks but show they’re interested in the work you’re doing to get them there in the meantime. 

In a recent post on The Local Pack, we learned some awesome ways to get clients on your side with reporting progress.

Stefan Janjić Lozo suggests: 

“Schedule a 30 min call once a week, two weeks, or a month, depending on the size of the project. That way you walk them through the progress for the previous period. There is no need to report back to the client every few days.”

Stefan Janjić Lozo gives his suggestion to managing client expectations on progress.

Magen Hyatt also shared:

“I have an initial setup meeting where we set the expectations that this is long term and we can’t expect instant results so it’s a process. I think most people just think you’ll do a few things and then they’ll show up in a search if they weren’t before or that they’ll move to the local pack immediately, but we know that isn’t the case. If you’re upfront initially with what is involved and the long-term plan/goals I find that those clients settle down and better understand what they are paying for and all that you’re doing.” 

Magen Hyatt gives another great example to setting expectations with clients. 

5. They genuinely show interest in you as a person, and support your business

They treat you as a human and understand your limitations, your work schedule, and you as a person. They’re not calling at all hours, demanding you answer their questions. They enjoy your catchup meetings with you and demonstrate good rapport. They might even give you a testimonial to say how amazing your work is.

When a client has a positive attitude, you know they’ll be easy to work with! 

6. They respond to your emails quickly and efficiently (and they pay their bills on time!) 

It’s great when you get a timely response from your clients, and you’re not spending all of your retainer time chasing them for the answers you need. They answer your questions without going around them and help you make quick decisions about what you need from them.

A bonus is that they pay their bills on time, so you can actually eat and pay your rent that month! 

What do you think? 

What are the green flags you look out for when signing a new local SEO client? Share your ideas in The Local Pack! We’d love to hear from you. 

As the inimitable Ruth Burr-Reedy always says, “it’s called show business… not show friends”—but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t important. Most agencies completely forget that they can’t do anything without their employees. Digital marketers have been commoditized.

I’ve worked at several agencies over the last 20 years—and for most of them, people didn’t matter. Everyone was just a number on the P&L sheet:

• Someone wants more of a raise than the pathetic 3% that was company policy? “F ‘em—let ’em leave, there are thousands of people waiting in line to replace them.”
• A rock star applies to join the team but wants a few thousand more than our standard salary? “Ha ha, what idiots! Who do they think they are?”
• Someone on the team is privately struggling with a mental health issue and asks for a day off? “Sorry, man, you’re out of PTO.”

I’m not going down the “it’s cheaper to pay more to retain employees than hire and train new ones” road. I’m not going to spout the standard BS about how company culture matters. I’m not even going to share self-care tips to help y’all be in a better headspace.

I am going to tell you how to get into the right mindset to make all this stuff work.

I’m incredibly blessed to work for a visionary agency owner. Mark Bealin, founder of SearchLab, is not your standard agency owner. He puts his people before anything else.

Not only has he built a stellar agency based on hiring the right high-level talent—he’s done it with the right people-focused core values. I’m here today to share a little about how our agency does things differently, and why I think it’s the key to long-term success…

But even if it’s not, it’s the key to doing things the right way.

As you read through this brain dump, don’t holler at me about how you do the same thing. If you do things as we do, this post isn’t meant for you. Virtual high five, amigo! Thanks for being awesome.

Really, this is meant for all the other people out there who are either doing it wrong on purpose, doing it wrong without realizing it’s wrong, or who are thinking about building an agency in the future and want to do it the right way.

It’s worth mentioning that COVID-19 and the explosion of remote work has only made the problem of poor agency management worse.

For a lot of agencies, as long as the work’s getting done, employees are out of sight, so they’re out of mind. There’s a ridiculous amount of research that’s been done in recent years that shows that remote workers are prone to high anxiety, feelings of isolation and loneliness, depression, distraction, lack of motivation, and general malaise.

Again: not really going there with this post. It’s all been covered ad nauseum.

I’m here to champion the fact that there’s another way. I’m here to share that a people-first mentality actually equates to better results for clients… and a better bottom line for your agency.

If you’ve seen me speak at any event before, you know I’m all about sharing actionable tactics—so I want to try to steer away from the 10,000-foot view here. I want to share real-world examples from my own experience. So that, hopefully, you can either shift your perspective and start to give a shit about your team or, if you’re building a team in the future, that you start with the right foundation.

It’s Not About Culture, It’s About Mindset

A few years ago, I worked at an agency that was a sub-section of a larger company. The SEO office was at a separate location, and it was built out to be “cool” so it would contribute to a great “culture” (please read the words in quotations with sarcasm).

We had a massive break room, a huge couch with an Xbox, a shuffleboard table, and even a nap corner. We had a huge drop-down screen to run team events and training. From the outside, it seemed like an awesome place to work.

But the owners wanted a better bottom line, so we were forced to hire cheaper team members with less (or no) experience. Some of those people truly were rock stars and are still killing it in the SEO game today. But we started to have a big problem: we were training other agencies’ employees.

It was a revolving door of team members. The cheaper we skewed on hiring, the more likely it was that those people left once they finished training and got a bit of experience under their belts. Raise percentages dropped, and the problem got even worse. Every time I brought it up, the owners told me to deal with it, because we had no problems hiring new people to replace them.

Clients got frustrated at the turnover and morale dropped. It wasn’t a good situation.

They didn’t care about the people, they just cared about the bottom line.

And that wasn’t an isolated situation—it happens all the time with agencies that grow. The more you grow, the easier it is to lose sight of who’s allowing that growth to happen.

Mental Health Shouldn’t Be a Scary Topic

Isolation does some crazy stuff to your brain. Why do you think they have isolation cells for misbehaving prisoners? They’re already in prison, but being shut in a cell by yourself is far worse. Now that most agencies have gone remote, everyone’s in their own isolation cell.

As agency owners and leaders, it’s our obligation to understand that and to help people lessen the impact of not being in a face-to-face office situation every day. Yet, so many agencies don’t care about mental health, or at best are terrified of talking about mental health. If the topic is even vaguely alluded to, it’s “hey, you need to go talk to HR about it” (and then it’s lost forever in the HR black hole, and nothing ever changes).

That’s why SearchLab has been such a shocking departure for me. I had just been suddenly let go from a new agency (through more non-people-focused leadership decisions) and was looking for a new home. One of the guys who was going to be speaking at the State of Search conference in Dallas reached out and asked if he could take me to lunch the day before the conference to chat about coming to work there.

That lunch changed my life.

Mark Bealin is the kind of guy that pretty much anyone who knows him would take a bullet for. Within maybe three or four minutes, it was obvious that this was a totally different approach to running a business, much less a marketing agency.

He talked about true work-life balance.

About how money wasn’t as important as having happy employees that truly enjoyed their jobs.

About how he wanted to be the one to change people’s lives, help them get houses, help send their kids to school. 

It wasn’t about hiring me to build the agency to make bank. It was about hiring me to build an agency of awesome people who love what they do and enjoy doing it—but to also give people a better life outside of work.

About a year into COVID, we had one of our rockstar employees suddenly resign with zero notice, effective immediately. We were shocked, and it seemed utterly out of character, so Mark called and talked to them to see what was going on. It turned out that they were really mentally stressed with trying to maintain work and dealing with a few personal issues.

Instead of shying away from the conversation or just giving up, Mark asked if they’d rather just take a leave of absence and come back in a few months when they felt more comfortable. They were shocked that it was even an option, and took us up on the offer.

Most agencies wouldn’t have asked, they’d be upset that they lost someone with no notice, and more importantly, that employee wouldn’t have been welcome back in the future. Instead, we helped someone through a difficult period and welcomed them back with open arms.

So now that I’ve rambled for a lot longer than I probably should have, let me get to the point:

You have to focus on your people. Period.

Top-down or Not At All

Managers and team leads can talk about culture and inclusion all day long, but if it’s not part of the lifeblood of your agency, it doesn’t make much difference. Everyone from the top down has to be a part of making that change.

I’m not talking about the normal BS of touting that you’ve got work-life balance. Or that you’ve got a “sweet culture, bro”. I’m talking about a complete shift in point of view.

At SearchLab, we have several core values that we live by daily:

• Continuous drive for learning and self-improvement
• Have integrity in all that we do
• Relentless pursuit of exceptional results
• Demonstrate accountability and responsibility
• Contribute to a positive, supportive, and collaborative environment

That’s five core values, and really only one has anything to do with the standard “snappin’ necks and cashin’ checks” mentality that most agencies have.

So before this becomes a blog post that’s got more content than the entire BrightLocal site, let me share some of the things we’ve done.

Tactics for a People-focused Agency

When COVID hit, we went remote, like everyone else. Before COVID, everyone but me and our developer worked in the Chicago office. We adjusted quickly to remote life and realized we could hire remote workers without any problems. Pretty quickly we became a widely distributed team (we tripled our headcount during COVID, so it was a lot of growth).

We realized pretty quickly that we had to invest a lot of time and effort into recreating the in-person-ness and connection that we were lacking. We’ve honed it over time, and while I’m positive that there are improvements we can still make, I think we’ve got a pretty good system in place. 

True Focus on Work-life Balance

Volume isn’t important to us. Could we make more money if we made our people work longer hours? Sure. But life isn’t all about work. We make sure that workloads don’t exceed 35 hours a week. Standard hours are 8 to 5 central, five days a week. We even tell our clients that we’re only available during that window.

Some agencies let people work whichever hours they want, as long as work gets done. We tried that, but then saw people splitting their workload to a few hours a day, but working every day. Breaks are important, so now we don’t let people work over the weekend. At SearchLab, you actually get in trouble if you do weekend work. That’s you-time, not work time.

We also close the business completely from Christmas to New Year’s – again, that’s you-time and family time, so why make some people work while most of the office is enjoying a break?

Unlimited Time Off, Done Properly

We’re always looking for ways to make our employees’ lives better, so last year we switched to unlimited time off. We already had an incredibly generous time off policy when I started: from Day One at SearchLab, employees would get three weeks of time off and unlimited sick days (that didn’t count against time off days). But we knew we could do better, so we switched to unlimited days off. 

(Personally, I’m most excited about this because it’ll make it much easier for me to be on Survivor someday soon…)

But then we noticed something… people were actually taking less time off. When it’s a “use it or lose it” situation, you feel like you have to take the time off. When you can take off whenever you want for as long as you want, it becomes less of a priority.

I’m actually building a system right now to monitor when people take time off. Once I get it finished and working, we’ll actually require employees to take time off if they’ve gone too long without doing so.

Hiring the Right People for the Right Seats

It’s hard to hire without bias. Sure, we look at skill sets, but your own personal biases will influence who you hire. For example: if you’re a more social person, you end up hiring people you want to hang out and have a beer with. That doesn’t always work out, though.

About two years ago, we started churning employees. Even with the focus that I’ve talked about so far, people were leaving at a pretty high rate. We’d get comments like “you worked me too hard” or “you micromanaged my schedule” or “tracking hours is too controlling”.

We didn’t understand the comments, so we found a solution that helped us be better at hiring the right people.

We started using a system called Culture Index to help us hire the right people for the right seats. Far beyond the personality tests a lot of companies use, it’s a system that uncovers how people’s brains are hardwired.

Thanks to Culture Index, we now know how to better communicate with applicants, and more importantly, we know if someone is hardwired for success. If someone’s hardwired to be more of a “go with the flow” person, they’re probably not a great fit for the repetitive, task-based nature of agency life—even if they’re super social and interview like a rock star. It’s one of the biggest game-changers we’ve implemented.

We’re Not Afraid to Pay More

Dollar-focused agencies look to hire cheap. We look to hire expensive. We’re responsible about it, obviously, but we typically pay more than other agencies pay for similar roles. Experience is worth paying for, and I’m not interested in SearchLab being a training ground for other agencies.

If we pay better, we get a higher quality of people to join the team, and they’ll typically stick around longer.

… and We’re Not Afraid to Keep Paying More

We’re not afraid to keep paying more, either. I read the other day that the standard raise in today’s world is something like 3%. That doesn’t even cover the increase in the cost of living. We give aggressive raises to reward people for rocking awesome work. And again, that makes people happier and keeps them around longer.

Zappy Hour and Goofy Get-togethers

We wanted to figure out how to recreate those watercooler moments while remote working. Those random conversations that happen that aren’t about work really help connect team members and help everyone to get to know each other better.

Since everyone is remote, we can’t do the “let’s all go to happy hour together” thing. So instead, we have a weekly Zappy Hour (‘cause it’s happy hour on Zoom… get it?). People can grab their beverage of choice and just hang out together. We even had some team members start curating playlists for each week’s Zappy Hour, so everyone’s involved in the background music.

We try to schedule goofy meetings periodically as well. (I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty awesome at most of the Jackbox games.) We purposefully mix up the groups and teams each time so everyone gets to hang out and have fun with different people.

And yes, all of this is scheduled during work hours—not after hours, where we’d take people away from personal time.

Weekly One-on-ones and Team Meetings

Getting work done matters, too! We couldn’t do any of this if we didn’t have happy clients. So we have weekly meetings for each team, along with weekly one-on-one meetings for each team member and their direct supervisor. A face-to-face chat over Slack or Zoom is so much better for personal connection than a typed email or Slack message.

Sharing Profits with the People Who Helped Us Get Here

I mentioned before that our owner isn’t only focused on profits, and he’s serious about that. We set up a profit-sharing bonus with the entire company: every month, a set percentage of the profits is dropped in the bonus pool. Every June and December, that bonus pool is distributed among the team, based on a simple seniority-based point system.

Everyone gets extra money for summer vacations and Christmas presents, but more importantly, everyone has skin in the game. Hard work and happy clients mean more money in everyone’s pockets.

Handing Out Even More Money

The salaries, generous raises and profit sharing weren’t enough for Mark, though… he still wanted to do more.

So last fall, he and I worked out a retention bonus program for our employees. We’re a boutique setup, so each team member “owns” a set number of clients and does everything for those clients.

For each month that they don’t lose any clients, money is funded to a separate bonus pool (which also pays out in June and December). Team leads and managers get to play here too, even though they don’t have accounts—they get funded when the team members they’re in charge of don’t lose any clients.

Not only did this help us give even more to our team, but it’s also refocused everyone on customer retention. Keeping clients happy keeps them around longer, which puts more money in everyone’s pockets. 

We’re Not Stopping There…

Like the movie Popstar, we never stop never stopping. Because our team is more important than anything else, we’re always looking for ways to make our team’s lives better, both in the (virtual) office and at home (the “at home” after the home office).

At the end of the day, we’re only around for a short period of time, and there are a million-bazillion things that are more important than work.

Like Myles said in the first piece in this series:

“Never, ever, lose sight of the people, as without them, what are you?”