Marketing agencies work hard to create a product that is unique, engaging, and helpful to clients.
After putting so much effort into developing your main offer, why change it?
The obvious answer is that it might no longer be working for you, but there are other times marketing agencies shouldevolve service lines and main offers. Doing so successfully, however, takes a bit of finesse.
Why Marketing Agencies Must Evolve
The biggest reason marketing agencies must evolve is because clients and their end customers constantly do so. Even agencies that do evolvemight need to do so at a faster pace.
Robert Rose of the Content Marketing Institute refers to this need to evolve when discussing content marketing. He calls online content marketing a new muscle for the majority of marketing companies — even though content marketing itself is actually as much as 100 years old.
Whether your agency is flexing new marketing muscles or developing new offers around traditional services, changing the game periodically can renew client interest, bolster results, and improve revenues.
Plan Before You Make Changes
Evolution is important, but so is solid decision making. Don't make changes for evolution's sake; evolve to keep up with the needs and demands of your customers.
Analyze your own marketing data as well as industry trends so you can make data-driven decisions that are more likely to result in a workable main offering. Making on-the-fly changes without data and planning often means you have to rescind untenable offers, have trouble living up to promises, or make constant changes that confuse the client as you attempt to work out issues with your new offer.
Poor planning can reduce your agency's efficacy and make it difficult for your clients to meet their goals, reducing customer trust in your brand.
Consider Incremental Evolution
In some cases, an immediate change is necessary for a marketing agency. Existing main offerings that are failing because of relevance or workability might call for quick change, but if you are currently moderately or exceptionally successful, consider incremental evolution to avoid disruptions.
Small steps over time let you test and troubleshoot ideas without severe impact to clients. Large changes can also be frightening to clients, who are often not yet ready to buy into the latest marketing ideas or tools.
Incremental changes let clients dip their toes in, which keeps clients from abandoning your agency out of shock.
Choose Communication over Surprise
It's tempting to surprise your clients with a main offer that changes everything–a new tool that will make marketing easier and more effective and ensure clients drive more conversions and profits sounds like something customers would be excited about.
The truth is, though, clients–especially B2B clients–don't like the unknown. Even “good” change can be bad for business clients that don't have time to integrate changes into their own strategies. Communicating plans with your clients ensures they can evolve alongside your marketing agency, creating loyal customers and partners that are even more likely to buy into your main offer evolutions in the future.
Communication has an additional benefit for marketing companies that loop loyal clients into evolution from the beginning: clients can provide feedback to help you create unique solutions that are more likely to tempt new customers.
Your main offer is the lure by which you fish, but even in a real lake, the fish eventually become tired of or aware of lures cast repeatedly over time.
Evolving your main offer creates a new and exciting approach for customers and clients. Tossing it into the lake without testing the water first, however, can scare away all the fish.
