Big or small and regardless of industry, every business benefits from digital marketing. And yet, competition for clients in the digital marketing industry can be fierce, to the extent that many digital marketing companies consider quitting the constant hunt for leads and becoming a white label firm, instead.
White labeling is the process of providing a digital marketing service under the name of a different digital marketing agency. The process is not dissimilar from outsourcing, except that the outsourced services are delivered to the partner firm’s business clients rather than the firm itself. White labeling has many advantages — for the white label company and its partners — but before any agency makes the big transition to offering its services under a white label, they need to determine whether white labeling is truly the right choice for them.
Are You Struggling to Find or Keep Clients?
Business clients know that they have a wealth of options when it comes to digital marketing agencies, and many will not hesitate to go in search of other providers if they are in any way dissatisfied with the services they are receiving from their current partner. Typically, the firms that receive the most leads are those that have well-established reputations and have grown to a considerable size — which means that smaller and younger digital marketing agencies will almost certainly struggle to find clients and keep hold of them.
White label digital marketing companies don’t need to worry about attracting and managing clients because they cater almost entirely to the clients of their partner firms. Good white label partners might find that becoming a white label is akin to outsourcing lead generation, account management and customer service, which allows them to focus entirely on improving the digital marketing services they provide.
Do You Offer Niche Services?
Some of the best advice for new or struggling digital marketing firms is to identify and cater to a niche, which will help reduce competition and increase the number of clients flocking to their doors. However, sometimes, niche services are even better when provided to other digital marketing companies with a white label.
Though in high demand, services like SEO can be considered niche because they are remarkably difficult to provide. Good SEO demands high technical skill as well as creativity and flexibility; the training and experience required to practice SEO often makes the service out of budget for smaller digital marketing firms, but the critical nature of SEO means that almost all digital marketing firms need to deliver SEO to their clients to some degree. Thus, it is typical to find successful white label SEO firms, especially if they have further differentiated themselves by focusing on local SEO, technical SEO, mobile SEO, or some other specific type.
Is Your Team Passionate and Experienced in Those Services?
In becoming a white label, an agency strips down to the bare essentials required to perform the services demanded of them by their partner firms and clients. If a team thrives at functions like client communication, that firm might struggle to make a successful transition into a white label because much of what it will excel at will become obsolete. An agency can only survive and succeed at becoming a white label if its staff prefers the work of providing specific marketing services. Agency leaders need to be confident that their team members are appropriately skilled in the services they expect to provide and that they will remain passionate about doing the work associated with those services into the future.
Can You Relinquish Control of Client Relations?
For some digital marketers, the most difficult step in transitioning to the white label business model is handing over full control of clients to another agency. It is typical for digital marketing firms to develop their processes for handling client relations, including onboarding processes and communication rhythms. In functioning as a white label service provider, a digital marketer must adapt to another agency’s strategies and techniques for managing clients. This adaptation does not come easy, and many firms feel frustrated by the lack of freedom to interact with clients as they see fit. Only once an agency is willing to relinquish essentially all client responsibilities will they find comfort and success as a white label.
White labeling might be a smart move for a struggling digital marketing firm, but there are many considerations for marketing leaders to make before taking their teams down this rather different path to success.
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