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You’re passionate about your social media agency … but are you losing money or making money from it? Here’s an overview of the different ways you should be making money as a social media marketing agency.
Whether you’re getting ready to launch your first marketing agency or you want to expand your current offerings, you have tons of options for generating revenue.
Find out how to make money as a social media marketing agency and learn how to set yours up for success.
Services Your Social Media Marketing Agency Can Offer
If you’re new to the agency world, it’s easy to assume that yours should simply offer social media management. Yet it’s important to think about what that should include—and what your clients will expect when they hire your agency.
Consider providing the following social media marketing services separately or as a complete package:
1. Social media strategy
Do your clients need help deciding what to say, when to say it, and where to post it?
When you provide social media strategy, you can work with clients on positioning their brands effectively, building audiences on the right platforms, and aligning their social media marketing with their business goals.
2. Social media content creation
Do you have a knack for writing or design?
When you offer content creation, you can focus on writing social media copy, designing photos and graphics, or both. Many agencies also upload their content into native platforms or schedule it in a social media tool to streamline the publishing process.
Offer content creation from your social media marketing agency.
3. Community management
Are your clients eager to increase their brand awareness or improve customer loyalty?
By offering community management, you can help them accomplish both goals at once. Agencies that provide community management usually respond to social media engagement, answer questions, and run private groups.
4. Social media monitoring
Are your clients struggling to keep up to date with social media going-ons?
Offer social media monitoring from your social media marketing agency.
With social listening or monitoring, you can help clients manage brand reputation, gather customer insights, and stay on top of industry news. Your social listening efforts can also allow clients to monitor competitors and stand out from their peers.
5. Influencer marketing
Could your clients use a creative solution for brand awareness?
With influencer marketing, you can partner with key figures to spread the word about your clients’ brands. Many agencies help clients build strong partnerships and execute both free and paid influencer marketing initiatives.
6. Lead generation
Do your clients need more customers?
When you offer social media lead generation, you connect clients connect with prospects and nurture warm leads. Some agencies incorporate paid social media, such as Facebook Ads, into their lead generation efforts.
7. Social ads
Do your clients want to amplify their social media results?
Social media ads management
When you run paid social campaigns, you can help them reach new audiences, sell more products, and increase customer loyalty. Social media marketing agencies often manage ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and other platforms.
8. Social media management
Would your clients prefer that you handle every aspect of their social media marketing?
By providing social media management, you can tackle strategy, content creation, community management, social listening, and reporting in one convenient bundle.
How to Set a Price Structure for Your Digital Agency
Once you’ve decided which social media services to offer, you can put a price on your offerings.
If you aren’t sure how much to charge for social media management, think about it backward.
If you’re launching a solo agency, start with the amount you want to make over the course of the year. For example. in the United States, social media managers earn an average of $50,000 per year.
Go a little lower if you’re new to the field or a little higher if you have years of experience.
Then work out how much you’ll need to earn each month to meet that goal. From there, you can calculate the hourly rate to charge clients. Alternatively, decide how many clients you can manage per month and divide your monthly income goal by that number.
Want to consider a different cost structure?
Consider creating a fee structure.
Let’s take a closer look at a few ways agencies typically price their services.
Charge an hourly rate
Setting an hourly rate ensures that you get paid for all the hard work you do for clients. Yet charging by the hour doesn’t always add up.
For example, you’d charge the same fee for an hour of social media engagement as you would for an hour spent setting up an ad campaign designed to drive thousands of dollars of sales.
Be sure to charge a rate that reflects the type of work you spend the most time doing—or set a fixed fee for certain high-value projects.
Package your services
Packaging your offerings lets you set a standard monthly rate for your services.
For example, you might charge a recurring fee for handling social media strategy and community management.
Although a monthly retainer offers more predictability than an hourly rate, it could end up costing you if you don’t budget your time wisely. When calculating a price, consider how much time you’ll actually spend on each client and how much value you’ll deliver.
Set a fixed fee
For one-off projects, such as designing an influencer marketing campaign or running a social advertising campaign, a fixed fee often works best.
If the project has the potential to scale, consider setting limits. For example, a paid social campaign might start with a fixed base rate. Then for every $1,000 of your client’s advertising budget, you might charge an additional 10% as a management fee.
How to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency and Make More Money
So you’ve launched your social media marketing agency and you’re ready to grow. What’s next?
Focus on growing your social media marketing agency.
Let’s go over some ways to expand your agency’s earning potential.
Offer adjacent services
You may be a skilled social media manager. But what other aspects of digital marketing have you worked with—and what services have your clients requested?
Consider offering or contracting an outside expert to provide services like:
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads: Run paid campaigns on Bing or Google Ads to complement your social media ads.
Website or landing page design: Develop and update client websites or design landing pages for targeted social media posts or ads.
Search engine optimization (SEO): Optimize client websites to improve their organic search rankings.
High-end photography or video production: Create product photography or produce original branded videos for your clients.
Partner with other providers
If you don’t want to manage other types of digital marketing campaigns, partner with a provider that does.
For example, when your social media marketing agency clients need PPC or landing page design, you might refer them to a partner agency that specializes in those services.
Introduce a Referral Program
When you work with dream clients, it’s normal to want to find more of the same. While you can’t replicate your current clients, you can ask them to recommend your agency to their professional network. Consider offering a referral fee to incentivize them and show your appreciation for the new business.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking for your first client or you’re celebrating your first year in business, these tips can help you generate revenue or pursue more lucrative income streams.
Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.
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