When you’re running your own agency, you rely on your team on a daily basis. These are the web developers, graphic artists, SEO experts and content creators that keep your agency afloat, and without them, business would be much more challenging.
However, what most agency owners don’t realize is that their tech guys aren’t the only people who can give their company the boost it needs. Agencies often refuse additional services because they want to save money or keep everything in-house. But in reality, refusing the help of third party providers, like a local listing management partner, can actually cost them time and money.
Today I want to talk to you about why agencies, no matter how big or small they may be, can benefit from partnering with a local listing service. It’s not just about the time and the money; it’s about making your agency the best it can be.
What Features Local Listing Services Can Offer
Before I try to convince you that agencies truly need local listing partners, let’s delve into the specific services that a partner can offer an agency. Here are the top three that will give your agency the leg up it deserves.
Dashboard Solutions
Improving organic and local visibility becomes infinitely simpler when agencies have a local listing partner backing them and their clients up. The dashboards many of these local listing management companies have are easy to navigate, include lead generation solutions, and have tools in place to make a single change to a business’ location data that disseminates to the directories, local profiles and data aggregators.
White Label Reporting
Baseline reports and progress reports, as well as updates on ongoing projects, are delivered directly to your client. Although the local listing service is doing the behind-the-scenes work, your clients will see your branding on the reports. This cuts down on the workload while still properly crediting the agency.
Let a Local Listing Management Partner Do the Heavy Lifting
As a local listing management service provider and local presence management technology company, our goal is to tackle the struggles agencies face every single day. Our products and resources are geared toward helping them improve their bottom line.
Increase Revenue by Working Smarter
With our local listing software and array of scalable agency services, we can easily provide agency partners with cost-effective local presence management solutions that won’t break the bank. Not only do our partners save money by working with us – they also substantially improve their annual revenue.
Client Management Made Easy
We will help agency partners achieve digital marketing success in three big ways. First, we monitor their clients’ online visibility to see where they stand in the local ecosystem. Second, we identify clients’ weaknesses and offer tried-and-true solutions to improve local search placement. Third, we continue to monitor and review the clients’ progress, even after their weak points have been addressed.
Reputation is Everything
Online reviews are more important than ever thanks to changes Google has made in recent months. Negative reviews instantly impact local businesses, which is why we do everything in our power to provide tools and resources to help you manage your clients’ online data, reviews, social sentiment and reputation.
How to Choose a Listing Management Partner
Picking a local listing management partner can be a challenge. There are dozens of companies competing for agency business, so before making any commitments, follow these steps to ensure you’re working with the company that will best benefit your agency.
Customer Support Can Be a Killer
When something goes wrong, who will you be able to contact immediately? How do you report problems or concerns? Interacting with the local listing management service will be a huge part of the process, so it’s vital that you understand how accessible their customer support team will be when they’re needed.
How Do They Distribute Data and How Often?
There are several different ways to collect and distribute data. Understanding which methods your listing management provider uses can be critical. For example, some companies include a business’ data in their pushes to directories and data sources as long as they are paid to do so. When they stop getting paid, most times the data will revert back to what it was before they were hired. In essence, the business is paying to be included.
The critical difference between Advice Local’s local listing management solution and the others is that when service is cancelled with us, a business’ data will stay intact on the various data sources until someone changes it, manually or otherwise. We are paid for the initial submission and then a monthly fee to maintain its accuracy, so no other sources can override the data with incorrect information.
Real-Time Equals Real Results
A real-time digital strategy is one of the best and most important ways to attract local customers. The local presence management partner agencies select needs to be based on their real-time services.
At Advice Local, we understand that things move quickly, so we are continually updating data sources like GoogleBusiness Profile (formerly Google My Business), reports and even our tools and features as expediently as possible. We have formed and continue to form partnerships with data sources and service providers to offer the best and highest quality solutions to our agency partners.
Local Listing Management Empowers Agencies
Are you ready to power your agency, drive revenue and provide real-time results to your clients? Request a demo today to get started!