How to Package & Sell Social Media Management Services

If you're an agency owner looking for the best ways to bundle your social media services and win new clients, this post will help you do that! We'll cover:

How to identify your target market
What services to offer
Building your value proposition
How to price your social media packages
Creating a pitch deck
The right tools & resources
And how to find new clients

1. Identify your target market

Identifying your target market is one of the most important steps to get started. Here, you need to identify the industries you’d like to target, and what type of clients you want to work with.

This is known as a niche.

A niche is the focal point of your business. When starting out, especially solo, it's tempting to give everything a go. Narrowing down your agency and its services is a good way to make your mark and become a specialist within that niche.

Industry

Specify the industries you'd like to work with. It's wise to align these with your interests, passions, skills and knowledge.

Taking on industries that you're not interested or competent in isn't going to be enjoyable, and it's going to take a lot of time to learn a new skillset.

Platform

While you may consider yourself an expert in all social media channels (they're the heart of your business after all), they're all different. They all need different strategies and content, and they all have different audiences.

Focus on the platforms that you have the most knowledge and experience in. It's also important to consider which channels are relevant to your client, their audience and their goals.

Services

You can also narrow down the services you offer to tailor them to your clients and the skills you have in-house.

If you don’t have a particular skill - like graphic design - consider whether you can afford to outsource before adding it to your list of services.

We’ll go into more detail about your services in Section 2!

This is just a touch on the scope of social media marketing. The key is to not go too broad. You don't want to be left feeling overwhelmed, or take on anything that goes beyond your capacity.

This isn’t to say you can’t branch out into other industries, platforms or services once you’ve found your feet or expanded your agency.

To understand who you're trying to target, ask yourself the following questions:

Who is your present target audience? Specify the age, gender, and other personality traits of your target audience.
What are your audience's needs?
How does your business help your audience?
What are your audience's goals and needs? How do your services help them achieve these?
What content does your audience like / consume regularly?

2. What services will you offer?

Your services are what make up your packages. What social media services do you offer to publicize and market your clients?

When a client chooses you, they'll want to know exactly what they'll be getting in return, and whether your team are the right people for the job.

Here are a few examples of the services you may offer:

Strategizing social media marketing campaigns
Scheduling and posting social media content
Designing visuals
Writing social media copy and captions
Influencer marketing
Social media engagement
Paid social media ads

Consider the challenges and problems they face, and how your agency and social media packages can help overcome them.

For example, if your clients are strapped for cash, you could break the packages down into levels (more on this in Section 4!) - offering affordable and premium options.

It works the same for those clients who are time strapped. For example, your full package might include the tasks they want to do but never get time for, like daily engagement work.

3. Build your value proposition

A value proposition is a short statement that sums up why someone should use your services.

Yours should explain, in the simplest form, why your company is the best solution to the customer's problem.

To create your value proposition, consider:

Your target customer’s main pain points
The benefits of your solution / agency / packages
Why these benefits are valuable to your customers
How this value will help solve your customer's problems
How you compare to your competitors

You may have multiple value propositions, and for different services and stakeholders too. Take Uber as an example:

Trip customers - Access to trips on demand
Uber Eats customers - Food delivery on demand
Employees - Opportunity is everywhere

4. How to price your social media packages

To turn a profit, you’ll need to define what packages you’re going to offer clients and at what cost.

Most agencies offer around three different packages:

A low-range package
A mid-range package
A premium package

Let’s say you have a bronze, silver and gold package - they could look like this:

Bronze

20 posts
1 analysis
1 consultancy meeting

Silver

30 posts
2 analyses
2 consultancy meetings

Gold

50 posts
3 analyses
3 consultancy meetings

Now, what is the ideal social media marketing agency pricing?

Price your packages using the following steps:

Step 1: Work out how much capacity you have, and for how many clients.

Step 2: Work out how many hours it will take you to do each service, ie: how long it will take you to create 10 posts per month.

Step 3: Put your hourly rate on it. To find a ballpark figure of how much you should be charging hourly, research the industry standard for your area, niche and experience.

Step 4: Give yourself a buffer. Remember you also have other overheads, ie: tool subscriptions, equipment etc..., so add extra to your packages to cover these costs.

5. Create a pitch deck

This is where the selling comes in.

Your pitch deck is a presentation that showcases your agency - who you are, what you do, what makes you unique, and how you can help the client.

As social media marketers, we're masters of our art. But when it comes to landing new clients, it all comes down to the success of the pitch.

Before you continue, download our free pitch deck template:

Let's say you have a prospective client but all they know about you is that you offer social media services. Your pitch deck will introduce everything about your agency so the client has a better understanding of what you're all about.

To win them over, you will need to sell yourself in a way that is going to persuade them to choose you over your competition.

Creating a pitch deck is a vital step in getting clients over the dotted line. It’s essentially a sales tool that will boost your chances of winning business.

In your pitch deck, you’ll need:

An introduction

It takes just seconds for someone to make a first impressions of you. And they count!

Your introduction should grab the client's attention while giving a brief overview of your agency and what you're going to discuss.

Your unique selling proposition (USP)

What makes your agency special?

There are lots of social media agencies out there, but what do you do or offer that is different (or better!) than your competitors?

Social proof

Definition: “A psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.”

The social proof section showcases what you have done for others. Make a slide with logos of the companies you have worked with - it will tell the client that you're the real deal and will give you more credibility.

Awards and certificates also work well here. If you’re an award winning agency, shout loud and proud about it in your pitch deck! This will show the client that you have a good reputation, you’re dependable and you’re worth the investment.

An overview of your team members

People like to know about the team that’s going to be in control over their social media presence. If you’re a one-person team, give an overview of yourself - your roles and accomplishments.

The same goes if you have a bigger team. Show off the talents of the people that keep your agency ticking, and who will be helping the client achieve their social media marketing goals.

It’ll give the client a sense of familiarity with your agency too. A new partnership will always spark a little anxiety - for both yourself and the client. Knowing the faces behind your brand will give the client some comfort in knowing exactly who they’ll be working with and talking to.

(Meet team MixBloom 😊 for inspiration!)

Statistics and data

This is a chance to show the client that you're an expert in your field.

Share some statistics about social media in general, and your own agency's metrics. Ie: your agency has grown X company's Instagram account by X followers.

This will help the client understand why they need social media, and back up your claims that you're the best agency to support their goals.

Tell them what can be achieved with your help. Use proven stats and figures to prove how your social media support can help raise brand awareness, increase engagement, generate leads and boost engagement.

Research what the client's competitors are doing on their social networks too. This will give them a grasp of what they need to do to compete with them via their social channels.

Why the client should choose you

A very important step!

So, you've outlined your USP, built credibility through social proof and earned some trust by showing the humans behind the work. These are all selling points that can work in your favor.

In this section, bring all of those points together to emphasize why your agency is the best for the job.

An overview of your packages

Here you’ll reveal the packages you have on offer.

Do you have a starter, an intermediate and a professional package? (You can refer back to Section 4 for information and examples on this).

Show what each package entails, its price and how it will benefit the client.

Introduce your packages from the lower-end up so that your higher-end packages stand out.

After you’ve laid out your packages, break them down even further.

The client will know you ‘do’ social media but for your agency, what does this mean?

Break down your services and use the time to educate the potential client on what each one means - and more importantly - what it means for them.

For example, it’s not helpful to say that you offer social media management.

What does this look like? Mention: social media strategy, content creation, scheduling, engaging, community management and analyzing. Then explain how each one of those tasks is important to reach their goals.

If you’re a multi-faceted agency, here’s a chance to ‘show off’ other services you offer.

Your pitch can be a great opportunity to get more business and upsell your other services, even though the main focus is on social media marketing.

Your processes

Your pitch should clarify a few things about how your agency and the partnership will work. Specify what is expected from both sides, especially for your communication and approval process.

Examples of your past work

The proof is in the pudding! Before a business owner chooses your agency, they’re going to want to see some evidence to back up what you’re saying in your pitch deck.

Showcase some of your best social media management work. This could be examples of posts, graphics and any engagement work you’ve done. Check out examples of our work for inspo!

Case studies

Another way to convey that you're the best social media agency to work with is by showing what current and past clients have said about you and your work.

Display testimonials and reviews in your pitch deck. You can also delve deeper into what exactly you did by using case studies.

Here's an example of a case study: Josh's Agency Soars with MixBloom's Help

Thank you page

Your ending page should nicely round up everything you’ve discussed in your pitch deck. Here, always give the client an opportunity to ask any questions they have.

Take a look at our example Pitch Deck Template!

6. Use the right tools

Social media tools are software that allows you to manage one or more social media accounts across many channels on one platform, and they will greatly influence your workflow, capabilities and pricing.

These tools allow you to post, schedule and track the performance of your content.

Search the internet and there'll be hundreds of social media tools that you can use.

Some are more popular (and better) than others but when it comes to choosing the right tool, it all depends on your needs and budget.

Examples of social media management tools include:

Sendible
Cloud Campaign
SproutSocial
HeyOrca
Planable
Sprinklr
CoSend
Vendasta
Social Pilot

And if you want to resell social media services to other agencies, you might want to look into white labeling. Some of the top features you might find in a white label social media management tool:

A scheduler: This allows you (or your client) to input posts for all social media platforms into a calendar. You can then let the magic of the internet post them automatically.
Recommended sources: This is like an automatic search engine that filters relevant articles and images into the content that you're working on.
Access to stock images: A good white label social media management agency will give you access to a whole library of stock photos and videos to use in your posts.
Easy communication streams: Another feature that some white label agencies offer is the option of checking and responding to comment directly through the platform.

Here are some additional questions to help you pick the right tool:

How many social media profiles do you manage, or have capacity to manage in the future?

You need a scheduling tool that caters to the number of accounts you work on. And for a price that's not going to drain your bank!

Do you need to manage all your social media accounts’ inboxes in one tool?

If the social profiles are big (particularly for b2c accounts), you're going to get a lot of direct messages. Some tools allow you to manage this across channels, all on one screen.

Are you looking for a way to post your blogs and industry blogs automatically?

You might benefit from using a social media tool with integrated RSS feeds. These automatically post the blogs so you don't have to. Using these is a great way to boost engagement with minimal time and effort to do so.

How do you manage your client's brand reputation across social media?

Manually monitoring each client's reputation on social media can take hours out of your working week. Instead, you can use an automated platform that offers social listening features like monitoring keywords, and positive and negative sentiments.

How do you analyze your content?

Social media management tools can save hours of labor time when it comes to performance tracking. They can automatically pull all the relevant analytics and produce in-depth reports.

Need software AND service?

MixBloom is a great alternative to social media management tools. We're a white label social media marketing agency, helping agencies produce social media content at scale with our content creation services. We also cover the software needs for content scheduling, approvals and feedback - all done in a white label way!

More on this in the next section!

7. Build your team

In this section we'll compare the options available to you to help you expand your operation: an in-house team, outsourcing, freelancers, or partnering with a white label social media agency.

An in-house team

As the agency owner, it’s easy to fall into the trap of taking on everything. But this can cause burn-out and be counterproductive when it comes to the growth of your business.

To help you continue to deliver quality social media results for your clients, why not start building a team in other areas of the business?

For example, you could hire an accountant to look after your finances, or an admin assistant to take care of enquiries.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of the modern working world. The beauty of it is, you can now hire people from all over the world to work remotely. When your social media marketing agency is in a position to hire, there's a large talent pool waiting!

Where can you find new talent?

Check out LinkedIn, job boards like Indeed, and freelance platforms such as Upwork. These are fantastic places to find great talent!

We're not saying building a team is easy (or cheap!), but we are saying it's worth it if 1) you have the resources to do so, and 2) your business is ready to scale.

Delegating the work will ultimately help you earn more while doing less. With a good team behind your agency, you will be able to scale and grow your business even further.

Interesting in learning everything there is to know about hiring a great social media manager? Download our free guide:

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Outsource content creation

Running at capacity tells you two things:

You’re doing well as a freelancer or small agency because you're picking up more clients or more projects.
It’s time to consider outsourcing your content creation.

With a lot of content creation tasks on your plate, it's difficult to see how to manage the bigger-picture jobs.

Solution: Outsourcing!

Outsourcing content creation is a great way to streamline your workload and free up time in your calendar to focus on other areas of the business.

There are 2 ways you can outsource this kind of work.

Using freelancers
Hiring a white label social media agency

Using freelancers

If you could do with an extra pair of hands to help you create social media content, onboarding freelancers is a fantastic solution.

Look to the people in your professional network to see if they can help with content creation.

You can also use freelance platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to open up a wider pool of professionals.

One of the biggest perks of using freelancers is that you're not tied into a strict contract, as you would with an employee.

You can hire them on your own terms and you only have to pay them for the work that they do. You don't need to factor in other expenses like equipment or employee benefits.

Hire a white label social media agency

There are so many software programs out there to help agencies schedule, design and format social media posts. You can often operate an entire social media project from one single platform.

But, there's a catch to these super convenient software programs!

They are under another brand, which makes your company look a little unprofessional.

The solution? White label social media management agencies.

Have you ever heard of the concept of “store brands”?

Wholefoods has "365", Trader Joes has "Trader Joes". There isn’t a Trader Joes’ factory that makes all their store brand products. Instead, they seek out “private label” or “white label” companies that make food products they find interesting, then put their own label on it!

The same concept goes for white label social media agencies. They provide social media services that you can brand and resell as your own.

Getting some extra help by outsourcing will enable you to redefine your packages. As you scale, you may be able to offer more packages, add new services or broaden your list of target clients and industries.

A white label social media agency can help with strategy, content creation, graphic design and scheduling.

Hiring a white label social media agency is an obvious choice when it comes to saving you some dough.

It's a cost-effective option when compared with hiring an in-house Social Media Manager. You can also scale your client base without scaling your team, giving you the flexibility of adding or dropping clients when needed.

The first step is to do your research and make sure to choose a reputable white label social media agency, like MixBloom.

MixBloom provides a social media content creation service for agencies. Our team creates custom content for your clients that you can resell as your own without the need to hire more people.

Our white label solution also helps agencies to handle scheduling, approvals and feedback. All feedback and requests for changes gets picked up by our team, who takes care of all the edits. And you get access to our professional white label dashboard to manage all your clients in one place:

8. How to find new clients

Your agency is going to be pretty pointless (and not very profitable) without clients.

We've got you covered! Here are some of our top tips to help you find new social media clients:

Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth

Shout loud and proud about your agency to friends and family. Spreading the word to your close circle can open up doors... they might know a guy who knows a guy who needs exactly what you’re offering.

Network

Traditional, in-person events can help you spark conversations with industry leaders. They give you a chance to pitch what you do and how you can help their business.

Use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

Follow industry leaders and join in with conversations in local or industry-specific groups. It's a great way to build relationships with potential clients.

Be direct

If you have a list of your dream clients, approach them via email or their social channels. Introduce yourself and your portfolio and explain why you’re getting in touch.

Offer part of a service or a trial to potential clients free of charge

Everybody loves a freebie! They get a feel for your agency and what you do, without the commitment. And you get an idea of what they're like to work with before signing a long-term contract.

Summary

We hope you enjoyed our guide on how to package and sell your social media management services.

By following all of the steps we've covered, you'll be on your way to nailing your pricing strategy, winning new clients and scaling your agency in no time!

How to Package and Sell Social Media Management Services Checklist:

Identify your target market
Outline your services
Build your value proposition
Create a pitch deck
Pick the right tools and resources
Find new clients

More About MixBloom

MixBloom provides all the talent, tools and processes to help agencies create engaging social media content for clients at scale, without ever sacrificing quality.

Ready to package and sell your social media management services?

Find out how we can help you scale your business with our free 7-day trial!

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