How To Prove Social ROI to Agency Clients

[00:00:00] Stephanie Liu: It’s no secret that proving the ROI of social media marketing is one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses and marketing agencies today. In fact, in a recent survey of agency owners, Agorapulse found that a whopping 55% of marketing agencies, over half of you, aren’t measuring the ROI or impact of social media marketing for your clients. And as a result, 65% of agencies report having difficulties attracting and retaining clients. Wouldn’t you like to show your clients all of the value that you’re bringing to the table? How would you like to hand prospects the results you’ve delivered for other businesses just like theirs? Can you imagine the gasps from clients and prospects alike when you tell them the true value of social media?
[00:00:53] That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Agency Accelerated.[00:01:00]
[00:01:21] Welcome back to Agency Accelerated, the show for agencies who want to get bigger. Stick with us to learn how you can simplify your growth strategy with practical tips from the marketing pros. I’m Stephanie Liu and I’m here in beautiful sunny San Diego. Those of you that are watching live right now, let us know where you’re tuning in from.
[00:01:40] Let me know in the comments where I’d love to see you. And I’d love to know whether or not you’re here live. Oh. Yeah. And if you’re watching the replay, comment with #replay. Always remember that those who watch and engage live have the opportunity to get their questions answered in real time.[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] We’re live every other Wednesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. 11:00 AM Pacific Time on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and of course, LinkedIn. Make sure you head on over to Agorapulse.com/calendar and subscribe, so you don’t miss any episodes. And stay until the very end, because you’ll get a chance to get your hands on a creative way to grow and scale your marketing agency.
[00:02:23] That’s right. We’ve got Tim Sohn here in the comments. Love it. Love it. Love it. Yvi Heimman. Woo. Hello, gorgeous. So nice to have you here. And I saw Julia pop in earlier, too. So today, we’re not only kicking off Season Four of Agency Accelerated. We’re also starting an entire series for you all about ROI, the return on investment from social media marketing, because we all want to show our clients, our bosses, that our work is valuable, right?[00:03:00]
[00:03:01] And you’re going to learn from the amazing, the wonderful Jessika Phillips, and she’s going to be here because she’s going to be doing some amazing things. Jessika Phillips is a relationship marketing evangelist known for her outspoken dedication to relationship marketing. She’s also a dear friend of mine.
[00:03:18] Jessica’s personal mission is to inspire people to love more, give more, and be more through using authentic relationships every day. All day, every day. She’s founded Now Marketing Group in 2010 with only a laptop and a vision. Oh, she’s so talented. She brings it to life. The company is now a Forbes-recognized Agency Partner, and a Certified Inbound Partner with HubSpot. Now Marketing Group works with over a hundred clients across the United States and beyond.
[00:03:50] Choosing to serve, not sell, Jessika teaches comprehensive relationship marketing, presents in a weekly videocast, “Magnet marketers,” and hosts one of the largest [00:04:00] social media conferences in the Midwest, Social Media Week lima. Jessika, welcome to the show.
[00:04:10] Jessika Phillips: I’m so good. I’m so glad to be here with you, talking about one of my favorite topics, ROI. It balances relationships so well because it’s that proof that relationships work, right? But I love showing it through.
[00:04:25] Stephanie Liu: Yeah. One of the things that I love about you is because since your emphasis is on relationships, you show us that there are resources in relationships, and it’s important for us to start building them now.
[00:04:35] So, let’s set the stage just a little bit. Talk to us about how you got your marketing agencies started and the kind of work that you do for clients today, because you’re doing some awesome things.
[00:04:46] Jessika Phillips: Thank you for that. But yeah, so relationships were the currency of my business getting started actually.
[00:04:53] So I worked in telecommunications. That was my first big girl job and worked my way up from the customer service department to [00:05:00] sales, to store manager, to distribution partner and all the while I had to rely on relationships in every stage of the business in order to work my way up and grow. And what I mean by that is when I started out in telecommunications, it was the day of the big Zack Morris phones.
[00:05:17] I’m dating myself now, but saved by the bell, the big phones and that technology was changing really, really quickly it to then have the smartphones and text messaging and photo messaging and all the things. Data that people were like, I’m not going to use that. I just want my phone to make phone calls.
[00:05:35] And now could you imagine, like people saying that? I want everything but phone calls. Why are you calling me? You could just text me, right? But at that time, working in telecommunications, I was communicating with each person that came in the door. We were always supposed to sell, even if we’re working in customer service.
[00:05:56] So we had to really get to know the person that was in front of [00:06:00] us. Talk with them, find out what their challenge was and help them solve that challenge and build this rapport with them in order to even get to the point of them, trusting us enough to invest more in the provider that I was working for.
[00:06:14] So in doing that and building relationships, I was able to, again, work my way up from that customer service to the sales role, to store manager, to distribution partner, which distribution partner role was all about helping mom and pop shops, sell and market our phones and our services and they had no marketing budget at all.
[00:06:34] Like their marketing was going around to the malls and putting flyers underneath windshield wipers and to buy from them. And I’m was like, no, there’s a better way. This was also when social media was just coming out, thankfully. So the businesses that I was working with, his mom and pop shops, they really had a magical thing though in their shops of them taking time [00:07:00] with customers, getting to know them, knowing people on a first name basis. So I really fell in love with just their process and how they showed up for their customers and how they cared for their team members. So I built this rapport with them, helped them grow their business by setting up social media channels for them at that time.
[00:07:18] Still even going to school for internet marketing and kind of found this love for helping brands tell their story online. So thought I had my forever job there, but when I was pregnant, I got sick, really sick, where I was in the hospital for eight out of the nine months that I was pregnant. And the company that was working for let me go. Cause they were like, we can’t cover your territory where you’re sick. So I had a lot of time to sit in the hospital and think about what I wanted to do. And one of the things I knew I didn’t want to do is go back to a company that could let me go while I needed them the most. So I decided to start Now Marketing Group at that time.
[00:07:54] And because I was still getting phone calls from all the people that I built these relationships with asking [00:08:00] them social media and how they could use it in other ways. So the light bulb went off. I started Now Marketing Group in 2010, so 12 years ago, and we’ve grown from first offering just social media to then realizing that social alone is not going to do it. You have to have the other things in place because social is a spot for relationship building, not sales. The sales will happen on your home base. And so, started offering web development, video production, SEO, ad management, and grown the team from there to be a marketing department for the companies that may not have a full service marketing department, and work and mention of their brand from there.
[00:08:42] Stephanie Liu: Wow. That’s amazing. I know I just got the chills from all the things, especially when you said that it’s like, you know, I never want to be in a position where someone can just let me go like that. You want to be in charge of your own destiny and you have this vision, as I said before, of what it is exactly that you [00:09:00] wanted and you built it and you created it.
[00:09:01] And not only that though, but you held onto that vision and you brought it to life in 2010, you said?
[00:09:07] Jessika Phillips: Yeah. March 2010. Yeah. It was a scary, but exciting time, right? Like you go from making a salary to paying to work, but really the premise, again, it was the relationships that I knew that I had formed where people had trust, right?
[00:09:26] And that we were going to follow through and what we were doing. So it grew rapidly from there, thankfully, and I’m thankful for maintaining a lot of those relationships. I’ve had team members that have been with me the whole 12 years and clients as well, which has been cool.
[00:09:39] Stephanie Liu: That’s beautiful. I love that. See, now all of you know Jessika Phillips and now, you know, I am just so enamored by her and everything that she does and the team that she’s built and everything.
[00:09:51] So, Jessika,, when it comes to social media ROI, what does that mean to you?
[00:09:55] Jessika Phillips: Social ROI is often been this hard thing to [00:10:00] explain to clients because they’re used to investing so much in marketing dollars and equating that to just new sales, right? And with social ROI, it’s a little bit different and it’s a lot of a different actually.
[00:10:14] It’s that return on investment, but also I like to say, how is it reducing churn? How is it increasing your culture of your team members? How is it maintaining your team and attracting new top talent? How is it growing your brand from that inside out perspective of using social media to maintain, cultivate and really nurture relationships that you have in every stage of your business, you know, from people that are just following you online and becoming true fans of the brand, how are they coming from clients to real advocates for your brand team members, into, you know, evangelists, wanting to share your content out?
[00:10:59] [00:11:00] Social ROI has to really kind of capture all of that and paint a picture of what is our time worth investing on these channels because although they may be free to use, it does take an investment of time. Especially if companies and organizations are hiring people like myself and our agency to do the work for them. That comes at a cost and often brands have looked at it like, what is this going to generate for me?
[00:11:30] And they’re only looking at it as a new sales perspective when now it has to encompass many other aspects of that.
[00:11:38] Stephanie Liu: That’s true. I’m thinking back to the last time that I saw you and not only just you, but your team. And I remember when I saw them last month. Oh, wow. That was last month and what they were posting on social media and they were happy.
[00:11:51] They were just enjoying the event. And I don’t know about you, but if I have a happy account manager, I’m a happy client because account managers [00:12:00] in the right mindset to help me with what it is that I need, they’re not stuck in a problem, if I’m stuck in a problem, right? They’re living life, they’re loving it.
[00:12:07] And when you have someone that could strategize with you and do those types of things, yeah, that’s different from a monetary value. That’s knowing that my account manager, my team, they’re there to guide me and help me. And you’re cultivating that too, within your team. So, awesome. I love that. What else do you think is important about social media ROI for clients to be mindful of?
[00:12:28] It’s not just the dollar value you talked about. It’s like this embodiment of this culture. I’d be curious to hear what you have to say about that because your culture, your team, your crew. When I come out to Lima, it’s a whole another vibe.
[00:12:42] Jessika Phillips: Yeah. It gives a sense of who you are as an organization. When I said like starting from the inside out, social media is just an amplifier of whatever you have going on or should be anyway, whatever you already have going on within your organization.
[00:12:59] So it’s [00:13:00] important to remember that when you’re looking at how are we going to approach social media in the first place, really amplifying the social part of it, to tell the story and give more than just the story, like the energy of what your organization is and showcase that online, whether that is your account managers having fun, doing some fun Reels on Instagram or TikToks or whatever, and then balancing that with some of that helpful content they’re sharing.
[00:13:29] And then in between, we can promote maybe the conference that we have, you know, Social Media Week Lima that was mentioned at the beginning or an event like this for people to show up and attend that could lead to a sale, but it has to encompass all of those other elements in order to maintain the attention and maintain the relationship for the people that are following you and connecting with you in order for them to trust you enough, be invested enough to not only [00:14:00] want to continue consuming the content, but also staying with the brand.
[00:14:05] I like to say it’s like being a magnet with your marketing versus being like a bullhorn and just blasting messages out. You’re really attracting the right kind of people to your channel. So the ROI component of that is really breaking down the understanding and awareness of if we’re doing this, is it generating the outcome that I’m wanting? But that outcome can be so much more than just dollars, is what I’m saying at the end of the day.
[00:14:31] But you do need to be aware of ROI in general. So I love the ROI topic. Even though, I always say it’s serving over selling, you know, but it’s just the proof, right? It’s the proof that is building that confidence in the teams that are managing the social media and it’s showcasing that, hey, here’s our results from what we’re doing.
[00:14:55] It’s showing that it’s working with.
[00:14:57] Stephanie Liu: I love that. I love that. [00:15:00] We have someone in the comments, George Witcher. He says, Jessika dropping truth bombs. You know that’s right. Whenever I sit down with her and I talk to her, I’m just, it is a magnet. There’s this gravitational pull when it comes to Jessika. She just wants to know about you and everything. Not only just business, but you know, family, occupation, relationships all the things. She just takes that all into consideration. And I think that’s really what embodies a true leader is. Like I said, I’m totally enamored by her.
[00:15:35] So if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking with Jessika Phillips about how marketing agencies can prove the ROI of their social media marketing for clients. But first, a quick story about how another agency owner that we caught up with at social media marketing world relies on Agorapulse for reporting.
[00:15:54] I am the owner of Social Slab. We’re a boutique [00:16:00] digital marketing agency, specializing in social media, Facebook advertising, and organic social media. I chose Agorapulse for a few key reasons. The primary reason was the robustness of their reporting and the analytics that they have. It’s a really great platform for agencies.
[00:16:20] It makes it really easy to manage a team that’s doing multiple layers of scheduling approval. It’s a simple tool to use, but it gives me really robust information that actually helps me develop better strategies for my clients and better plans and options. I’ve used Hootsuite. I’ve used Sprout Social. I’m much happier with the functionality and the reporting of Agorapulse.
[00:16:50] And if you’d like to learn more about how Agorapulse helps thousands of agencies grow and scale their businesses, head on over to [00:17:00] bit.ly/AdAgencyRevenue. Now, let’s get back to your agency with Jessika Phillips. Jessika, for an agency to demonstrate the impact, that social media marketing has made on a client.
[00:17:12] What tools do they need to have first?
[00:17:15] Jessika Phillips: Well, I’ll tell you about the tools we used to have. And then now, we use Agorapulse where the add on of the ROI feature and just all the tools that you’ve added in. I was like nodding my head along to the testimonial video or where she was talking about all the tools she used before.
[00:17:33] And then now how succinctlyshe can pull and manage the data there in Agorapulse. Yeah. So before, I was using Google Analytics, because again, it’s not just about what happens on social. Cause a lot of times the sales happen on the website, right? Or whatever tool that you’re using. And so we were using a Google Analytics.
[00:17:52] Then when we’re using the ad reports via Facebook, if they were doing ads and then all the different individual social [00:18:00] channels, pulling the reports there. And a lot of times this data had to be combined within the dreaded spreadsheets and calculated to get an ROI. And the only way to pull that ROI, I should say at the very beginning, is like having the conversation with clients, like, what is that win for you?
[00:18:17] What are we measuring as success at the end of the day, especially if they’re not like an e-commerce brand, like how do you measure the ROI? What is that? What are we calculating? So I used to use a ton of tools like those, as well as I use SpyFu to see overall, like what people were saying about the brand and how the other competitors were performing online, but now we’ve been able to eliminate those and we use Agorapulse ROI feature in addition to the reporting that already comes within Agorapulse to then pull a nice report and to show them, hey, here is not only the dollar generated, but here is the [00:19:00] fairness is a big part of it. Like, how are you growing as far as people talking about you and being aware of you and how many new touches are you getting to the brand itself?
[00:19:11] How are you maintaining the engagement of that community building? So that growth of word of mouth or online it’s world of mouth, right? Like how are we growing that in addition to the awareness. Getting that engagement, people talking about us sharing us on, and then, at the end of the day, resulting in that dollar value or that completion of a goal, maybe it’s a phone call, maybe it’s a submission of a form, maybe it’s a sign up for a free trial, whatever that looks like for the brand. How are you able to measure all those components? But now we use Agorapulse to do that.
[00:19:48] Stephanie Liu: Yeah. And I don’t think most people realize like even in the reporting, right? Like I see the dashboard in my head and I see the comments come in and you could see [00:20:00] how often they’ve engaged with you. Cause you could categorize them. You could see what hashtags are coming up and all the things. And when you said, I think I heard it differently. And it gave me a different picture, but did you say word of mouth or world of mouth?
[00:20:14] Jessika Phillips: I said world of mouth. It was word of mouth, now it’s world of mouth because there’s so many more people talking about your brand and others are watching it happen. So like, we’re talking about Agorapulse right now, the ROI feature. We’re not directly saying it to the people that are watching, we’re talking about back and forth, but they’re listening in when somebody makes a comment at a group, hey, what social tools should I use for social media management?
[00:20:41] And maybe people are responding Agorapulse. Others are seeing that happen and that it’s still this pure recommendation. But without those people talking, I think it’s more world of mouth now than just word.
[00:20:55] Stephanie Liu: I’ve never heard that before.
[00:20:56] As soon as you [00:21:00] said it, my jaw dropped and my eyes went wide because I’m a visual learner and I was just like, yeah.
[00:21:05] It’s the whole world. And like, in my head, I was imagining like different continents, different cities, different places, all talking. And I was like, oh, I’ve never heard that before. And that’s probably why Steven Bargain in the comments said, Jessika is pure gold.
[00:21:25] That was good. It took me through a whole different thing and you know why? I think that is, is because I think as marketers, as clients, we’ve heard the phrase word of mouth, right? So it’s so easy for us, like, oh, okay, an agency is going to say word of mouth, but then you said world of mouth and then it, it took me to a whole different, oh, that’s different.
[00:21:48] See what I’m saying? When it comes to Jessika, she just opens up these possibilities, and I was like entranced by [00:22:00] her.
[00:22:00] Okay Agency Accelerated friends. We’re getting close to wrapping things up with Jessika. So if you’ve got questions, now is the time. The thing is, I love it when the live agency comes on board because you’re thinking, and you’re wondering things like, okay, so how can I apply this to my business?
[00:22:16] Do I need to go and revisit the Agorapulse dashboard? What am I missing out on? How can I create that world of mouth and pay attention to it and do all the things that Jessika has just mentioned. Right? And then the key thing here is, drop your questions now, ask them because I still have questions of my own with Jessica. As you can see, I just love talking to her, even at the conference. I like, cornered her. I’m like, hey, let’s talk. What are you doing? What are you doing? So I want to give another quick shoutout to Tim Sohn, who is hopping in from Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. Yes. I love it. I love it. I love it. Tim Sohn tuning in from Pennsylvania.
[00:22:56] Awesome. So Jessika, how has [00:23:00] being able to prove social media ROI to clients helped your agency? How does that help the Now Marketing Group?
[00:23:06] Jessika Phillips: I love this question, because I feel that, of course, you have to have trust with your clients in order for them to even trust you, to post for them using social media, right? And that’s a big trust factor or should be, but now we’re able to show them the impact that it has at the end of the day.
[00:23:24] So not only are we able to continue building that trust and what all of us just went through. Let’s just say in 2020, hate to bring it up. But we all went there and brands have to consider what are we cutting? What are we removing? What are we getting rid of? You can showcase that this is one thing that you can’t afford to because the results are there. And it’s not an arbitrary number, right? Like when I hate using this example, but I also love it at the same time. When you get the ROI, if you will, newspaper or [00:24:00] TV, and they’re like, okay, you have this many people that will see your paper and it’s been the same calculation of, they consider a newspaper that four people read each paper that’s delivered and a billboard, this many people drive past it. And it’s just a set number. Well, with social ROI, when you have the right tools in place, you can showcase, no, here’s the real result that’s specific to your brand of what is happening at the end of the day. And not only that, when you use the tool like Agorapulse, we can say, not only here’s the numbers of goal completions, here’s the new totals of new people talking about you. Here’s the type of content that’s working. Here’s where they’re finding you, but we can showcase the real people, names, profiles of people having conversations about the brand, how often they are, where it’s happening and be able to then take that and showcase that to a client so [00:25:00] they can see the efforts that you’re putting in.
[00:25:02] And they know that, you know, John Smith is somebody that they’ve been trying to close in a deal. They know the next person, somebody that they’ve had as a client. They can see those real relationships. And you can showcase that in your reporting. It’s building that trust and rapport, but also giving them faith and that relationships are the currency of business.
[00:25:24] They can continue doing it at the end of the day.
[00:25:26] Stephanie Liu: I love that relationships are the currency of business.
[00:25:32] Jessika, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. I love spending time with you. And I know that there are folks that are watching, that are listening as well, that want to connect with you. So where’s the best place to point them?
[00:25:47] Yeah, the easiest place is to visit JessikaPhillips.com. My name is spelled a little different.
[00:25:52] Jessika Phillips: J E S S I K A, Phillips, P H I L L I P S. And then, the social channels are at the top that you can click and [00:26:00] connect with the one that you prefer, but chances are I’m hanging out there as well. So we’d love to connect with you.
[00:26:07] Stephanie Liu: I love it. I love it. So that’s all that we have for today, friends. In our next episode, we’ll be talking to agency owner, consultant and speaker, the amazing Brie Anderson.
[00:26:18] We’re going to do a deep dive into Google Analytics and uncomplicating reports for your clients. After that will be followed by Steph and Jay to round our series on ROI. Then, we’ll have the Christina Garnett from HubSpot and Janet Machuka on the show. So, if there’s a particular topic that you’d like us to cover or someone that you think is just as amazing as Jessika, that you think that we should talk to, go to AgencyAccelerated.Live and drop us a note.
[00:26:45] I’d love to hear from you. I want to know who would you like to have on the show? So I’ll see you and your agency accelerating into the next show. Thank you, Jessika, you’re the best![00:27:00]