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Digital Marketing

ANATOMY OF A WINNING AGENCY PITCH

Get a ready-to-use structure for a sales presentation, backed up by industry data and expert advice.

READ OUR STUDY TO DISCOVER

The 10 key elements of an agency sales pitch
What brands really look at when choosing a digital agency
How to structure a pitch to win more business
Which data your potential clients will trust – and where to get it
…and much more.

Attracting, appealing to, and converting clients is a major struggle for marketing agencies everywhere. The competition is high, with hundreds of agencies showing up alongside yours in any given Google search.
Struggling to attract and convert clients can significantly impede the growth of your business.

47%

of agencies say that the lack of marketing and new sales has prevented their growth

29%

say that selling to new prospects and differentiating themselves from other agencies is a challenge for them.

Winning new clients can be a massive challenge for any of the three following reasons:

• If the sales pitch doesn’t go well, you’re unlikely to get a second chance. This means you must be as prepared as possible, tailoring each pitch to each client.
• There’s an enormous amount of research involved that requires you to invest time and resources into the process. Even if you do your homework, of course, there’s no guarantee for success.
• There is a massive amount of competition amongst agencies, and it can be difficult to make yours stand out.

Our study will help you overcome this challenge.

• We analyzed dozens of sales presentations from real agencies.
• We asked over 200 agency and brand representatives what makes a good pitch.
• Finally, we distilled all the responses down to 10 key factors, creating a compelling structure.

All you need to do is take and adapt this structure for your business.
PS: No need to share your details – this study is open to everyone.
Happy reading!

10 KEY FACTORS OF A WINNING PITCH</h2<
Brands and agencies approach and review sales pitches from very different perspectives.

Understanding how they interact and how to prioritize them is key to converting new clients.

Over the course of the two months, we asked 60 agency and brand representatives what elements of a sales pitch they considered the most important to success. The responses we got could be distilled down into 10 essential factors:

Together with marketing experts from various digital agencies, we looked at every element in detail, and discussed best practices and examples. And we’re now ready to share the findings with you.

Important note:

The elements are organized in a way that makes your presentation a story. As you see, brands value a tailored strategy proposal as the top factor, but a strategy presentation is no good without a solid foundation (competitor research, industry benchmarks, and audit of current activities). However, the importance score is essential to help you distribute your efforts more effectively.

START WITH A CLEAR VALUE PROPOSITION

Importance

38/100 for brands

66/100 for agencies

Your value proposition is a clear statement that explains to potential clients what you have to bring to the table, and why they should hire you. An agency might, for example, have proprietary software or algorithms that help them test ads quickly, resulting in better results fast. Another agency might promise boutique, high-level service, and even responding to messages within 20-30 minutes.

In a nutshell, when people are thinking “well why them,” you have to have a good answer to give.

Determining your real value proposition can be a challenge.

Ask yourself the following questions:

How are you differentiating yourself from other agencies? This can be a specialized technique you use, or even a niche approach, like “Data-driven agency to help you drive high-value leads quickly.”

What experience do you have that sets you apart? Think “founded by ex-Googlers” or “two centuries of combined experience.”

Which specific services do you offer, and what types of clients you’re trying to attract. Focusing in on “The only specialized agency working in healthcare in Colorado” can work well.

When creating your sales presentation, if you’re struggling to come up with something unique about your agency, there is a way to work around this. You can combine your first slide with your “contents” page. All you need to do here is list the main sections of the presentation, and then explain why they’re important.

This approach will help you demonstrate what you bring to the table from the first slide.

Real-life value proposition examples from agencies

“40 years of combined SEO experience”

“We’ll increase your sales in 90 days, or work for free”

“The only digital marketing agency that specializes in the synthetic sports surface industry”

“Free, No-Obligation 30 Minute Consultation with CEO and sports marketing expert Andre to plan your strategy”

“We don’t aim for thousands of clients, we partner with a select few, the ones we can actually help”

“A small, but agile team of eight, located in the heart of downtown Riverside, California”

How Experts Highlight Value Proposition in Their Pitches

Gareth Hoyle,
Managing Director at Marketing Signals

“If you cannot give clear answers to these questions, you are going to struggle to differentiate:

• What is it you do better than anyone else?
• Why should any clients come and work with you?
• Why is your product the most suitable for your client’s needs?

We do not pretend to be experts at JavaScript frameworks. We know enough to get by. So we do not lead with that in our messaging.

We are experts at link building. This is our differentiator. This is what we shout about. Our storytelling is based around this activity and ultimately, this is what the leads we attract are looking for. A successful differentiation from a large % of other agencies.

By having a very narrow specialism, our UVP is easier to define than the broader, general agencies offering “SEO services”.

Our company UVP is linked to how the board would like to do business and be treated.

Many years ago, I was running my own sites and purchasing a lot of links from 3rd party vendors. I was amazed at the mix of standards in the market (this was 2008) so I thought I could do better. And that is what helped define our UVP.”

PROVIDE INDUSTRY BENCHMARKS

Importance
37/100 for brands
29/100 for agencies

Industry benchmarks, statistics and any other relevant data are inherently valuable. They allow you to concretely demonstrate what you’re trying to communicate to potential clients.

Which, for example, would you find more appealing?
Everyone’s buying clothes online

According to
a Nielsen study,
72% of the online shoppers bought fashion category

Money-related and performance-related stats are what clients appreciate the most.

Statistics like CPM, CPC, and the average cost of a lead within a specific niche can help strengthen your image as experts and justify the price level you’ve set.

PRO TIP

Google Partner agencies can ask for custom stats from their account manager. Other advertising networks you work with can provide this kind of data by request too. Use this to showcase “insider information” with clients that they haven’t already seen somewhere else already

What marketing stats and benchmarks helped you convince your prospects?

Not all statistics and benchmarks are equally valuable to your clients. Here’s what can work best for an agency:

Alex Kudimov
CEO & Founder at Direct Line

“A benchmark that is exceedingly important is to show why SEO takes time (around 6 months) and what the ROI can look like for the client in that second 6-month time frame. By understanding our clients and their businesses, we can put together an ROI based off their services and keyword analysis. These benchmarks and statistics establish us as an honest company that are experts in this field and give realistic expectations to the amount of traffic a client can get to their website.”

Industry benchmarks, statistics and any other relevant data are inherently valuable. They allow you to concretely demonstrate what you’re trying to communicate to potential clients.

SHOW STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES THROUGH COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Importance
49/100 for brands
49/100 for agencies

For an in-house marketer, it’s hard to incorporate competitor analysis into their routine. We get it; there’s so much to tackle on any given day, and this is something that can fall on the backburner.

Keep in mind that when you, as an agency, conduct competitor research for your prospects, you’re giving them valuable information they may not have had the time, resources, or knowledge to gather themselves. They’ll be most likely to take this information directly to their colleagues and boss, making your research stand out.

What Should You Analyze, and How?

You want to start with an overview look. Check out where your client stands compared to their main competitors in terms of key metrics:

Site traffic
Advertising budgets
Social follower bases
and more…

Get a 6-step guide to competitor and market analysis – and enrich your presentation with valuable findings.

Read the Guide.

Tips for using competitor analysis in your sales pitches
When using competitor research, it’s important to leverage it correctly. Here’s what our expert had to say:

Jonathan Fink
Head of Search at Green Park Content

“Clients want to know how they perform against key competitors. At a basic level, this data can provide a clear and visual narrative around how successful an SEO strategy is being. This can be critical when justifying investments or reporting results to internal stakeholders. Equally, showing how competitors are ‘smashing it’, can be a useful incentive to get clients to adopt SEO as a strategy, and put the requisite investment behind content creation and link acquisition projects.

In terms of the data that’s important to include, for me average rankings are still important. The CTR from keywords in positions 1-3 are still significantly higher than being ranked anywhere else – so position in SERPs really matters. But in order to plan content at scale, you need to monitor keywords at scale. That’s especially true if the cornerstone of your strategy is to develop high-performance content, and too increase the traffic yield or ROI from each page on your site. Spotting trending terms, and halting declining terms can also be critical underpinnings of SEO tactics. We also put a lot of effort into modelling the potential uplift of traffic from different topics and keywords – because prioritisation of resources is fundamental.”

PROVIDE AN AUDIT OF CURRENT STRATEGY

Importance
37/100 for brands
34/100 for agencies

Taking a look at the current state of your prospect’s marketing strategy is essential, even if they don’t offer a ton of detail up front.

Audits helps check multiple boxes in the prospect’s mind:

• It shows that you’ve taken time to understand their pains and problems
• It makes any further recommendations more grounded
• It shows that you have the experience needed to guide the client towards a successful strategy

PRO TIP

Maintain a delicate balance between finding growth points and highlighting what’s working well. If you go too far in explaining that everything is wrong, you risk facing a defensive reaction from the prospect. Think constructive suggestions!

During the presentation, consider implementing a slide detailing the pros and cons of your clients’ current strategy like this:

What are your best practices for analyzing the current strategy of the prospect?

Auditing a potential client is tricky, especially because it takes a significant amount of work and you could still end up with a defensive client. Here are the insights some of our experts shared on how to do this well:

Stephen Kenwright,
Co-Founder / Technical Director at Rise at Seven

“An initial audit provides us with an opportunity to see what’s happening and get to know the client/brand – this includes everything from learning about the competitive landscape, brand and key products/services to putting hard numbers on what investments are being made, performance metrics and outcomes. An audit can also reveal gaps in data capture, passback and reporting, which can then be discussed and addressed.

It provides an opportunity for open, honest dialogue – in the overwhelming majority of cases, an audit will return some combination of positive and negative findings (i.e. it’s rarely all good or all bad) – but the degree to which information is shared and the way in which findings are presented speaks volumes about each group (the agency and the potential client). If a client withholds data or requests that a particular component of the audit be framed in a more favorable light, that should be a red flag to the agency; and likewise, if an agency insists that everything done previously is a failure, that’s also a red flag. A well-done audit should open a dialogue between all parties about what was done, why it was done and how it was measured.

It facilitates alignment on business goals, KPIs & strategic priorities moving forward – audits should create alignment between all parties on the goals for the partnership, the amount of work required, the outcomes produced by previous initiatives and the KPIs against which performance will be evaluated. An audit should go beyond basic marketing metrics and include meaningful business KPIs (incremental profitability, new customers gained, reduction in churn, increase in LTV, etc.) – and if this isn’t possible, that should be communicated at the outset of the relationship.

A well-done audit provides insight into the strengths + weaknesses of all parties, uncovers latent issues, creates transparency, accountability and dialogue, and lays the foundation for a successful partnership moving forward.

And just as a good attorney, accountant or doctor will not take on a new client without doing his/her due diligence, a good agency shouldn’t take on a new brand without conducting an audit or evaluation of current marketing initiatives.”

Lily Ray,
Director of SEO at Path Interactive

“By familiarizing yourself with the client’s website and coming prepared with a handful of customized recommendations, it shows the potential client that you are a committed partner that does their homework and truly cares about the needs of their company.

Use example screenshots pulled from their content, or visualize data from the crawls you’ve conducted of their site. Provide a handful of recommendations that you would tackle with them over the course of an SEO engagement. Showing that you’re willing and able to give them that extra bit of attention goes a long way in their decision on whether or not to partner with you.”

TAILOR A STRATEGY PROPOSAL TO WHAT PROSPECTS NEED

Importance
74/100 for brands
64/100 for agencies

According to our research, brands see a tailored strategy proposal as the most important element of a pitch deck. It’s easy to understand, as this determines how much (and if at all) the agency’s vision matches the brand’s needs.

This is where all your previous research comes into play, combining with your experience to offer great insights and actionable ideas.

You’ll need several slides to explain your strategy, but remember that it’s best to keep it concise.

How to Present Your Strategy Successfully
Here are a few tips to presenting your strategy well during your presentation:

What is the key to building a tailored marketing strategy for a prospect?
Building a custom-for-them proposal for each client isn’t easy, but here’s what Hannah Thorpe had to say:

Hannah Thorpe,
Business Director at Found

“The digital strategy we introduce at pitch may be tweaked and changed over time, however the way we work and the experience our clients have are consistent so it’s essential for us that clients don’t just understand it, they buy into it.

For us, the pitch process is about connecting values, aspirations and expertise – and presenting the people we believe are most suited to achieve the client’s goals. One of our core business values is transparency – in ways of working, in communication, in processes – so sharing our ways of working helps both parties to ensure we’re a good match.”

DESCRIBE THE WORKING PROCESS

Importance
67/100 for brands

58/100 for agencies

So far, you’ve described the competitive landscape, you’ve provided an overview of their current strategy, and offered suggestions for how to move forward. You’ve shared data, examples, and benchmarks all along the way.

So now it’s time to explain how you can move forward with the client from here.

If the client you’re presenting to has already worked with a digital agency in the past, they may be skeptical. Many agencies unfortunately like to make big promises and underdeliver; the results in the end don’t always line up with the initial plan. And if the client is a first-timer in terms of working with an agency, they have no idea what to expect.

In both cases, a clear description of the working process and the steps involved address plenty of questions and put the customer at ease.

When discussing your work process, always make sure to go over the following:

Time
How long each stage (analysis, writing, implementation, etc.) will take.

Input
What information is needed at every stage. This is where you communicate what will be needed from the client side. For example, if you don’t get access to the CMS you won’t be able to conduct analysis and make changes.

Definition of done
What will be the results of the work at each stage (in milestones or numbers). Focus on KPIs, and be specific.
Input

There are plenty of ways you can share this information with your potential client. One option is to use timeline graphics to take clients step-by-step through the process, setting reasonable expectations…
A visual representation of time periods and milestones will help understand when and what to expect from the collaboration.

What is the best way to describe the working process to your future client?

Every agency has their own working process, which will impact how you explain it to clients. Here are some suggestions for how to convey your process to potential clients:

Hannah Thorpe,
Business Director at Found

“We take our clients through a general working process which includes:

Onboarding
What day 1, week 1 and month 1 look like after you’ve signed the contract. This includes who the client will be meeting and talking to, how data and reporting will be set up, and a comprehensive overview of their initial experience with us. Whilst it’s important for the client to know how we do this, it’s also key that they understand how much time they’ll need to invest upfront to make the most out of our relationship. If we call this out at the onboarding stage, it enables clients to know which stakeholders to prepare e.g. we often want to talk to clients’ sales teams or customer services to understand the challenges.

Ongoing
Here is what it’s like to work with us long term. For this, we look at the key check-in points we have for communication e.g. weekly calls, monthly meetings and forward-focused quarterly business reviews. We also show snapshots of our digital roadmaps and Data Studio dashboards so the clients see what the always-on information is they have access to.”

PRESENT THE PROJECT TEAM STRUCTURE

Importance
12/100 for brands
7/100 for agencies

Despite being ranked in the bottom part of the list (only 7% of agencies and 12% of brands see it as a vital factor), presenting team structure can become crucial in laying the ground for future collaboration.

A lot of agencies, after all, will have the execs or high-profile account managers schmooze potential clients, and then they’ll hand off the campaigns themselves to an underpaid, not-so-experienced intern.

Clients never know if they’ll be working with a junior manager or a seasoned specialist, and it’s up to you to clear that up.

It’s a totally different experience when potential clients get to see and meet their PPC manager that will handle keyword research, the designer that’s tackling the banners, and the copywriter who will handle your entire site’s worth of copy.

PRO TIP
If possible, bring the project team to the meeting. Not only does it help the brand team get to know the agency representatives better, it also helps the agency specialists understand the specifics and the “vibe” of the company they’ll be working with.

The good project team slide should answer one vital question: Who will be responsible for what?

What is the best way to present a project team?

Stephen Kenwright
Technical Director at Rise at Seven

“In 100+ RFPs I’ve never seen a client fail to ask who’s going to be their account team. Sometimes we’ve been asked for bios; sometimes CVs. I’ve heard lots of people say that new business pitches are won and lost on “chemistry” – my definition of chemistry is: the client knows who they’re working with; how they’re going to make it easy to work together; and that they’re competent.

Rise at Seven never shows an agency organogram or a slide dedicated to account structure, but we do include that information throughout the proposal. We list channels (technical SEO, content, digital PR etc.) with their ultimate owners at the agency; we break down those channels into tasks for the first few months of a relationship and name the owner of each task (an initial audit will be done by this particular SEO Strategist, for example – and the ideation for creative work will be led by this specific PR person) – then we make sure the owners of those tasks are in the room, so they can explain them directly to the client and make it clear that they do it all the time; they have a specific way of doing it; and that the way they do it works. Everyone introduces themselves at the beginning of a meeting with the words “…and I’ll be doing this specific thing for you.”

Hannah Thorpe
Business Director at Found

We introduce clients to their day-to-day team, not just the pitch team. Generally, we love for pitches to take place at our offices too so that the client can meet the wider team. We encourage them to walk round our open plan office and meet everyone who’d be involved on the account so they can really get to understand how we work together as a team.

BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT YOUR PRICING MODEL

Importance
51/100 for brands
34/100 for agencies

Many agencies underestimate how much potential clients want clear details around pricing.

Price matters a great deal in a business relationship. It’s no surprise, therefore, that transparency about price is one of the top three factors that influence a brand’s decision to hire an agency.

During this stage of the presentation, you’ll want to highlight the following information:

Agency commission
If it applies and the exact fee or percentage. Be transparent.

Costs for extra works
Design, analytics, writing may all cost extra if it isn’t covered in the initial scope of work. Detail when extra charges apply and how much exactly is charged.

What is given for free
This is important to showcase as well, be it the use of the agency’s own bidding platform, setting up analytics, conducting a usability audit or anything else.

What is the best approach to explaining your pricing model?

You want to make sure that you’re explaining your pricing model well while always still conveying value. Here are a few tips for how to do so:

More importantly, by showing what the final price consists of, you lay the ground for all the upcoming communications. It can be easy to sell once, but if things don’t line up after the fact, it makes further collaboration much more complicated. Clients may be likely to walk if there’s a discrepancy, even if it was accidental.

Jake Third,
Client Director at Hallam

“Transparency in pricing adds huge value when preparing sales pitch decks. Because pricing can be a tightly guarded secret, when an agency does choose to share how pricing works, it can lead to a degree of reciprocity with the client, with more give and take on both sides.

My terms of tips for introducing pricing transparency:

1. Don’t worry about upsetting your customer because you are making a profit. They want your business to succeed and have a long term relationship, and that means profit isn’t a dirty word.

2. Your customers do value your fixed overheads for research and innovation that are associated with agency success.

3. But your price transparency can backfire if your prices are unreasonably high as compared to your competition.

4. Price transparency is just as important retaining existing customers as it is for winning new business.”

ADD RELEVANT CASE STUDIES

Importance
22/100 for brands
47/100 for agencies

Case studies seem to be slightly overestimated in value by agencies. 47% of agency representatives consider them important to include, while only 22% of brands think the same.

However, this is just more information and data that you can share, and in many cases doing so will highlight your expertise.

Real-life examples are already considered a must, especially when these examples are relevant to the prospect’s industry and profile.

Case studies and testimonials can be organized in many different ways. Sometimes agencies just put a client logo or a quote from the brand representative alongside a review. Sometimes, they’ll feature the same information next to a statistic like “traffic increased by 223% in three months.”

When possible, throw it all in there, just make sure that it’s structured well and that everything is concise. Stick to a few case studies, too, instead of overwhelming the client.

How do you highlight case studies to prospects?
Interested in sharing case studies with potential clients? Here’s how you can get started.

Alex Kudimov
CEO & Founder at Direct Line

“Whenever you can – show the ‘hard evidence’ of your work. Share links to real websites so that the prospect can evaluate the speed, mobile responsiveness, the quality of SEO, etc. It’s also a good idea to use case studies as references to what can be improved in the prospect’s strategy. So many people look at their business as this precious thing which can do no wrong and has all its ducks in a row. When I have the chance to show them where their potential challenges are and then back that up with real-world examples from other client success stories, it allows me to more clearly define the value of digital marketing generally and of our services more specifically.”

MENTION YOUR AWARDS AND CERTIFICATES

Importance
4/100 for brands
3/100 for agencies

Showcasing your awards and certificates can always help you establish some of your expertise in the industry, especially since there are so many agencies out there who are filled with those who lack actionable knowledge in the field.

Consider listing some of your awards and certifications on an optional slide; it’s like icing on a cake.

Keep in mind that social proof, awards, and certifications of training are extremely important for some, but less for others. You’ll never know exactly how it may influence the individual prospect you’re selling to, but it definitely can’t hurt.

Brand representatives can shortlist agencies for their next big project by going through lists of the following:

• Award winners
  US Search Awards, The Drum Awards
• Certified partners
  Google or Bing Partners
• Experts with a particular platform or approach
  Hubspot for inbound marketing or SEMrush for market analysis

Tips for showcasing awards and certificates during the pitching process
Interested in adding on that optional slide to share your achievements with your potential prospects? Here’s some advice for how to do so.

Pete-Reis Campbell
CEO and Founder at Kaizen

“From my experience, winning awards hasn’t encouraged clients to approach us for marketing services, but mentioning them during our pitching process can be effective, especially if they highlight your expertise or work in the industry. We’ve found the best way to highlight awards is sharing them on our social media, writing blog posts and including them in pitches where they are relevant – especially if they’re in a particular sector, such as travel for instance.

Awards are a great way to showcase your credibility, but personally, I feel it’s an even better way to highlight the company’s culture – a team that is dedicated to creating campaigns that gain recognition is what clients should be looking for.”

Consider boosting your awards page – earn a certificate from the SEMrush Academy.
IT’S FREE.

CONCLUSION

Running a digital marketing or advertising agency is no easy task. Successfully attracting, pitching, and winning over clients is even more challenging.

Fortunately, when you know what your clients are expecting (either consciously or subconsciously), you can be better prepared to wow them in every way. A solid first impression and a great pitch can be what you need to scale your agency quickly with the exact types of customers you’re looking for, and these 10 crucial elements will help you do that.

Interested in landing more high-value clients for your agency?

Explore SEMrush Solutions for Agencies here

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