How to sell digital marketing solutions with site audits

As a digital marketing agency, you’re no stranger to common statements like “I’ll just get my mate to do it” or “I don’t understand why I need to improve my SEO – my website is fine!” The list of common statements goes on, but if you’re continually facing this issue, it’s time to look at what tools you’re using to convert prospects.

Hint: If audits aren’t one of them, you need to read on.

Why your digital marketing solutions aren’t selling

If your agency is in a position where you’re struggling to sell your digital marketing solutions, you’re not alone. You only have to look to speak to a fellow agency owner to know that one of their common issues is converting those hard-sought-after leads into paying clients.

The challenge is often because the value of digital marketing services is speculative. Unlike fixing the clutch on a car, your clients have to trust that they’ll see the value in your services over time. But convincing your clients that you can achieve that, or whether it’s even worth it, is half the battle.

So how can you prove value to your clients before selling to and working with them?

How audits sell digital marketing solutions

Audits are all too often run too late in the selling process, and by that, we mean after you’ve sold your services to the client. But we can’t blame you – desk research is time-consuming and accumulating reports from various tools takes time. However, underestimating audits when prospecting is a mistake.

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When prospecting, run an audit on your prospect’s online presence. This will give you an insight into their site, socials, and broader online presence which will help you know exactly where you can help, but more importantly, help translate your services as solutions to their problems (which you’ve conveniently audited for them as proof already.)

How to engage prospects with an audit

You’ve audited your prospect’s site – now what? Simply sending out an Excel document to your clients isn’t going to help your conversion rate, and it may even decrease their confidence in you. Your clients need to be guided through the audit, like you would a presentation, so here are our 5 tips to make sure your audit engages with your client:

1. Divide your audit Is your audit one big Excel document? If yes, ask yourself where your client would start. Then ask yourself where you want them to start.
   
   Audits can be lengthy and information-dense, so make sure you categorise checks as per the solution so that your prospects can accurately identify the problem (and your proposed solution).
   
2. Keep it relevant Designing your audits is as important as designing your first presentation to your client. If they want your audit to cover everything SEO, having the first few pages covering grammar and spelling isn’t going to instil confidence in them that you’re the go-to agency for them.
   
3. Make it clear Is having 48 broken backlinks a good or bad thing? Score, colour code, or order the results – whatever makes it clear to your client where your red flags are as this shows them exactly what the problems are and helps you align your solutions with your value proposition.
   
4. Don’t be fooled by gatekeeping So you’ve created an audit, you’ve made it clear, categorised and relevant. But you’ve hidden some of the scores, or clipped off some of the pages, and you’ve told your client you’ll give them the rest when they sign on the dotted line. Would you feel confident in a supplier who did this?
   
   Instead, to avoid prospects taking your audit to the cheapest alternative (now they have everything they need to know), give them a summarised version where they can get all the information they need before you walk them through the finer details.
   
5. Audits are for your prospect’s whole journey Audits can be used at every stage of the prospecting and servicing journey, not just to help confirm the sale.
   
   From prospecting to QA and beyond, audits will help you win clients, prove your value, and how much you’ve improved their site and online presence. We’ve written all about how to use audits across your client’s lifecycle here.

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Happy auditing!

👋 The Insites Team