The age of selling generic digital marketing services is officially over. If you want to stand out from the crowd, if you want to scale your marketing agency, it’s time to do something different.
It’s time to sell Funnels as a Service.
Why the age of selling Digital Marketing Services is OVER
As someone who has been in the digital marketing space for over ten years now, I feel like I can say this with authority…
Everyone sells digital marketing services these days.
Go check out udemy.com and you’ll see a ton of courses on digital marketing. A lot of these courses are listed for less than $20… and what does that mean?
That means that just about anyone can afford to go learn something about Facebook Ads, Social Media Management, Search Engine Optimization or anything else they are interested in.
Now go to upwork.com and search for digital marketing service providers. Even if you haven’t already looked, you can probably guess what you’re going to see:
Thousands upon thousands of people who are offering various digital marketing services, all competing for the jobs posted on that platform. You’ll find people who offer their services for everything from $2 an hour to $500 an hour… and all of them are claiming to be an “expert” at digital marketing.
These people are probably all selling generic digital marketing services on Upwork
(or at least willing to pose for this stock photo like they are)
Some of the contractors you can hire on platforms like this are specializing in something like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, SEO, Content Marketing, whatever… but the one thing they all have in common is that they are all competing for and selling generic digital marketing services.
Digital marketing has become a commodity. It’s almost as easy to find a digital marketing service provider as it is to buy bread.
So if you’re selling digital marketing services, it’s time to get smart. It’s time to do something different.
It’s time to give business owners what they actually want.
What do business owners really want from their marketing providers?
Let’s take a minute to put ourselves in the business owner’s shoes. The average business owner is smart and knows a little about marketing, but it might not be their zone of genius.
They’ve probably also worked with contractors who provided generic marketing services before… and had mixed results at best.
So what do they really care about?
Well… what would YOU care about?
Do you care about your rankings on Google? Do care how many posts have been put on your Instagram or your Facebook? Do you care about Facebook Ads if they don’t get any real, trackable results?
Quick sidebar: If you don’t really know whether or not your Facebook Ads are converting – or just really hate digging through spreadsheets to find out whether or not they do – you might want to check out Funnelytics.
Anyway…
The answer is NO… the average business owner doesn’t actually care about this stuff unless they’ve hired you to do it and it isn’t turning into qualified leads and sales.
All business owners REALLY care about is this:
Can you find a stranger wherever they hang out on the internet and then turn that stranger into a customer for my business?
If you can help them get more customers, they’ll love you. If you can’t, they’ll freak out when you don’t post 2x a day on their Facebook Page. It’s as simple as that.
This digital marketer apparently hasn’t read this awesome article about selling funnels as a service yet.
And the reality is that posting a whole bunch of stuff on Facebook or on Instagram, or writing a bunch of content, or ranking on Google… none of these things are going to bridge the gap from strangers to customers RIGHT NOW. It’s important, but that stuff takes a long time to work (if it ever does.)
And business owners are starting to realize that. They’re getting more savvy, bringing their customer conversations and branding in-house, and no longer hiring generic digital marketing providers to help them.
So what do digital marketers need to do?
It’s simple… but not necessarily easy. Digital marketers who want to be successful need to learn how to bridge the gap.
They know that traffic + conversions = results, and that results are all that business owners care about.
So smart digital marketers are creating systems to find that stranger, wherever they hang out on the internet, and turn them into a customer for their clients.
And that, my friend, is why you need to be selling Funnels as a Service.
What does FaaS stand for and why is it the future of digital marketing?
FaaS means Funnels as a Service, and helping marketers make the transition to selling funnels instead of generic digital marketing services is something we really believe in at my company, Funnelytics.io.
On the surface it’s pretty simple… if you package up all your generic digital marketing services and turn them into a system that helps specific business owners turn strangers into customers, you’ve started selling funnels as a service.
In practice… well, it’s not as easy as it seems.
First, you need to figure out what kind of customer you are the very best at helping. Have you had excellent results working with coaches, authors selling ebooks, dentists, products for pets? That might be your niche.
This FaaS Agency of stock photo models is super jazzed about having found their niche.
And it’s important that you pick a niche and don’t offer your funnels to just anyone… but I’ll get to that in a minute.
When you package up all the pieces you were selling before – lead magnets, sales pages, email automations, Facebook ads, etc. – and turn it into a system, a system that you can PROVE helps your clients make money again and again…
Now you have something that your clients desperately want.
And even better… you’ll find that your new system is easier to sell and easier to scale than selling generic marketing services ever was.
Funnels as a Service are Easier to Sell than Digital Marketing Services
This is such an important thing that I’m going to say it for the third time right now:
The best part of selling FaaS is that it’s easier to sell than generic digital marketing services ever were… and you can make more money doing it.
Because when you package up everything you do into a system that you can prove will get results, suddenly you can charge a lot more money to your potential clients.
I’m Canadian but it was way easier to find a picture of US money so don’t judge me.
And when you can charge more money for a tried and true system, that means it will be easier to scale your agency and scale your business – without all the headaches that come with scaling a traditional Marketing Agency.
Let me explain.
1) By selling Funnels as a Service, you are helping your clients get the results they care about. The system is intrinsically designed to convert strangers into customers or leads for your client.
And that means that you can go to a business owner and say “hey, do you want me to build a system that is going to turn strangers into leads or customers for your business? Or would you rather that I just post on Facebook or Instagram for you?”
2) It’s easier to DELIVER Funnels as a Service for your customer. Why? Because once you figure out what funnel is actually going to get results for your business owner, you can sell that same funnel over and over again.
And that reminds me…
Why your FaaS Agency Needs a Niche
I said I would get back to this in a minute, and here we are. If you are going to sell Funnels as a Service, I HIGHLY recommend that you choose a niche.
And I can already hear you…
“But Mikael! There are so many potential clients out there… why can’t I sell to all of them and make all the money and buy a Lamborghini and live on a beach and live the dream?!?”
Say it with me now…
So here’s some real talk, and it comes directly from my experience running my FaaS Agency, WhiteCoat Digital.
You absolutely can sell Funnels as a Service to any person or business who wants them and can afford your services. You can. Go ahead. Do it.
But make sure you bookmark this article first.
Because when you wake up miserable a year from now, working a billion hours a day, with unhappy clients who keep you from ever getting to spend time with your friends or loved ones, I want you to come back to this page.
And not so I can tell you “I told you so,” though I would like to point out that I am definitely telling you so right now.
I want you to come back to this page because not choosing and focusing on a niche will make you absolutely miserable as soon as you start to scale your FaaS Agency.
The reason for this is simple:
If you are not selling the same funnel type over and over, you don’t have a system for a specific type of client that is pretty much guaranteed to get results.
The lead funnel you build for a dentist is NOT going to work for someone who sells a course on sustainable interior design.
The webinar funnel you design for a financial consultant is not going to work for someone who has a local gym.
“But my funnel agency is so good at building funnels for dog toys…”
–Good looking dentist who isn’t getting any leads
And that’s why a niche is important.
If you choose a niche and focus on marketing to people who are in that niche, you can design a system – a specific sequence of pages, emails and ads that appeal to your client’s customers – that you can duplicate again and again and again.
And that means you can scale, because you aren’t creating something completely new each time… you are just customizing your system for the new client’s voice, goals and needs.
This doesn’t mean you are stuck in a single niche, selling just one funnel forever… or that you’re locked in to a specific niche even if it turns out you’re better at selling funnels for a different kind of client.
But trust me on this… your life will be a whole lot better as a FaaS marketing provider if you package a funnel for a specific type of client and sell it again and again.
One more reason why Funnels as a Service is easier to sell than Digital Marketing
And that brings me to the last reason that you should really be selling Funnels as a Service…
3) You can charge a lot more money because you’re selling the entire conversion system. You’re not just selling a piece of it – so you’re no longer a commodity. You can’t be compared to all the freelancers on Upwork because you’re actually here to help business owners turn strangers into customers with a system that works.
Then you get to be as excited as this stock photo guy, except about helping your clients and making all the money.
As a FaaS provider, you’re bridging the gap between random digital marketing services and helping business owners create a customer journey that actually gets leads and makes money.
And that’s what makes Funnels as a Service the perfect offering for smart digital marketers who are looking to take it to the next level and make more from their marketing business than ever before…
Because FaaS packages are easier to sell to your clients, they’re easier to deliver, and that means it’s easier to scale because you can duplicate the process over and over again in your niche.
Isn’t that better than competing with thousands of Udemy-trained generic digital marketers who are freelancing as their side hustle on Upwork?
Yeah, I think so, too.
