White Label Reselling vs. Doing It All Yourself

The world is changing drastically and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the problems for businesses worldwide.

With agencies facing new challenges, the same set of techniques and business practices that helped them previously are now becoming ineffective. There is no option but to ride this wave of change and adapt to the “new normal.”

Traditionally, agencies were doing it all themselves until the market disruptions such as the global financial crisis happened in 2008. With increased economic uncertainties, agencies preferred to stick to the lean business model.

According to new research by Harvard Business School’s Shikhar Ghosh, 75% of all start-ups fail. The “lean start-up” has emerged as the less risky model as it can survive in the toughest conditions.

Many agencies are now switching to white label reselling which allows them to scale without actually increasing their team size.

What are Significant Challenges Faced by a Marketing Agency in 2021?

As a marketing agency, you come across many challenges: some of them are listed below:

1. Getting more customers

Marketing a digital agency can be tough because of stiff competition. Differentiation is the second biggest issue. If you position yourself as a jack of all trades, you have only marginal chances to succeed as an agency. You must find a specific “niche” and prove your worth, so that people may notice you.

2. Finding and keeping talented people

To build a successful agency, you need dynamic leadership, a core competence area, the right people, and an affordable price. However, it’s quite expensive to hire and retain the best talent. Most of the best folks are working at high paychecks and head-hunting may not be as easy as it sounds.

3. Facing difficulty in increasing the basket size

You want to expand your basket size from your current customers but may feel thwarted by an inadequate workforce. It limits your operational capabilities and makes you vulnerable to sudden business fluctuations.

4. When your customers ask for something you don’t specialize in

You can be an agency specializing in PPC, but your customers may ask for social media marketing, websites, or SEO-related services. It often puts you in a fix as it’s difficult to recruit trained professionals at short notice.

5. Your agency stopped growing because of the limited services you offer

Your agency has stagnated as you’re primarily offering one stock service, whereas your competitors are succeeding by successfully positioning themselves as full-service agencies. As a result, when an opportunity knocks on your door, you’re not ready to grab it.

6. You’re struggling with a lack of resources and infrastructure

You want to scale your operations when needed, but you’re working with a lack of resources and infrastructure. It means that you’re not in a position to say “yes” to many of your customers.

7. You face difficulties pitching to more prominent clients

You have a hard time pitching to bigger clients because of a poor track record and weak branding. If you utilize white label services in time, this situation may turn in your favor as you’ll have a more extensive portfolio and high-ticket clients under your belt.

8. Day-to-day operations keep you busy

You want to focus on your core competence business development, but repetitive and unproductive tasks keep you busy all through the day.

If any of these sounds relatable, it’s high time you consider white label reselling as your go-to strategy.

What is White Label Reselling?

White labeling is no longer a new concept. These days, businesses don’t shy away from deploying the products and services delivered by another company under their own brand name. It offers many benefits, the most obvious one being that you don’t have to design solutions from scratch.

You can see it happening everywhere. At grocery stores, you may see foodstuff and cereals being sold under their brand name. These stores aren’t usually in the production business. All they do is source this stuff from another company, rebrand them and offer it to their customers as their product.

Move over tangible products, a significant share of global white-labeling business comprises online services such as digital marketing, web designing, and content marketing. We also term it as white label marketing.

According to the 2015 Marketing Technology Strategy survey, the businesses’ top four marketing technologies were email marketing, social media marketing, marketing analysis, and sales automation, respectively.

White label marketing is not limited to SEO, PPC, social, inbound, and email marketing. It also includes several other services such as web development and design, mobile app development, videography, video marketing, professional photography, social media creatives, and print advertising.

White Label Reselling vs. Doing It All Yourself

Here is a brief comparison between white label reselling vs. doing it all yourself.

Why Should You Use White Label Marketing Services?

According to the 2016 Marketing Maturity Benchmark Report issued by LeadMD, the top three concerns of the business owners were as follows:

1. Qualified Lead Pipeline (92%)
2. Customer Retention (81%)
3. Lead Pipeline Velocity (66%)

In the spooked business environment marred with day-to-day emergencies, white-label marketing comes as a breeze of fresh air creating a win-win solution for both you and the reseller agency. The white label agency saves all the heavy spending on branding, marketing, and finding clients. It allows them to focus only on the service development while keeping the costs low.

On the flip side, your brand can focus on your core business expertise and business development, while the agency will give you ready-made solutions that you can sell to your clients.

Here are some more reasons why you should use white label marketing:

1. To Leverage the Latest Innovations, Research, And Updates

If you wish to sell a premium product to your client, such as automation software, you might have to reinvent the whole wheel, developing the solution from scratch. On the flip side, if you use a white label service, you can outsource it from people who have been doing it for years and have the right expertise. They have access to the right people and technologies to design software and services using innovative methods.

Disadvantages of doing it yourself: First of all, being an agency, your core focus should be to market your solutions and deliver the best customer support. White labeling these services allow you to get direct access to expensive new tools as they are launched. Agencies keep themselves up-to-date and take care of all the latest development in the products and services they offer.

2. To Take Advantage of the Growing Market

The market for digital marketing solutions is rapidly expanding, and there is a huge demand for services like boosting web traffic, growing online presence, and maximizing conversions. As a trend, more and more companies are opting for marketing automation.

According to Forrester’s Marketing Automation Technology Forecast, in 2023, spending on marketing automation tools is estimated to reach $25.1 billion. If you are not able to tap into this tremendous opportunity, you are already losing a potential fortune. If you are in the business but cannot handle demand, you may be losing out on revenue. Your clients may be interested in market automation solutions and other premium services. If you want to grab your share of this booming market, you should try outsourcing white label marketing automation services.

3. To Save Time and Effort

With such fierce competition in the marketplace, it’s essential to get your processes right. Market analysis and development of products and marketing solutions are time-consuming tasks, and you need to devote a lot of time and effort to accomplish this. White labeling will free you from such time-consuming processes. So, you can focus on developing offerings for your customers.

4. To Cut Human Resource and Infrastructure Cost

When you try to deliver Digital Marketing Services as an agency, you need to hire several skilled professionals. The recruitment, onboarding, and training costs can be overwhelming for a startup, not to mention the infrastructure cost such as office space, furniture, and workstations. White labeling frees you from all such worries, so you can focus primarily on business development and leave the rest to your white label partner.

5. To Tap into Other Marketing Services

Sometimes digital marketing agencies offer limited services such as SEO and PPC, but the changing market dynamic requires you to be agile as an agency. You wouldn’t want to lose clients if they want additional services such as video marketing, influencer marketing, or Facebook marketing. In such a scenario, white labeling can be a panacea for you. It will allow you to expand your business without getting involved in daily tedious and repetitive tasks.

6. To Amplify Your Profits

The most significant advantage of white label reselling is that it increases your profits without any significant investment, and helps you develop extensive portfolios with a large number of clients.

Reselling Allows You To Add to Your Spectrum of Products

The most significant advantage of reselling is that it allows you to add to the spectrum of products and services you offer. So, if you provide web design services, you can add SEO, social marketing, and reputation marketing to your kitty without hiring an entire team of professionals. Since reselling services already have trained in-house teams, they allow you to accommodate additional clients at any point. So, you can deliver a powerful package of services with limited personnel and infrastructure.

White Label Vs. Co-branded Products Or Services

There is a difference between white label and co-branded products and services — they are mutually exclusive. In a co-branded service, the product has the branding of both the supplier and the reseller. In white label products, only a single brand appears on the end product.

Private Label vs. White Label: What’s the Difference?

Although both these terms can be used interchangeably, private and white labels are entirely different things. A private-label service is custom-designed to meet the client’s particular needs, whereas a white label service is more generic — so you can resell it “as is.”

What To Look For in A White-label Partner?

Here are a few things you must look for in your white label partner to make the best out of your collaboration:

1. Similar goals and vision

Your white label partner should echo similar goals and vision to deliver solutions that are in line with your business ethos and culture. As your strategic business partner, both of you must be on the same page.

2. Your white label partner must have a solid reputation

Values such as honesty, transparency, and proactiveness can’t be discounted. That’s probably the reason why a good industry reputation is so vital for your white label partners. So, before you sign a contract, do a little homework to know how long they have been in the business and whether they are considered an expert in their domain.

3. They must have experience as a result-oriented white label company

White labeling is not just about adding a logo to an existing product and reselling it to your clients. It has to be a more involved process where you can frequently communicate about strategic steps and quality results. White labeling will not work if it’s not result-oriented.

4. Should be able to generate exhaustive reports that are full of insights

Reporting and analytics are essential indicators of the professional services offered by a white label agency. For example, DashClicks uses software known as InstaReports to generate reports that are loaded with data and insights. Such reports can be a delight for your clients as they can use them for strategic decision-making.

5. They should have clear contract terms

They should have written terms of the contract, so there is no ambiguity. Transparency guards you against many possible events which can come as a surprise. For example, if there is a minimum lock-in period, they should be upfront about it. Ask questions before you sign a contract.

Conclusion

While reselling white label services can be one of the best strategic steps to scale your agency, it doesn't mean you would lose your brand's identity in the process. You can maintain your brand value by sticking to the basics ā your company vision and goals. Offer something different that adds value and provides top-notch customer service to differentiate your agency from the competition.

To make it look even more authentic and unique, add some original content and inputs to help your clients. Reselling white label services comes with tremendous value for your agency, and it's often more advantageous than doing it all yourself.