The Dangers of neglecting small SEO clients

I’m currently in the process of setting up my own SEO/PPC company having recently left my position of Search Engine Marketing Manager for an agency in West Yorkshire. Something that has struck me since I started out on this journey is the number of small and medium sized companies, out there, that are totally dissatisified with the level of service they have received from their existing SEO or PPC provider.This is good for me because i’ve been able to poach 4-5 new clients on the back of a simple promise to provide a better level of communication than their previous consultancy. It is a very poor advertisment for the industry as a whole though, because it causes a great deal of ill feeling and suspicion that ends up affecting the whole industry. IMO it comes down to pure complacency – an arrogance born out of working within one of the world’s fastest growing, most dynamic and certainly most exciting industries.

I’ve been involved in Digital Marketing for around 3 years in which time i’ve seen a number of companies cutting their teeth with small to medium sized clients before abondoning this strategy to chase the big fish. Now this is completely understandable but it does tend to leave the original (smaller) clients receiving a poor level of service through no fault of their own, while the agency concentrates their efforts on ensuring the newly acquired bluechip clients are satisfied.
Given that small to medium companies make up around 99% of all companies in the UK that’s a lot of potential clients left by the wayside – a lot of companies who, if they do choose to invest in SEO/PPC consultancy, can expect to receive a shoddy level of communication and service.

If the Digital Marketing goes the way many are predicting, with bluechip companies taking their SEO, PPC, viral, display advertising etc. in-house, what implications does this have for existing agencies?
Firstly I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of agencies will lose employees to client-side roles – higher salaries, greater profile, improved job security and better perks will prove too tempting to resist.
No doubt some agencies will go out of business, particularly those for whom 70-80% of their sales come from two or three big clients.Most significantly though I think it will lead to a huge about turn with agencies returning to providing SEO for small businesses because this is where the greatest concentration of potential clients will be found. Afterall, how many small companies have the financial resource to employ in-house digital marketing teams? affordable SEO is the future!

Anyway the whole point of this article is to highlight the pitfalls of creating dissatisfaction and distrust in a market we could all be relying on for our salaries in the coming years. If you nurture your small clients now they’re more likely to increase their spend with you as they grow. However, if you leave them feeling like their business doesn’t matter to you then i’ll poach them from you and it’ll be me who benefits.