Marketing your web design agency for sale: 8 strategies | Freshy

Contrary to popular belief, listing a web design agency for sale isn’t enough to attract qualified buyers. In fact, it’s the bare minimum. In all likelihood, your listing may just sit around waiting for inquiries that never come.

But with a proactive marketing strategy, you can maximize exposure and appeal to the right type of buyer. This also makes it easier to outperform the competition, which is important if you plan to use online marketplaces.

In this post, we’ll look at marketing a web design agency for sale using eight effective strategies. We’ll also show you where to find the best buyers. Let’s jump in!

8 Marketing strategies to successfully sell your agency

Let’s take a look at eight of the best marketing strategies to help you increase visibility and capture the attention of the right people.

1. Profile your buyers

When marketing a web design agency for sale, you’ll want to tailor your offer. This will help make your agency more appealing to your ideal buyer.

We’re not saying you won’t find success by listing your business for sale without having an idea of who you want to sell to. But in this case, it’s the luck of the draw.

Profiling your buyers gives you more control over the sale of your design agency. You can also prepare your business to better meet buyer expectations.

We recommend asking yourself the following questions:

• Is the buyer based locally or nationally (or even internationally)?
• Are you hoping to attract first-time business owners or stick with seasoned entrepreneurs?
• Will the buyer require specific qualifications or skills to take over the agency?
• Do they already own a web design agency? If so, they may simply be looking to acquire the competition or expand current operations.

These questions help build a clear idea of the types of individuals or companies that you want to appeal to. As such, you can personalize the next steps in the marketing process. For example, you’ll be in a good position to understand what information to highlight and where to promote your listing.

Although it can be more challenging, you may also wish to target financial buyers like private equity firms or venture capitalists. These types of buyers are likely to take a keen interest in your agency’s ROI or growth potential.

2. Choose the right listing platforms

There are various ways to list your web design agency for sale. If you’ve been in the industry a long time, you may be able to leverage your contacts to sell the business yourself.

One of the simplest solutions is to use online marketplaces. These platforms have become popular in recent years, so you’re likely to face lots of competition. However, it gives you access to a huge pool of potential buyers.

Some platforms also provide guidance and advice throughout the purchase process, which can be useful if you’ve never sold a company before. And, you’ll find certain marketplaces that focus on specific types of businesses or buyers.

For instance, you can use general listing platforms like BusinessForSale. There are also niche options such as Flippa, which works well for service-based companies.

One of the best ways to decide on the right listing platforms is to define your buyer (as we discussed above). It’s also a good idea to compare listing fees and models. We always recommend looking at testimonials to see what real customers have to say about the experience.

3. Craft compelling sales materials

When listing your web design agency for sale, there are various materials you’ll need to prepare.

One of the most important documents is the confidential information memorandum (CIM). This essentially functions as a marketing report that provides a detailed overview of your business without compromising sensitive information.

This is crucial because while you want to be transparent with buyers, you must prioritize confidentiality and protect company secrets. The CIM also provides an opportunity to attract qualified buyers and help them make an informed purchase decision.

There are certain elements to include in a CIM such as a summary and overview of your agency, a description of your services, a market analysis, future prospects, and financial details.

When it comes to creating an engaging advert for your agency, you have a little more flexibility. We recommend creating a generic advert template that can be tailored to different channels and platforms before publication. Naturally, this is your chance to present high-quality photographs or examples of previous work.

You might also include more detailed information such as annual turnover, number of employees, and of course, an asking price. Some sellers even provide details about social media accounts or marketing campaigns to help buyers get a clear picture of your brand.

4. Highlight unique selling points

One of the biggest mistakes when selling a web agency is failing to take the time to develop a unique selling proposition (USP).

This is especially relevant if you plan to advertise your web design agency on marketplaces. These platforms are highly saturated, so your business is placed in direct competition with similar companies.

Therefore, you need to think about what makes your business different from other web design agencies. What is it that could catch the attention of a potential buyer?

Here are some USP examples that might be a good fit for your business:

• Intellectual property (IP) rights, e.g. proprietary technology or software
• An established brand presence with a unique voice and style that’s maintained consistently across various touch points
• Excellent customer service demonstrated through client reviews or testimonials

You might also want to highlight your strong client base. Typically, buyers prefer long-term contracts and retainer agreements that bring in recurring revenue. You also don’t want to appear over-reliant on just one or two major clients.

And if you have an experienced team of WordPress experts, let them know! You might also have a diverse service list that incorporates website development or SEO alongside web design.

5. Utilize digital marketing channels

Once you’ve got your sales materials together and you’ve created a listing ad, you’ll want to think about the channels you’ll use to promote your offer. Choosing the right platform will help you maximize exposure and position your business in front of the right people.

In today’s digital age, you have a ton of options at your disposal. Of course, social media gives you access to a huge, global audience.

For instance, LinkedIn is largely used for networking and other business-related endeavors. Therefore, it’s a great place to get the attention of professional buyers like entrepreneurs and investors.

But you don’t want to ignore other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Facebook continues to be the most popular social media network, with more than three billion monthly active users. Meanwhile, Instagram has over two billion monthly users. You can run paid ads on both of these platforms.

Email marketing is another viable option. If you have a list of contacts, you can send out emails to let people know your agency is up for sale.

6. Don’t neglect traditional channels

It can be tempting to overlook traditional marketing channels in favor of digital platforms, but this can signifcantly limit your reach.

Although offline advertising isn’t growing as rapidly as its digital counterpart, non-digital advertising amounted to over $3 billion last year (which was up by 0.7 percent from the previous year).

That’s why it’s a good idea to combine digital and traditional platforms in your marketing strategy. In terms of non-digital strategies, networking remains an effective technique. Get the word out that you’re trying to sell your business. Even if the immediate parties aren’t interested, they could offer useful insights or referrals.

Additionally, you might like to consider advertising your business in local, regional, or national magazines, as well as newspapers and business publications. If you occupy a highly defined niche, there may even be industry-specific resources that you can utilize.

7. Optimize for search engines

You might have created a business listing online or set up a website/landing page dedicated to the sale of your agency. Either way, you can capture highly relevant web traffic by employing key search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.

SEO consists of a set of best practices that make your content more appealing to search engines like Google. As such, you can snag the top spots in the results pages which makes your site/listing highly visible.

Any good SEO strategy begins with thorough keyword research. You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify popular search terms and phrases related to your content.

For instance, you might decide to target keywords like “WordPress business for sale” or “web design agency for sale”. Note that keywords with a massive search volume can be very difficult to rank for, especially if authoritative sources are also targeting them.

As an alternative, you might have better luck choosing long-tail keywords which are much more specific. While these tend to have lower search volumes, you’ll face less competition in the search results. Plus, you’ll often reach a highly-defined audience.

Once you’ve made your keyword selection, you can optimize your content around it. This means featuring the keyword(s) in prime locations like headings, slugs, meta data, body content, image alts, and more. You can also improve SEO by ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly and fast-loading.

8. Update your ads/listings

If you don’t receive any positive responses on your listing, you may need to update it.

You’ll likely have your own criteria to determine if a listing needs updating. But typically, if you have fewer than 1-2 interested buyers per month, we recommend making adjustments. Note that if the business undergoes significant changes that impact the value of your agency, you should also update the listing to ensure that the information is accurate.

Here are some ideas for updating your listings/ads:

• Repost the listing with a new title and image, which can make it appear as a brand new listing.
• Position the ad beneath different categories to expose your listing to new subsets of buyers.
• Simply remove old Google ads and post them again, which can send them back to the top of the results.

Of course, you’re free to make any changes that you see fit. This might mean making the listing more scannable, using bulleted points, and increasing whitespace.

To identify specific areas for improvement, we recommend running A/B split tests.

The best place to sell your web design agency

Marketing the sale of your web design agency is the best way to catch the attention of qualified buyers. But as we’ve mentioned, competition on marketplaces can be stiff.

Additionally, there’s no way to guarantee how smoothly the transition will be carried out. Will your employees and clients be onboarded properly? Will there be sufficient care and support in place should they need it?

That’s why it can be a better idea to sell your business to an existing web design agency like Freshy:

Freshy has over 15 years of experience in web design, WordPress development, security, performance, ongoing maintenance, and more. But beyond that, our company has a strong history of successful acquisitions and mergers.

Unlike other potential buyers, Freshy isn’t just interested in agencies with a huge client base or large amount of revenue. In fact, Freshy considers agencies of any niche, specialism, and size.

What really seals the deal is that Freshy has a dedicated in-house team that provides tailored support and care to all your clients. There’s an extensive portfolio where you can check out our past projects. And to kickstart discussions, all you have to do is complete a simple form and a member of our team will get back to you.

Conclusion

Securing a speedy sale for your web design agency is a challenging task. But you can increase visibility and target the right audience using a variety of techniques.

To recap, here are eight marketing strategies to sell your web design agency:

1. Profile your buyers.
2. Choose the right listing platforms.
3. Craft compelling sales materials.
4. Highlight unique selling points.
5. Utilize digital marketing channels.
6. Don’t neglect traditional channels.
7. Optimize for search engines.
8. Update your ads/listings.

At Freshy, we have a long track record of successful acquisitions and mergers. We also have dedicated staff to onboard your clients and employees efficiently. Fill out this form to begin talks today!

Featured image credit: Pexels.