How We Doubled Our Marketing Agency's Revenue In 1 Year
This is a follow up story for LV8. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hello again! This is George Chatzicharampous and George Margaritis, founders of lv8 - consulting, a digital marketing agency in Greece.
We are offering web development, branding, web design, PPC management, and consulting to companies that want to grow to the next level.
We are specialized in the beauty and pharmaceutical eCommerce niche. Combined we have over 12 years of experience in that field.
We are currently generating 20,000$ per month on average, almost doubling our revenue from last year.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Since last year the company has doubled its revenue. In six months, we passed the revenue we did last year reaching our first milestone for this year which was 100K$. Our projection for this year is 250K$.
We managed to increase our revenue with almost the same number of clients. We were able to complete that by delivering great results to our clients. We are being paid a percentage of the marketing budget spent. So our clients are happy with the results and they are willing to invest more in their marketing campaigns, leading to larger revenue for us. It is our main goal, as a company, to build long-term relationships with the clients that will benefit both parties.
Also, one big revenue stream is social media management services. It accounts for almost one-third of the monthly revenue and the clients are very satisfied with the work done by our social media marketing team.
Always clearly describe what you are planning to deliver as a project, including time estimation and deadlines.
Our biggest moment since our last interview was our award at the European Ecommerce Awards 2021 where we were awarded among the best 7 European eCommerce small agencies of the year!
We have also been awarded as a partner of Papaki.gr, the leading domain provider in Greece.
We have built a core team that has been working together for quite some time and everyone has found their goals in the company. We are always looking to expand our team but finding good candidates that match our mentality can be a bit challenging. However, we are considering building a remote team and moving some of our operations out of the office.
We have not done any major marketing for our services and we are relying on word of mouth. We are planning to hire one dedicated person for our sales department. This person will be paid with a commission on each sale and he will do the sales the old fashion way… via phone and 1-1 meetings!
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
The biggest challenge we had last year was regarding the hosting aspect of our clients' sites. We have tried multiple premium hosting providers and we have the same problems with almost all of them. Downtimes, lack of support, and lack of communication. Our clients are having eCommerce sites and the slightest downtime results in missing revenue for them and therefore extra complaints to us!
Also is it very bad for your mental health to wake up in the middle of the night from an alert notifying you that all of your servers are down!
Furthermore, the time difference has been a huge issue for us because our working hours are completely different from the US and we had to schedule everything ahead. For example, any updates had to be scheduled a couple of days before and this back and forth brought the extra effort to our team.
After lots of migration, we found a Greek hosting provider, Cretaforce (huge shoutout to you guys, you deserve it!) that solved all of our hosting problems.
Their support is more than excellent and there is no language barrier between us.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The biggest lesson that I learned this year is that you should always clearly describe what you are planning to deliver as a project including time estimation and deadlines of the project. We came across some projects where clients misinterpreted the deliverables leading to clients crossing the lines of what they will get as a result leading to a lot of stress and back and forth until we deliver the project.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
Our goal from the start has been to successfully exit the business in the next couple of years.
So for the next 5 years, we plan to grow at least at 7 figures and exit the business.
The plan for the next year is again to double our revenue and profits.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
I keep reading books like my life depends on that!
Recently I read The Success Principles by Jack Canfield, I liked and it is a great start for all readers that want to succeed in any area of their life.
And I keep reading at least one time per week the As a man Thinketh by James Allen which is a powerhouse of ideas and inspiration in pocket size.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
Get rid of your limiting beliefs! Start asking yourself how you can do it instead of why you can’t!
Also, aim high!
As Michaelangelo told us “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it”.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are always looking to expand our team. Currently, we are looking for a salesman that will be able to promote our services to a larger area.
If you are interested in that job opening please shoot us an email at [email protected].
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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