Today, modern agencies are constantly tasked with the challenge of finding new clients.
Many project-based services have natural endpoints, and retaining your clients after a contract ends isn’t always possible simply because they no longer need your services.
So apart from sharply raising your prices or stretching contracts a bit longer, significantly increasing the lifetime value (LTV) of your clients may not seem realistic under your current model.
Instead, you need to find other ways to leverage existing client relationships for long-term recurring revenue.
The easiest way to make this happen is by offering mobile app development services to your clients—and the math works out that you can double your average LTV.
Any B2B agency can make money with white-label apps with minimal changes to your operations and resources. Read on, and I’ll show you how.
Unlocking the Untapped Potential in Your Existing Client Base
Your existing clients are your most valuable assets.
Think about all of the time, money, and effort it took you to land those clients in the first place. If you’re lucky, your best clients might last three years. But some contracts may be done after just three or six months because the project is over, and there’s nothing left for you to do.
Churn is killing your LTV (and it’s expensive).
Client acquisition costs 5-10x more than selling services to current customers. Plus, your existing customers will spend 67% more on average than a brand-new client.
So if you’re not actively seeking ways to upsell or cross-sell agency clients after you’ve acquired them, then you’ll never truly maximize their lifetime value.
Beyond the numbers, you also have the “trust advantage” on your side—an intangible factor that makes your clients more receptive to using your agency for additional services after you’ve delivered successful results on another project.
Getting a mobile app directly from you saves your clients from the hassle and costs associated with finding another partner and performing due diligence. It could be months before they find someone else, and that other agency doesn’t have the same trust advantage that you’ve already established.
It’s not like you’re just trying to artificially squeeze more revenue out of every client. If you’re offering them real value and something they need, it’s a win-win for them, too.
The Strategic Value of Offering App Development Services
So, why mobile apps? You may already have several different agency services or think that just any new offering would create the same effect.
But app development is a natural evolution for most digital agency services. It’s a logical path for nearly any client who doesn’t already have their own mobile app, which isn’t the case with other offerings.
For example, a web development agency may not necessarily have clients who want or need a PR specialist. Transitioning a client from social media marketing services to an HR consulting contract just doesn’t have a natural progression for continuing the relationship and feels more like a random add-on.
Imagine if your accountant suddenly offered to handle your sales coaching. It just feels too disconnected, and even with established trust, it raises questions about expertise and focus.
Mobile Apps Are a Natural Extension For Any Digital Agency
But mobile apps are the perfect complement to virtually any digital service that your agency is currently providing.
- Web Development Agencies: Mobile apps are the ideal companion to any website, allowing your clients to deliver a seamless multi-platform experience to their customers.
- Digital Marketing Agencies: Apps offer a more direct way for your clients to connect with users while complementing your current email and social strategies.
- Branding and Design Agencies: Once you’re done creating or revamping the visual identity of a business, extending those branding elements to a consistent mobile experience becomes even more impactful.
- SEO and Content Creation Agencies: Apps provide another medium for your clients to distribute content while capturing traffic from sources outside of web-based search engines.
- Ecommerce CRO Agencies: Mobile apps convert up to 3x higher than websites, making them a natural next step after you’ve optimized online stores for your clients.
These are just a few examples, but they illustrate how app development naturally aligns with the services you’re providing—creating a seamless transition that feels logical to your clients as opposed to disconnected upsell.
Capitalizing on Market Demand
Plus, there’s still a massive demand for mobile app development across all industries. The global app development market size is poised to grow at a CAGR of 14.3% over the next five years.
Roughly half of all small businesses have their own mobile app right now. Of the ones who don’t have an app, 74% are planning to build one within the next few years.
There’s a ton of money to be made in this space for agencies who know how to capitalize on this demand.
Using Recurring Revenue Models as Your Growth Multiplier
The beauty of providing app development to your clients is that it’s different from a traditional project-based pricing model.
Beyond the initial build, you can continue earning recurring revenue for the lifetime of the app.
That’s right. A single app development project can set you up to charge your clients a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee for as long as the app exists.
Here’s a hypothetical breakdown to illustrate what I mean:
- App Development: $5,000 to $20,000 flat fee for the initial build and launch.
- Maintenance Fee: $500 to $1,500 per month to cover servers and backend infrastructure.
- App Design Refresh: $1,500 one-time fee to give your clients an updated design after a few years.
- New Features: $2,000 for each new feature the client requests after the app is already live.
Let’s take this one step further to see how you can easily generate over $50,000 in three years from a single client using modest estimates.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- $10,000 (one-time) for the initial development
- $36,000 in maintenance fees ($1,000 x 36 months)
- $1,500 design refresh after two years
- $4,000 for two new features ($2,000 x 2)
That’s $51,500 in just three years from one client.
Now compare this to another $10,000 service from your agency with no recurring elements. The app development model generates over 5x more revenue from the same client relationship over three years.
Best of all, the ongoing work requires far less time and resources than the initial build. So your profit margins on those recurring fees will be even higher.
Maintaining the app for your clients and providing crucial infrastructure on the backend puts you in a position where your agency is essentially indispensable. Without you, their live app ceases to exist.
This is drastically different from something like taking a commission on your client’s PPC ad spend, which could be cut or eliminated at any time.
The Easiest (and Most Lucrative) Way to Add App Development to Your Service Portfolio
The key to success in selling app development all boils down to choosing the right reseller program. This decision will dictate the quality of apps you can build for your clients while ultimately determining how profitable each app will be.
By going the white-label path, you won’t have to set up an entirely new department with developers, designers, project managers—and you won’t have to purchase servers or build the backend infrastructure to power the apps.
Buildfire’s reseller program is undoubtedly the best option on the market, especially for agencies seeking high profits.
It’s powerful enough to create any type of app, and the no-code interface makes it easy for anyone to use—ensuring you won’t need more internal resources or specialized technical skills to build and sell apps to your clients.
- All of the servers and backend infrastructure components are included.
- You don’t need to hire any developers.
- It’s affordable, so you can pass those savings to your clients while still earning high profits.
- You’re in total control over your pricing and the features you want to offer.
- As a white-label solution, you can fully customize the service and platform with your own branding—so your clients will never see Buildfire’s name or logo.
Buildfire also provides specialized training and consulting for white labelers, doing everything to help set you up for success on day one. You’ll have access to dozens of professionally designed templates plus over 100+ pre-built features that can be added to any app with a single click.
Another unique standout of Buildfire’s white-label solution is the option to offer our no-code app builder as a SaaS self-service subscription to your clients. So rather than building the app for them, you can set up a DIY option on your site—giving your clients access to the exact same platform that’s been used to create over 10,000+ mobile apps.
[Case Study]: Find out how Social Connection Marketing leveraged Buildfire’s reseller program to expand its agency services while building ten client apps in the first 12 months of the new offering. Read more here.
Leveraging Insider Knowledge as Your Competitive Edge
Obviously, there are other mobile app development services out there—many of which have a longer history and successful track record (that you won’t immediately have).
But you have a huge advantage that they can’t compete with. You already know which of your clients are in the perfect position for a mobile app.
Your existing client relationships provide you with valuable data and insights that other app developers will never have access to.
- You have a deep understanding of their customers.
- You already know their pain points.
- You understand their goals.
- You have insider knowledge of their digital ecosystems and integration needs.
- You know their budget and how much they can afford on an app.
These insights allow you to truly personalize each deck and presentation when you’re pitching mobile apps to your clients.
This is way easier than going out there and trying to cold-pitch new clients. It’s also easier than handling new inbound leads that still need to be qualified.
While every client you pitch won’t necessarily convert, your conversion success rates will still be significantly higher than other agencies that are operating in the dark. I bet you already know which of your clients have a 50/50 chance of saying yes to an app proposal—and those are incredible odds in this space.
Having this insider knowledge ultimately boosts the lifetime value of each client relationship. When you can offer solutions that specifically address their needs while staying within their budget and achieving their goals, not only are you extending your relationship for several years, but you’re also positioning yourself for other high-value upsells down the road.
Your insider knowledge becomes the foundation for transforming existing clients into long-term partners with a lifetime value upwards of 500% higher than one-time purchases.
The Secret Scaling Tactic to Maximize Profits
Once you build a few successful apps for your clients, you can scale your app development service quickly by working smarter to maximize profit margins.
All you need to do is identify common functionality across the industry-specific apps you’ve built and then clone those apps for future clients. This strategy is where you can really take things to the next level—boosting LTV while cutting costs.
For example, a simple appointment-booking function can be used for a spa, salon, dental practice, or gym. Every retail business will likely want similar customer loyalty features in their app. Restaurants will all want apps with digital menus and streamlined takeout options.
So once you’ve built an app for one dental practice or one restaurant, you can just clone that app for the next client in the same industry.
This approach will save you a TON of time and resources while increasing your profit margins on each subsequent build. 80% of the work will already be done since the app will basically have the same features. You just need to make some small tweaks for things like logos, colors, and content.
Plus, you can have a little more wiggle on your pricing for budget-sensitive clients. Since the majority of the work will already be complete, you can make some concessions while still maintaining high margins—creating a win-win for everyone involved.
It also gives you a good sense of direction with which clients you can be pitching next. You can even use an app you’ve already built to create a custom demo during your pitches.
The effectiveness of this strategy will continue to compound over time as you build more and more industry-specific apps.
Breaking Down the Numbers of Doubling LTV
Let’s go through some quick math to illustrate how easy it is to double the lifetime value of your clients by selling them mobile apps.
First, it’s important to re-emphasize that not every client you pitch will need or want a mobile app—and that’s totally fine. You can use the 80/20 rule here for benchmarking purposes while helping you identify which clients to target.
If you can 6x the LTV of 20% of your clients, then your overall LTV will double.
We’ll use simple, round numbers to explain how this works:
- Let’s say you have 10 clients.
- The LTV for each client is $1,000—which is $10,000 overall.
- If you increase the LTV of 20% of your clients by 6x, their new LTV is $6,000 each.
- This means that 20% of your LTV is $12,000 (2 x $6,000) and the remaining 80% is $8,000 (8 x $1,000).
- Your new overall client LTV is $20,000—double where we started.
Look, I understand that there are a lot of other variables and each client won’t be starting with the same LTV.
But this simple math should still help you understand the path to doubling your average client LTV.
Earlier, I showed you a modest and completely realistic example of how your mobile app development service can earn 5x more revenue compared to a one-time purchase over three years. So increasing the LTV by 6x for 20% of your clients isn’t that far-fetched if you follow this model, and it can be achieved in roughly the same time frame.
Final Thoughts
Selling mobile apps to your existing clients is a no-brainer decision for any agency looking for ways to increase client LTV.
The numbers are really appealing, and using Buildfire’s white label solution ensures you deliver a quality product to clients while maximizing your profits.
Best of all, you can add this lucrative new service without making any major changes to your current team or operations. Buildfire’s no-code platform means you won’t have to hire any developers, and you can create high-quality apps in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.
Are you ready to double the lifetime value of your agency clients? Book a free demo today.
