White label software: an easy win for growing web agencies

At the end of April the BaseKit team were invited to be part of a panel at Atarim’s Web Agency Summit, to talk about our experience of the evolution of website builders and what that means for agencies and their client base.

Up until now the small business market has usually been too small for agencies to engage with profitably. But they’ve been missing out: investing in supporting small businesses can be highly fruitful in terms of growth – not just by bringing in new customers, but by enjoying their long-term loyalty as their business flourishes.

And now there is a way for agencies to reach out to small business owners while staying cost-efficient – white label software.

Overlooking small businesses means overlooking opportunities

The small business market can feel like something of a paradox. In terms of sheer numbers, the opportunity it represents is huge – according to the World Bank there are over 300 million small businesses worldwide, accounting for 95% of all businesses around the world. And yet despite the size of the market, agencies and larger companies often don’t see small businesses as big enough to be worth catering to.

But “small business” is a broad term. It might conjure the image of a sole trader or a local family-owned operation, but it can also include businesses with dozens of employees or a high turnover in a niche industry.

There’s a risk in overlooking those small business customers. While they might be small right now, many of today’s small businesses are laying the groundwork to be tomorrow’s big brands. The firms who invest in their success early on will be trusted partners as they grow, while those who only think of a company’s current headcount could miss out.

You can reach a wider customer base with white labelling

The difficulty for a digital agency is that if a small business isn’t big enough to afford their services, there aren’t many cost-effective alternatives they can offer. A small business owner is forced to DIY their way forward and return when they have a higher turnover.

Alternatively they could support a small business in their DIY web presence, but the question is how?

One option is to partner with a branded website builder. But if you partner up with a website builder that already exists as its own brand, there’s always a risk that your customers decide that the site builder is all they need and go directly to that platform. Some might opt for agency handholding through the build process, but many won’t.

A white label product, on the other hand, lets you brand the platform how you like, keeping your customers within your ecosystem.

There’s also the quality of the product. White label software gives you an opportunity to provide a robust platform and reap the reward in brand reputation. The BaseKit platform, for instance, has already gone through product development and is ready for partners to take out to market, has a dedicated team of developers, and both the UI and the backend are built on a foundation of user feedback from other collaborations.

For this reason, it’s also far less risky than developing any kind of product of your own – with a far quicker route to market too.

A way to scale while supporting the growth of other businesses

If you’re looking for new ways to scale, white labelling opens up an opportunity to approach an entirely new audience that was previously out of reach. Agencies can easily hit a wall when it comes to scaling, since so much depends on talent providing bespoke services. White label solutions are a way to circumvent this barrier.

One day, the small business will have the budget for more of your services. And since you’ll have been part of helping them to generate that budget, your team is far more likely to be the first agency they turn to. As they grow, and you continue to find ways to offer value, the bootstrapped four person team you helped to get started online could become a Series-A funded scale up that’s still loyal to your services.

We’re on a mission for tech democracy for small businesses – are you in? Request a demo of our software, or get in touch to see how we could collaborate.