How To Productize A Service In 9 Easy Steps
Consider you've spent countless hours building your service-based business, and things are going well. But after a while, you feel overwhelmed by the constant pressure to take on more clients and deliver more projects. You know you can't keep up this pace if you want to scale. Instead, you need to find a way to "systematize" the services you offer so that you can reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to deliver them. Productizing your services is one of the best ways to achieve this goal.
Not only does it help you bring structure and organization to your offerings, but it can also make them more profitable and more accessible to the market. And the best part? The process of productizing services can also help you deliver better outcomes for your clients. This guide will explore how to productize a service to help you achieve your growth goals. We'll also show you how the best agency management software can help you get there faster.
Orchestra's solution, grow your productized service, can help you achieve your objectives by providing an all-in-one toolkit to help you quickly build, manage, and grow your productized services, stay organized, improve team collaboration, and deliver better client outcomes.
Benefits of Productized Services
A primary reason to productize your service is to increase sales. Simplifying the customer journey makes your business more sustainable. Productized services allow enterprises to forecast revenue and plan operations accurately. Predicting profits and cash flow becomes more straightforward with a standardized offering and pricing.
When a service is productized, sales, usage metrics, and other key performance indicators become more transparent and more accessible to track. This enables better data-driven decision-making. Additionally, productizing a service makes it more scalable, as the delivery and fulfillment processes can be systematized and automated. This supports business growth.
Improve Productivity with Productized Services
Productized services will help increase productivity. By offering a limited, well-defined set of services, your business can streamline its operations and improve efficiency, leading to greater productivity for your team.
With a productized services model, your team can focus on refining and optimizing a specific set of offerings rather than constantly adapting to new client requirements. This can lead to more efficient and streamlined operations.
Expand Your Business with Productized Services
Another main benefit of productized services is scaling. It helps to scale your business quickly. With business analytics, scaling a productized service business is straightforward. By closely monitoring critical metrics like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, churn rate, etc., you can identify opportunities to optimize and expand your reach.
Productized services often have more flexible and scalable pricing models, such as per-user or per-feature pricing. This can allow you to serve customers of different sizes and needs, further expanding your potential market.
Score Faster Payments with Productized Services
With set scopes and prices, productized services streamline the billing and payment processes, lowering administrative costs and enhancing cash flow. Consulting firms can use these tactics to improve customer engagement, optimize operations, and achieve long-term growth.
Furthermore, with a productized approach, businesses can invest in streamlining processes and developing robust systems to ensure reliable service delivery. This can reduce the likelihood of delays or errors.
Reduce Churn Rate with Productized Services
Productized services can effectively reduce customer churn rates. These services offer a standardized, repeatable service package well-defined in scope, pricing, and delivery. This consistency can improve the customer experience and help customers understand the value they are getting.
Customers with a positive, consistent experience with a productized service are less likely to churn and more likely to continue renewing. The predictability and reliability of the service offering can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Productized services make cross-selling and upselling additional products or service tiers to existing customers easier. This can help drive higher customer lifetime value and reduce churn.
Deliver a Better Customer Experience with Productized Services
Improving customer experience is one of the main benefits of productized services. It is a beneficial strategy for businesses. Productized services offer a standardized and consistent service experience, which helps set clear customer expectations. This predictability can make the customer journey smoother and more transparent.
These services typically have clear, predefined pricing structures, which can help customers understand and budget for the services they need. This transparency reduces surprises and builds trust.
How To Productize A Service In 9 Easy Steps
1. Use Orchestra
Orchestra is an all-in-one growth toolkit that makes it easy to launch your productized service. Designed for creatives ready to scale, it offers a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics with no coding needed, just your Stripe account.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow. It lets you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you. Try Orchestra for free to develop your productized service today.
2. Focus on a niche
A focused niche allows your brand to shine because you can become an industry expert. What could be better than knowing you’re the one-time speed optimization services expert? It makes it easy to find potential clients as you know how to speak to them. And it’s easier to bundle your services, set your prices, and sell them. That being said, not everyone is running an established agency. Some are starting fresh, so you might have to do market research first to reach potential customers.
3. Understand your client's needs
If you don’t know what could help your clients, research is necessary to find out what they fear, what they want, and what could help make their businesses more competitive. With the data collected, you can create ideal customer profiles. Then, look at your past invoices, identify missed opportunities, and eliminate services nobody seems to be going crazy for.
You can also use customer experience management software platforms, which offer great tools to better connect with clients and understand their needs. As a service business owner, providing value to your clients is essential, and you can’t offer real value without knowing their needs. Your service offering should be a packaged solution to those needs.
4. Set yourself apart
Earlier, I mentioned that you might have to do market research. The pitfall many productized service providers fall into is this: they see a competing provider's excellent idea and copy it. Why would a potential client buy your service over the established one? Maybe you’re cheaper, but competing on price is a race to the bottom. Instead, set yourself apart with unique attributes. For instance, let’s say your service is to create insurance websites.
While that is an exciting niche because you set yourself apart from regular designers, why should anyone hire you? Leverage your client testimonials and data, and show prospects that your customers have increased conversion by XY%. Another example is someone selling services for book covers (design, typography, etc.). There are countless book cover experts, but only a few have worked with best-selling authors.
5. Review your metrics
How long has each of your services been offered? How do your current services contribute to your success? Do any of my services need more sales? What makes these services different from my more successful services? Build off these metrics to offer productized versions of already successful services. Revise unsuccessful services to provide a productized version that solves a specific problem.
6. Check your support history
Scan the inbox of your helpdesk software for reasons clients stopped using your services and any objections and problems they experienced. You may find shortcomings in your services or the way they’re delivered. For example, if you notice customers regularly asking for progress updates, consider implementing a self-service portal where they can see the status of their orders in real-time.
7. Ask your best customers for insight
Who are your favorite customers? The ones responsible for a good chunk of your revenue while requiring minimal hand-holding along the way—I’m sure you have a few clients like that. Reach out to these clients to find what attracted them to your agency first and gather insights into bringing in more people like them.
8. Talk to other people in your industry
Only some people in your space are in direct competition with you. You’ll learn a lot about business and your customers just from talking to other service providers they use. It could be through industry forums, Slack groups, or in-person events. By openly sharing ideas and helping others solve their problems, you’ll expose yourself to future opportunities, collaborations, and joint ventures.
9. Test your setup & optimize your flow
Last but not least, when everything is set up, run tests, a lot of them. Invite a client into your portal and ask them to purchase services, go through the order process, and give you feedback. Don’t worry; we have a test mode, so payments aren’t live. With the input, return to the drawing board until the flow is easy for existing clients and new prospects. Then, launch your productized service officially and promote it via content marketing, social media, and affiliates.
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7 Tips To Grow Your Productized Services Easily
1. Use Orchestra: Your All-in-One Tool for Productized Services
Orchestra can help you launch your productized service effortlessly with its all-in-one growth toolkit. Designed for creatives ready to scale, Orchestra provides a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics, with no coding needed, just your Stripe account.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow. It lets you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you.
2. Define Your Offering Clearly: What Exactly is Your Productized Service?
Clearly define your productized service ideas' scope, features, and benefits. Create a standardized package that addresses your target customers' specific problems or needs.
3. Price it Strategically: Don’t Leave Money on the Table
Price your productized service competitively based on its value and what the market will bear. Avoid customizing the pricing for individual clients.
4. Market it Effectively: Get the Word Out
Develop a strong marketing strategy to promote your productized service. This may include optimizing your website, running targeted ad campaigns, and using referrals and partnerships.
5. Focus on the Customer Experience: Deliver a Consistent Product
Ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience by streamlining your delivery process and addressing pain points. This will help build trust and encourage repeat business.
6. Automate and Standardize Processes: Improve Efficiency and Scalability
Automate and standardize as many aspects of your service delivery as possible to improve efficiency and scalability. This may include using project management tools, templates, and workflows.
7. Continuously Improve: Keep Your Product Fresh and Relevant
Gather feedback from clients regularly and monitor key metrics to identify areas for improvement. Iterate on your productized service to keep it relevant and appealing to your target market.
7 Incredible Examples of Productized Services For Inspiration
1. DesignJoy: A Creative Subscription Model That Works
Designjoy is a creative agency that specializes in online content and design. It offers tiered design subscriptions with clear boundaries for each service offering. Subscriptions allow for generous benefits, including unlimited brands and photos (courtesy of Shutterstock) and a 48-hour delivery schedule.
They have expanded their primary offering (at the time of writing, just under $5000 per month for one request, or just under $8000 for two simultaneous requests) to include an add-on for “Webflow development” to optimize the functionality and UX of existing websites.
This model benefits customers because they only pay for finite jobs, know precisely how much they’ll pay, and know when their work will be delivered. Designjoy can schedule work confidently and maximize revenue by taking on more clients or offering additional services to existing customers.
2. MassCampaigns: Affordable Ad Creation for Social Media
Advertising companies aren’t known for their affordability. Traditionally, premium campaigns have been delivered at a premium cost. However, the explosion of social media over the last 15 years has shaken things up. A low-cost production can achieve virality and launch a brand or creator into the stratosphere.
Recognizing such opportunities, MassCampaigns offers social media ad creation and management services for as little as $399 per month. They monetize their expertise in placing, optimizing, and managing successful ad placements across eight platforms.
MassCampaigns limits its product offering with a specified revision and approval process. Two subscription tiers have specified personnel, timeframes, and ad placements. Clients know precisely what they get for their money without the provider making unrealistic promises.
3. Draftss: A Unique Approach to Productized Design Services
Providing branding, websites, animation, and app creation, graphic design agency Draftss may initially seem to have an unlimited service offering. However, their three subscription tiers clarify what’s being offered for their reasonable monthly rates. Their site explains that designers are shared between clients and that tasks are fulfilled one at a time.
The type of work included differentiates tiers. The branding package provides illustrations and design elements only. The experience package adds web and app UI design, motion graphics, and video editing. All tiers offer a one-to-three-day turnaround.
Each client receives an initial consultation with a project manager to set scope and expectations and clarify the brief. Multiple possible designs are submitted for client approval to maximize satisfaction (and minimize repeat work). It’s an impressive and highly scalable offering.
4. DesignBro: A Marketplace for Productized Design Services
DesignBro is an online agency that proudly claims to hire only the top 5% of designers who apply to offer their services through the platform. With this offer, they sell range and excellence, maximizing their potential client base.
DesignBro has pre-priced many potential projects, from logo creation to book covers or website design. Each project is offered in multiple tiers, and clients can choose a favored designer after browsing individual portfolios. Alternatively, clients can launch a “contest,” which allows designers to pitch for projects competitively.
The variety of productized services and range of design talent (over 280 at the time of writing) make this an enticing option for brands seeking a budget solution to a creative task.
5. Podcasting Pro: Specialized Podcast Editing Services
The increasingly popular world of podcasting has shifted from back-bedroom audio to slick, studio-based video content. This range of creative choices is reflected in Podcasting Pros’ product offerings, which range from audio or video editing to show note writing and transcription, plus excerpt harvesting for social media.
Two primary packages are offered per episode, and a handy “fractional staff” add-on is charged per hour if clients want someone to work on marketing or production-based tasks for their podcast without hiring permanent staff.
Cleverly, PostcastingPro demonstrates what a sample piece of audio sounds like before and after they clean it up, reinforcing the excellence clients should expect. The per-episode costing limits mission creep and underlines project scope.
6. DesignPickle: The Role of AI in Productized Services
AI and the automations AI enables are changing the creative industries (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse). The blend of human creativity and AI power can create unique offerings when cleverly used, such as in Design Pickle’s productized services.
Like Design Bro, they are an online agency pooling creative talent. Unlike Design Bro, they guide design selection using AI to turn a brief into a preselected set of innovative elements. The designer can then use these to generate samples the client will likely appreciate.
The design tasks range from motion graphics to social media posts to video production. The project scope is limited by providing finite subscription plans, ranging from $499 per month for simple graphics to motion graphics and presentation design with delivery as Canva files for $1,695. Power Plans are provided for high-volume jobs such as regular social media posts or advertising content.
Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Launch your productized service effortlessly with Orchestra's all-in-one growth toolkit. Designed for creatives ready to scale, Orchestra provides a branded, white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics, with no coding needed—just your Stripe account.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow. It lets you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you; try Orchestra for free and expand your productized service today!
Productized Services Business Model
The One-Time Model: Quick Sales with Productized Services
With the one-time model, a client purchases a productized service for a fixed fee. This business model helps you avoid the dreaded scope creep with custom projects. The one-time model has a predetermined scope that clearly defines what the client gets in exchange for their money. There's no need to create custom proposals, which means you can sell the service as is. Once the client makes a purchase, you deliver the service within a clear time frame. The one-time model makes it easy to calculate revenue. There’s no guesswork involved. You can also pause sales if you need to take on new orders.
The one-time model makes it easy to sell with self-service. Potential buyers can quickly understand what the productized service offers, and they can purchase with little to no help. The biggest downside of the one-time model is that it can be challenging to build customer relationships. Once you deliver the service, there’s little incentive for the client to return unless you offer an attractive upsell or cross-sell.
The Recurring Model: Create Predictable Revenue with Productized Services
The recurring productized services model is subscription-based. Instead of offering a one-time service, this business model provides a service or bundle for a monthly cost. The recurring model helps improve customer lifetime value. Clients who purchase productized services that operate on a subscription basis tend to stick around longer than those who buy one-time services. This helps improve cash flow and reduces the risk of revenue churn.
Another benefit of the recurring model is predictable revenue. The more clients you have on a subscription model, the more you can accurately forecast your monthly income. The recurring model also creates opportunities for scalability. As your agency grows, you can increase the number of clients who purchase these productized services. On the flip side, the recurring model does require an upfront investment. You must spend time and resources creating and marketing the productized service to clients.
The Unlimited Tasks Model: Productized Services for Regular Maintenance
The unlimited tasks model offers the completion of tiny tasks, typically related to maintenance, for a fixed monthly charge. This productized services model operates similarly to the recurring model. The main difference is that the unlimited tasks model offers a precise deliverable of unlimited small tasks.
This structure helps clients understand exactly what they’re getting in exchange for their money. The unlimited tasks model helps agencies create stable revenue. It also allows firms to limit the number of active tasks or requests. The fewer active tasks there are, the better. This is because customers tend to keep their subscriptions without any pending tasks. In other words, when a client has a lot of active tasks or requests, it indicates that they need help.
As soon as they finish their tasks, there’s a good chance they’ll cancel their subscription. By promoting a healthy number of active tasks, agencies can improve customer satisfaction and create a more predictable revenue model. The main downside of the unlimited tasks model is the churn risk. Even though clients enjoy their subscriptions, there’s still a chance they’ll cancel.
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Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Orchestra helps creative professionals launch and grow productized services. The software’s all-in-one growth toolkit provides a white-labeled client portal, task management, real-time analytics, and more to streamline your workflow. Use Orchestra’s features to automate processes and deliver a better client experience while you work independently to improve your productized service.
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