The first step to building a successful digital marketing agency is to find clients to buy your services.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to get a constant flow of clients to your agency, even if it's a new business. It's the same techniques we've used for the last 18 years to get hundreds of leads and valuable clients for our business.
8 Tips On How To Get Clients For Digital Marketing
- Start a Digital Marketing Blog
- Online Jobs Portals
- Guest Posting on High Authority Websites
- Advertise Your Services on Facebook and Google
- Publish Marketing eBooks
- Create Digital Marketing Courses
- Reach Out to Your Community
- Build Your Portfolio and Customer Testimonials
1. Start a Digital Marketing Blog
The best way to get clients for your marketing agency is blogging. Writing on topics that potential customers search for is the most efficient way to get leads that will eventually buy your services.
Blogging is extremely cost-effective as once your content ranks at the top of Google and other search engines, you can get visitors to your website without paying for advertising.
When writing about digital marketing, in particular, you also have the added benefit of showcasing your ability firsthand.
If you can get your pages to the top of the rankings, potential clients can immediately see that you know what you’re doing and will be inspired to experience similar results.
Our blog at Reliablesoft is a great example of how a new digital marketing agency can use content to attract new clients.
We’ve been actively blogging for over 18 years and still generate a steady flow of new clients to this day.
How to structure your blog
It’s important to blog about topics related to your business without being too promotional about your services.
You should focus on identifying the pain points your audience wants to solve. This will allow you to create content that aligns with their needs.
When you demonstrate your expertise and ability to solve their issues, they will naturally feel inclined to contact you.
As a digital marketing agency, there are a variety of services potential clients will want to know more about, including:
- Building a website
- Running advertising campaigns
- Growing social media profiles
- Generating SEO traffic
- Capturing more leads
It’s also important to use blog formats that are both useful and easy to follow. This includes:
- Listicles
- How-to guides
- Case studies
- Resources and Statistics
Finding the right search termsSEO traffic
is a great way to reach potential clients for your business. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to rank for highly competitive terms due to the rising competition.
This is especially true for broader digital marketing terms.
Because of this, it is recommended that you focus your blogging efforts on terms directly related to your digital marketing services instead of more generic terms.
To give you an example, consider the term “eCommerce SEO”. The top-ranking results for this keyword are massive 10,000-word guides from industry leaders, and the pages have hundreds (if not thousands) of high-authority backlinks.
Instead of targeting this keyword, you can target a long-tail term like an eCommerce SEO company, eCommerce SEO agency, or eCommerce SEO expert.
These terms have a lower ranking difficulty, and you won’t have to compete with major publications or SaaS companies. This will give you a better chance of earning a page-one ranking, and you’ll be able to do so faster.
When clients find you on the first page of Google, convincing them is much easier as you don’t have to prove your abilities.
Resources to Learn More
2. Online Jobs Portals
Most businesses turn to job boards to post openings for full-time digital marketing positions rather than agency services. That said, some organizations post projects that are open to agencies.
Some companies and individuals post short-term and one-off tasks that do not require a full-time employee. These short-term projects can turn into long-term engagements if the project is successful. The client will see your value, and you’ll be in a perfect position to pitch them more services.
Some of the tasks for digital marketing services you can find on job boards include:
- Creating an SEO strategy
- Redesigning a website
- Launching a link-building campaign
- Managing a PPC campaign
- Optimizing a social media account
Here are a few of the best job portals to get clients for digital marketing services:
- Upwork
- People per hour
How you filter job listings to find those open to agencies will depend on the network. On Upwork, job postings can include an attribute for Talent Type denoting Independent, Agency, or both.
You can use this to filter the results to find projects for agencies quickly. Once you find relevant job postings for your digital marketing agency, you’ll want to position yourself to win the client’s business.
Here are some tips to capitalize on the opportunities available through job portals.
Actively monitor new openings - Job listings don’t stay open long, especially on portals like Upwork. If you want to secure new clients, you’ll need to actively monitor different job boards so that you can apply for opportunities before they close.
Send your pitch - Potential clients will look to see how prompt you are in replying to any questions they may have. Answering any inquiries quickly helps signal that you are reliable.
Build a record of strong feedback - A history of strong performance increases your ability to win the projects you apply for. Potential clients will look at your previous experience and the reviews and feedback from past clients. You should strive to not only provide great work but also to conduct yourself professionally.
Doing so will help ensure all your clients have nothing but positive things to say about your agency. This, in turn, will help you get more marketing clients.
3. Guest Posting on High Authority Websites
Guest blogging is an effective way to increase the visibility of your agency. When you write guest posts for other websites, you can tap into their audience base to expand your reach to new potential clients.
It also allows you to establish your business as a thought leader in the digital marketing space. You can even network with your fellow site owners, who may be able to refer you to additional clients.
How to build a guest posting strategy
Guest posting to get digital marketing clients requires a different strategy than guest posting solely for links.
When guest posting for backlinks, the links themselves are the primary concern. Because of this, the specifics of the audience and any potential referral traffic aren’t as important. You still want to post on relevant sites, but ultimately, a quality link from a high authority site is the primary goal.
When guest posting for client acquisition, you also want to target high-authority sites, but for different reasons. High authority sites are the most valuable target because they tend to have high web traffic. This increases the number of potential clients you can reach. High authority sites are also where the best business prospects will go to educate themselves.
By posting on this kind of site, you can establish your agency as a knowledgeable source of information. When you reach out to sites for guest posting opportunities, you should come from a place that provides value for the site’s audience.
You don’t want to contact site owners by simply selling yourself and telling them you want to use their platform to generate more business. Regarding topics, you should stick to those related to the services you provide. Try to target a specific niche and avoid being too general.
4. Advertise Your Services on Facebook and Google
Paid advertisements are one of the most effective ways to grow any business, including digital marketing companies.
By using digital advertising platforms, you can easily reach people from all over the world. Because your agency can perform all your work remotely, this opens up a massive audience of potential clients that you can find.
For your ad campaigns to be successful, you must first define your target audience and focus your efforts on a specific group of people.
Doing so will make your messaging more aligned with your audience’s interest, and you’ll also face less competition.
For example, you could target digital marketing services specifically for lawyers.
- In this case, you would create a dedicated landing page explaining how your service offerings can help lawyers.
- You would then target keywords related to marketing services for lawyers or audience segments interested in lawyers.
- Your ad copy will reflect this targeting and contain messaging specifically for lawyer-based services.
Compare this type of campaign to a broader one targeting anyone interested in digital marketing services. In this scenario, crafting a relevant landing page or ad copy that resonates with your audience will be much more difficult.
A search for a broad term like SEO services could come from an eCommerce company, an insurance company, a SaaS company, or countless other types of businesses.
Full funnel advertising
When advertising your digital marketing agency, you should split your campaigns between passive ad platforms like Facebook and active ad platforms like Google.
Facebook is a passive advertising platform in that users aren’t actively looking for your business when the ad is served. Google is active because users search for the keywords you are using for your ad targeting.
Both platforms play an important role in getting new clients as they offer distinguishable ad formats.
One way to use the platforms together is to use Google for top-of-the-funnel ads and then remarket to those visitors through Facebook.
Resources to Learn More
5. Publish Marketing eBooks
Finding clients for digital marketing agencies requires you to communicate with prospects several times before you can win their business.
Most people simply aren’t going to agree to become a client upon their first interaction with you.
Because of this, it is essential to capture contact information for potential clients so that you have the ability to communicate with them and sell them your services.
The best way to get contact information from prospects is to add lead magnets to your website. You then give these lead magnets away for free in exchange for an email address.
There are a variety of different resources you can give away for free. One proven method is to use digital marketing eBooks. eBooks can be a valuable source of information and can provide much greater insights than a blog post or other forms of lead magnets like checklists or infographics.
You can promote the eBooks across your website whether in a form in your sidebar or a call-to-action at the end of blog posts. You can also use the landing page you create for your eBook lead magnet as the target page for advertising campaigns.
We employed this tactic in the early years of building our agency and it worked great for us. If you want your eBook-centered lead generation efforts to be successful, you must ensure that the book provides real value to your audience.
Gaining a prospect’s email is just the first step to turning them into a client. To prove your competency, the book must be insightful and convince readers that you will be a good business partner.
Here are some tips on how to create a great eBook for getting digital marketing clients:
Research relevant topics - Similar to your approach to blogging, you want to research the best topics to write about before creating the eBook. You should keep the subject related to your services so you can use the eBook to warm up your leads gradually.
It’s also helpful if the eBook is related to a keyword that gets decent search volume, as it will open more possibilities for advertising campaigns.
Creating the content - When you go to create your eBook, it can be helpful to repurpose some of the content already on your website. If you have blog posts on the subject, you can compile the individual pieces together to serve as a foundation for the book. This can save you considerable time in the writing process while also ensuring consistency across your content.
Design - You want your eBook to have an attractive design, as it will leave a good impression on potential clients. Fortunately, adding quality designs to your eBook is easy, even if graphic design is not your area of expertise. Tools like Canva, Calibre, and Adobe InDesign have plenty of pre-made templates and a user-friendly interface to put your eBook together quickly.
6. Create Digital Marketing Courses
Another way to generate leads for your digital marketing agency is to create a course and give it to users for free.
Online courses are great at showing your expertise in a subject matter while providing value to your clients.
Creating a course may sound like a massive undertaking, but it is not that difficult. Like eBooks, you can begin by repurposing your existing content.
You can use plenty of software platforms to build and manage your course. These allow you to host the course through your web portal or the vendor’s website. You can also make your course available through traditional text-based formats such as PDF or a series of emails.
7. Reach Out to Your Community
As your agency grows, building a community across different platforms is important. You can use this community to engage with your audience and reach new clients actively.
Start by building your email list. Email gives you a direct channel to communicate with your audience, allowing you to engage with them however you wish.
You can use eBooks, courses, or other lead magnets to get subscribers who are interested in your business. You can then use your email newsletter to inform subscribers about your services and even provide special discounts and offers.
After you’ve grown your email list, you can branch out to begin growing your presence on social media.
Here are some of the best platforms you can use to find clients for your digital marketing agency:
Facebook - You can use your Facebook business page to promote your content and inform your followers about your services. You want to actively engage with your community by responding to any comments or communications in Messenger.
One of the most valuable pieces to using Facebook for your digital marketing agency is Facebook Groups. You should find groups relevant to your services and provide value to the community by commenting and sharing your insights on posts.
LinkedIn - You can use LinkedIn to consistently publish content as you would on any other social network. You can also grow your community by joining groups related to business and digital marketing. Once you’ve found relevant groups, contribute to the community by commenting on posts, adding valuable insights to conversations, and sharing posts to bring more traffic to the group and its members.
8. Build Your Portfolio and Customer Testimonials
It’s important, especially at the beginning of your agency, to build a portfolio of your previous work and gather as many customer testimonials as possible.
Many prospects will look at your past projects to assess the quality of your work and see if you are well-suited to meet their needs.
When you’re starting, offering your services to some initial clients for free can be helpful. You can begin by contacting people you know and those in your online community. You don’t need to run a full-fledged campaign but can help them perform some small tasks that still allow you to showcase your ability.
After you’ve completed a couple of successful projects, you can ask the client to provide feedback and a testimonial. As you build your client portfolio, you can expand on your testimonials by creating case studies.
Case studies are a more thorough review of your previous work and provide a detailed analysis of how you helped a business solve its particular problems.
Key Learnings
Digital marketing agencies have the advantage of working remotely, allowing them to access a large client base worldwide. The best way to get clients for a marketing agency is through blogging.
Blogging demonstrates your expertise through the content and your ability to get the pages to rank at the top of Google.
In addition to blogging, some great ways to get marketing clients include:
- Searching on online job portals
- Guest posting on high authority sites
- Advertising through Google and Facebook
- Creating eBooks and courses to generate leads
- Growing a community across the web
As your business grows, building a portfolio of testimonials and positive feedback from your previous clients is essential. Doing so will position your digital marketing agency to secure high-paying clients when the opportunity comes.
