Marketing has always been a profitable sector, with growth trends off the charts since the emergence of digital technologies. Thanks to recent innovations in tech and artificial intelligence (AI), the global digital advertising market is projected to reach 786.2 billion by 2026. If you want to get a piece of it, you’ll need to figure out how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency.
In this article, we’ll show you:
- How to optimize your website and generate leads for your digital marketing agency
- How to create content that generates leads for your digital marketing agency
- How to generate leads for your digital marketing agency on social media
- How to generate leads for your digital marketing agency with Referrals + Upwork
- How to generate leads for your digital marketing agency with cold emailing
- How to use Slam tools to generate leads for your digital marketing agency
Trends and technologies have changed drastically in the 3 years since Slam Media Lab first launched as a design agency in San Francisco. To stay ahead of the competition, we’ve had to continuously strategize and adapt our lead generation methods to meet the moment. In this article, we’ll share eight strategies we’re using to land clients in 2024.
How to Optimize Your Website and Generate Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency
Your website is crucial to your success as a digital marketer. As a central hub for your online presence, it can make or break your visibility and credibility. From making it easier for people to find and learn about your agency, to showing off your services and portfolio, a well-optimized website is a powerful tool for landing clients.
When it comes to optimizing your website for lead generation, there are three important elements to consider:
- Branding and Design
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Call to Action
As an award-winning B2B website design agency, we spend almost as much time perfecting our website as we spend on our clients’ projects. That’s because our website is the most important tool in our lead generation toolbox!
Branding & Design
An agency’s brand is like a language–one that uses design instead of words. It’s what distinguishes your agency from others in the minds of clients, fostering familiarity and connection. More than just a logo, your brand encompasses everything from color and texture to your choice of typography.
Brand strategy and identity plays a crucial role in lead generation for several reasons, including:
- Credibility
- Brand Recall
- Differentiation from Competitors
- Authority and Expertise
- Consistency in Messaging
Quality leads are built on trust and recognition. When potential clients visit your website, they should easily recognize and understand your brand identity. Moreover, your brand should instantly communicate your professionalism and design expertise. That way, clients will trust your brand and associate it with a high-quality digital marketing service.
Search Engine Optimization
Even with on-point branding, your website isn’t likely to generate many leads if people never see it. To convert visitors into clients, you need to generate organic traffic. To generate organic traffic, you must understand and implement best practices in SEO, or search engine optimization.
SEO is the process of making your website as user-friendly and relevant as possible. This is accomplished using technical and content-focused techniques to optimize how search engines like Google and Bing analyze and rank websites in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Here are a few Slam-created products you can use to simplify your SEO strategy:
Our templates integrate nicely with popular technical SEO tools like Google Search Console, and Ahrefs.
Like it or not, SEO is a critical aspect of digital marketing. If you want to generate leads through your website, you’ll need to optimize for searchability. Otherwise, most people will never find or engage with your content.
Call to Action
Let’s say you’ve done all of the above: your brand identity is aesthetically flawless and your website is driving traffic thanks to a well-planned SEO strategy. In other words, people are visiting your website and they’re impressed with what they see. Now, it’s time to convert those visitors into paying clients. This is where the call to action comes into play.
A call to action (CTA) is a prompt that encourages users to take a specific action–one that aligns with your business goals. For example, if your goal is to generate leads for your digital marketing agency, you’ll need website visitors to take action by contacting you about your services. In that case, your website should include a CTA prompting people to get in touch.
Here are three common examples of calls to action commonly featured on websites:
- “Buy Now” buttons encourage visitors to make a purchase or explore purchase options.
- “Subscribe” or “Sign Up” forms prompt visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, email list, or membership service.
- “Call Now” or “Contact Us” buttons link to a contact form for inquiries or assistance.
CTAs can be presented in various formats and usually incorporate elements like text, images, buttons, and hyperlinks. Regardless of how you present them, your CTAs should be strategically placed within your content to guide users toward desired outcomes. They should also be clear, compelling, and relevant to the audience.
How to Create Content that Generates Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency
These days, content is everything. From social media posts to SEO-optimized blog articles and podcasts, producing quality content is critical to your success as a digital marketer. If you want to generate leads for your digital marketing agency with high-quality content, focus your content writing strategy on value, relevance, and engagement.
While it isn’t a bad idea to incorporate classic advertising principles into your content creation, we caution against using excessively ‘salesy’ language. Instead, try creating content that offers genuine value and addresses the questions or concerns of your target audience. This could include blog posts, how-to guides, webinars, etc.
Regardless of the format, you can use these two Slam-created tools to streamline your content planning and creation:
Your content should be interesting and useful. Don’t be afraid to give away free insights and resources! For example, here at Slam, we offer free products like our SEO ROI Calculator and free website audit service. We also give out tons of free insights on our blog and newsletter.
Thanks to the Internet, everyone has access to seemingly infinite information these days. Industry secrets aren’t really a thing anymore, so there’s no point in gatekeeping knowledge. Your goal is to generate leads by convincing clients you have what it takes to do better work than they can on their own. Prove it with consistent, high-quality content!
How to Generate Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency on Social Media
These days, nearly everyone uses social media. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, roughly seven in ten Americans use one or more social media sites regularly. So, if you’re wondering how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency, social media is a powerful tool to consider.
In this section, we’ll discuss how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency on these social media platforms:
- TikTok
From building a professional network to advertising your services, social media platforms offer many opportunities for lead generation and growth.
Since launching in 2003, LinkedIn has become one of the most popular social media platforms for professional networking. You can think of LinkedIn as a career-focused version of Facebook where your mutuals post work opportunities and industry insights instead of memes.
Given its professional focus, LinkedIn is a great platform to consider if you’re thinking about how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency. You can create personal and business profiles highlighting your services, portfolio, and achievements, which increases the likelihood of connecting with potential leads. Moreover, your peers and past clients can leave recommendations on your profile, which is a great way to boost your credibility.
Also, if you decide to create a company page for your digital marketing agency, we recommend using it for more than just advertising. In addition to promoting your services and portfolio, use your company page to post tools, insights, and educational resources for your mutual network to enjoy.
Facebook & Instagram
From sharing updates and photos to exploring algorithm-based content, Facebook and Instagram are the OG social media platforms for connecting with friends, family, and community. Both offer features like stories, reels, and paid ads for business pages–all great tools for generating leads!
While it isn’t a bad idea to invest in paid Facebook and Instagram ads for your digital marketing agency, it isn’t a requirement to generate leads on these platforms. We recommend focusing the bulk of your strategy on publishing consistent, high-quality content. Stories, carousels, and infographics are all great ways to organically build followers.
Feel free to duplicate and use our small business Instagram story template. It will simplify your story creation process! We also recommend checking out our guide to Instagram for small business, featuring detailed advice and actionable strategies for organizations of all sizes. And don’t forget to follow Slam's Insta account!
TikTok
Beloved by Gen Z and growing in popularity with older demographics, TikTok is a social media platform known for short-form video content that emphasizes creativity and entertainment.
It’s no secret that TikTok is unique to other social media platforms in its format, algorithms, and viral trends. If you’re more familiar with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, figuring out how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency on TikTok can be an overwhelming process!
To simplify matters for ourselves (and others), we’ve created two TikTok-specific content resources:
If you take a look at the Slam TikTok account, you’ll notice that most of our content is designed to educate and inform–not self-promote. While we definitely use TikTok to advertise our services, we’ve found that old-school marketing methods aren’t as effective with a Gen Z audience.
Instead, we recommend an engagement-focused strategy that prioritizes building a digital community around your niche.
For expert tips and resources, check out our guide on how to use TikTok for small business.
How to Generate Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency with Referrals + Upwork
Trust is a crucial part of the lead generation process–especially if you’re targeting a younger demographic. Recent research found that 70% of Gen Zs and 69% of millennials only trust a brand after doing independent research on reviews, social media comments, and other organic referral sources. So, if you’re wondering how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency, you’ll need to put some effort into gathering and publishing feedback about your services.
Referrals are recommendations or endorsements provided by happy clients. Here are a few ways to generate leads with referrals and reviews:
- Ask clients for a testimonial after completing a successful project. Then, post these reviews to your website and social media accounts.
- Create a formal referral program that incentivizes clients or partners to refer new business to your agency.
- Leverage social proof by showcasing success stories and case studies in your marketing materials.
- Engage authentically with commenters on your social media posts–this makes your online presence more personable and accessible.
You can also use Upwork to generate leads through referrals by managing client contracts on the platform. Once you’ve wrapped up a project with a client, they’ll have the opportunity to review the quality of your work. A high-quality referral on your profile is a great way to stand out from the competition because it tells prospective clients that you have experience and can be trusted.
Often, clients seeking digital marketing services will post an agency RFP to Upwork. This is a great lead generation opportunity–especially if you already have some quality feedback on your account!
How to Generate Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency with Cold Emailing
Emailing a stranger might seem intimidating, but it’s our favorite way to land clients. It takes a lot of time and research in the beginning, but it’s an amazing lead-generation strategy once you’ve set up and automated your process.
To get started with cold emailing, first spend time researching and compiling a list of organizations in your niche. For example, if you’re targeting the nonprofit sector, you can use Google to find contact information for decision-makers at organizations you’d like to work with. It’s also a good idea to take notes on the nonprofit’s mission, needs, and past accomplishments. You can use this information to personalize your messages.
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to start cold emailing! We recommend using a tool like GMass to manage your campaigns. This will make it easier to track open rates and set automated follow-up sequences. Our How to Start an Agency course covers this topic in more detail. Check it out to learn more!
At the end of the day, cold emailing is a numbers game. The more emails you send, the more likely you are to generate a lead. It’s a proven strategy, but you’ll need to focus on both quantity and quality to make it work!
How to Use Slam Tools to Generate Leads for Your Digital Marketing Agency
In the past 10+ years, we’ve grown our group of marketers and designers into a million-dollar success story with clients nationwide. Along the way, we’ve put a lot of work into streamlining how we generate leads, organize content, and optimize our web presence.
We’ve recently made our in-house tools and templates available for others to use. These resources will save you precious time and resources, freeing you up to focus on generating leads for your digital marketing agency. Check out our products page to find the perfect tool for your use case!
Or, check out our helpful how-to guides for agency founders:
- How to Start an SEO Agency
- How to Start a Facebook Ad Agency
- How to Start a Content Writing Agency
- How to Start a Google Ads Agency
- How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency
You can also sign up for our How to Start an Agency course to access 20+ professional templates and 10+ hours of comprehensive videos.
If you have any questions about our products and services, contact us to start a conversation!
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