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You can't add links to your Instagram post captions (sorry, sales team). However, if you want to invite your Instagram followers to your other resources to increase traffic to your website, promote products and services, and enhance user engagement, all you need to...
So, you have a digital marketing agency. But how are you doing when it comes to attracting clients? To get clients, you need to generate leads first — and for that, you need a marketing agency lead generation strategy.
A balanced mix of short-term and long-term tactics ensures your agency lead generation flow is stable, bringing in new clients and growing revenue.
So, stick with me as I highlight 10 tactics for building a successful lead-generation strategy for your marketing agency. I’ll also cover the best marketing agency software that can help you on your way.
There are two core lead generation approaches for marketing agencies: inbound and outbound.
Inbound lead generation attracts prospective clients through content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. It’s more cost-effective and builds trust over time. You don’t just jump straight to sale — you offer value first.
But inbound lead generation marketing takes patience. Building an audience and earning the trust of high-quality leads doesn’t happen overnight.
Outbound lead generation uses more direct methods like cold calling, email marketing, and paid advertising. It delivers quick results and is pretty straightforward. You find potential customers, reach out to them — and here are your target prospects, all bagged and ready.
On the downside, outbound lead generation is usually more expensive, and potential leads sometimes perceive it as too pushy or intrusive.
Both strategies have their place in a comprehensive marketing campaign plan as long as you keep things balanced.
Emina Demiri-Watson, Head of Digital Marketing at Vixen Digital, highlights:
In the race to get quick fixes, it’s easy to forget that long-term awareness raising and brand building are the backbone of your lead gen strategy. Just because they are trickier to track and take longer doesn’t mean you should avoid them.
Whether you’re a lead generation agency or need clients of your own, the key is a balance between long-term and short-term lead gen practices.
Check out these 10 lead generation strategies you can mix and match to help your sales team:
Many marketers fall into the trap of thinking they and people like them are the target audience of their lead generation efforts.
In most cases, that’s not true. Rick Ramos, Fractional CMO at Transform Your Marketing, says:
You are not your target customer! Do research, talk to them, understand them, and create a brand for them. It’s never about you.
I know — ouch.
But that’s how it is. So, take time to define your agency’s market position and message. Figure out exactly who your ideal clients are and how your services can meet their needs.
These valuable insights will help you and your sales team craft messages that appeal to generated leads rather than reflect your agency’s view only.
It’s also important to test this messaging with real prospects over time. The ongoing feedback refines your approach and ensures your communications attract the right audience.
Who would you trust more — someone with solid, visible expertise or a shady company that only has its landing page coming up in search engines?
A content marketing strategy helps your digital agency be vocal about your expertise. It builds trust and helps you convert and nurture leads along the buyer’s journey using valuable content.
But remember: it’s not just about blog posts. You can create a video podcast and turn the episodes into Reels, Shorts, or ads, create an eBook, or prepare a full-scale research.
Here’s how content can vary by funnel stage:
Hannah Lydford, Content Marketing Manager at Headley Media, shares her experience:
If you’re looking to generate high volumes of ‘top of funnel’ leads, choose a useful tool or a template that helps your target audience. If you’re looking for more nurtured leads, running campaigns with content such as a recorded webinar, videos, research reports, or eBooks works well.
Pro tip: Content planning tools are very helpful to digital marketing agencies when it comes to content management for themselves and their clients. Consider choosing them to build out your content calendars and collaborate with clients effectively.
Content calendar view in Planable
Lead magnets do the heavy lifting in your lead generation process. Magnets are tools designed to gather lead data by offering something valuable in return through lead gen forms.
These lead generation tactics work like this:
The most popular lead magnets include original content and detailed guides that are hard to find elsewhere, attracting potential clients and encouraging them to engage with your agency.
Emina Demiri-Watson explains how her approach involves a mix of gated and ungated assets:
I’m a big fan of gated and ungated helpful resources as a winning combination. We use both. Some of our templates are ungated while others will ask for an email.
Creating case studies and testimonials is vital for marketing agencies seeking more leads. Your service isn’t something people can test before buying. Showing off successful projects and positive reviews is your social proof to build trust and credibility.
Don’t be shy — as a digital marketing agency, you have every right to market yourself.
Share case studies and testimonials on your website to catch potential clients’ attention and help your site rank better. Highlight success stories on other marketing channels to engage more people and improve lead generation.
This type of content shows prospects the real results of your work, proving your agency is not just using empty words but getting things done.
To start generating leads, you have to make your website visible on search engines. There’s no way around search engine optimization.
Optimizing your website pages is key to boosting your digital strategy. It’s all about making sure your site is visible and converting leads. Here’s how to do it effectively:
Careful website content planning ensures each page is optimized for search engines and user experience, turning your site into a lead generation machine.
Collaborating with others is an excellent strategy for business growth. It helps you introduce your digital agency to new target audiences and generate more leads.
Plus, being in the spotlight around the industry resources makes your agency look like a proactive, results-driven team that’s great to work with.
Here’s how digital marketing agencies can get qualified leads through collab content:
Emina from Vixen Digital also suggests focusing internally:
Another strategy we favor is building the profiles of our team members. After all, these are the people clients will be working with. We encourage our team to think about their personal brands and how those connect with our agency values.
We’ve talked a lot about inbound lead generation tools. But all successful digital marketing strategies for lead gen agencies dwell on the balance between outbound and inbound.
Ads are among the most straightforward outbound tools and also go straight to our lead generation techniques list.
Running ads helps you get more leads faster but at a cost. Lead ads are also a part of demand generation campaigns when you capture leads to move from awareness to interest. They engage potential customers through educational content, thought leadership, and brand visibility.
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You can run ads across multiple platforms, depending on your current goals and focus:
Listings on directories like Capterra or Crunchbase are an investment in organic lead generation. Potential clients visit these websites when looking for specific services, and you’d want your offering to be there for them, preferably with good reviews.
Grab a small checklist to optimize your digital marketing agency listing:
Directories connect you and your potential leads and provide them with reviews to make the final call.
Setting up a referral program can boost your agency’s lead generation with qualified, already nurtured leads.
Referral marketing encourages happy clients to tell others about your services. People trust other people more than a brand and often choose services recommended by friends or colleagues. A referral comes with trust already built in.
Referral programs are also generally cheaper than many lead generation marketing methods — a small thank you, like a discount or a gift, can motivate clients to share your agency with others. This small token brings in very valuable sales leads who are often ready to buy.
I love repurposing content and always recommend it. Make the most of the long-form content your digital agency worked so hard on!
You can use testimonials as Instagram Stories, divide a video podcast or conference talk into a series of short videos, or rework key talking points from a lead magnet into social media posts. This content is vetted, prepared, and valuable, so take your chance to show it to as many people in as many forms as possible.
Social media tools for agencies streamline this process, making it easier to manage marketing assets and schedule posts. This helps you stay consistent across all marketing platforms and max out the impact of your original content.
Half of success in agency lead generation is stellar content. Planable is an ultimate collaboration tool that marketing agencies can use to boost their lead generation marketing campaigns.
With Planable’s Universal Content, you can create, collaborate on, and approve any written content. You can draft blogs, briefs, video scripts, newsletters, social posts, white papers, and more in a dedicated collaborative space. All with just a few clicks.
Collaboration and approval on a blog post in Planable
Besides content creation and streamlining your marketing efforts, here’s what Planable brings to the table as a lead generation software:
Plan your campaigns and organize content with drag-and-drop rescheduling and custom color-coded labels to get a comprehensive view of all activities across various marketing channels.
Exchange real-time feedback through comments, suggestions, and annotations directly on the text, streamlining the review and approval process. Works for your clients, too!
Keep internal notes and discussions private within your team, perfect for sensitive projects like client case studies and testimonials.
Schedule and automatically publish content to eight major social media platforms, ensuring you never overlook a content gap.
Set up an approval flow that suits you – from “none” to “multi-level”, including clients and team members in the loop. Great fit for preparing a case study or gathering testimonials.
Multi-level approval workflow in Planable
These features make Planable an essential tool for marketing agencies aiming to optimize their content strategy and effectively manage their marketing calendar.
Lead generation is important for any digital agency, regardless of company size. It’s a solid source of clients, and although not every lead converts into a sale, every lead is the first step toward it.
Planable helps marketing agencies and in-house teams collaborate on and create amazing content together. Grab your 50 free posts with Planable and give it a try!
Content marketer with a background in journalism; digital nomad, and tech geek. In love with blogs, storytelling, strategies, and old-school Instagram. If it can be written, I probably wrote it.
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