8 Most Effective Ways to Generate Leads for Digital Agencies

After drafting a business plan, it’s time to determine which channel to use to attract leads. Unfortunately, there is no universal answer to this question. All methods of lead generation for digital marketing agencies have their own pros and cons. Their effectiveness varies depending on the business area, advertising strategy, and other factors. This article will discuss 8 lead generation strategies for digital marketing agencies.

Optimize Your Agency’s Website for SEO

When a user enters a certain search query, such as “digital agency in NYC”, the search engines will analyze thousands of pages. The best ones will appear in the first positions.

To improve the reputation of your digital agency website and raise its position in the search engine results, you need to perform a fairly large number of activities. All of these activities are united by the term “search engine optimization” – SEO. You will get a lot of conditionally free traffic from search engines.

SEO is an ongoing process. Google regularly updates the algorithms that determine sites’ positions in the search engine result pages and the new requirements that need to be implemented. However, illiterate SEO can have the opposite effect: it can greatly reduce a site’s position or even achieve its exclusion from the search engine results.

Learn More: Complete SEO Checklist (Infographic Guide)

Digital agencies should implement various on-page and off-page SEO techniques. These include keyword research to detect keywords people use to find similar services, providing a smooth user experience, fixing the website’s technical errors, creating engaging content to satisfy the client’s needs, enhancing backlink profile, etc. 

Create Lead Magnets

A Lead Magnet is valuable information. It is a useful piece of your core service that provides a tangible benefit to your potential customer. You give it away for free for your potential customer’s contact information. That way, they get a potentially interested person in your services or products.

What types of Lead Magnets your digital agency can do:

• Ebooks and Whitepapers. An agency specializing in digital marketing can create an ebook titled “The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing for 2024”, filled with industry insights, strategies, and case studies.
• Templates and checklists. A downloadable “SEO Audit Checklist” that helps businesses evaluate and improve their website’s SEO performance is an awesome idea.
• Exclusive industry reports. A digital agency can create an exclusive report on “Top Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024” based on original research and data analysis.

Explore: New Web Design Trends

A Lead Magnet is good for gathering a user base for email marketing. It can also be used to gather other data, such as phone numbers. After that, you can call the customers who downloaded your Lead Magnet to sell them the main service.

Get Listed on Reputable Directories and Websites

Thematic, profile, and business directories are places where information about various companies is placed.

First of all, reputable directories are extremely convenient for users. On one website, people can find necessary information, see reviews of this or that company, and find a company’s contacts according to the parameters specified in the filter.

Reputable directories are helpful for any lead generation marketing agency, as users who are potential customers can find you through them. It should be noted that placement in most directories does not cost anything, or you will need to pay a symbolic price.

If you are an SEO digital agency, SE Ranking`s Agency Catalog is for you. It categorizes the best SEO digital agencies by location, industry, team size, language, and SEO services. Each has a profile with general information and testimonials. To get listed in this directory, you need to purchase SE Ranking’s Agency Pack. Then you can apply.

Warm-Up Cold Leads

Warming cold leads can be your key action to convert potential clients into loyal customers. There are many ways to warm up cold leads. Here are the 3 top tools we recommend:

1. Personalized outreach. Craft personalized emails highlighting how your agency can solve the issues of your potential clients. Personalized communication demonstrates that you value their business and understand their unique situation. You can find out that your previous clients wanted a turnkey PPC campaign instead of just setting and managing PPC ads. Use this when writing to potential clients to attract attention to the fact that you can close all their weak points in this domain.

Check it out: Top Lead Generation Plugins For WordPress

2. Retargeting campaigns. Use retargeting ads to remind cold leads of your services. These ads can showcase your latest work on projects, customer testimonials, or special offers. This way, you can nudge cold leads to reconsider your digital agency.

3. Follow-up sequences. Implement an automated follow-up sequence. This can be a mix of emails, calls, and social touches. Regular, consistent follow-ups keep your agency on their radar without being intrusive.

Warming up cold leads is often an undervalued tool among digital marketing agencies. However, this qualified lead generation tool can be a game changer when approached effectively.

Encourage Your Clients to Leave Reviews

Positive reviews increase trust in a brand, product, or service. This is social proof that can change your lead generation process. Сustomers may choose you because they see that other users who have used your service have written about their good experiences. Reviews come in many forms:

• Reviews on Google Business Profile.
• Facebook reviews.
• Video testimonials on a YouTube channel or website.
• Specialized forums and/or services.

⚡ Important tip: Communicate with users, even if they leave negative reviews. Such activity shows that the business and service are alive and allows you to gain additional reach on social networks.

The platform for reviews depends on the niche in which you are engaged. You should research your niche and understand where users and customers leave reviews.

You can stimulate sales managers with bonuses to get reviews. Regular “mining” of reviews must be built into a business process. In times of “instant” dissemination of information, monitoring and building your positive reputation is crucial.

Promote a Digital Marketing Agency on Social Media

Social networks are very convenient sales platforms not only for companies but also for users. SMM is a good choice for digital marketing agency lead generation.

You can get leads from social networks in different ways. The first way is by maintaining a company page or personal blog. This method is attractive because it allows you to form an active target audience around the company’s account for free. 

Further Reading: Best Site Reputation Management Tools to Monitor Social Mentions

The mechanics of social networks recommend your account to people with similar interests. Respectively, the audience builds itself. The only disadvantage of this method is that it takes a relatively long time to promote the account. Also, you need to constantly create new content.

But this is in theory. In practice, social networks may quickly become saturated with business accounts, making it much more difficult to get organic views and subscriptions. So, most businesses have to pay for targeted advertising to engage with their audience. However, social media leads continue to be very affordable.

The second way you can get leads from social media is by advertising from bloggers. This is much faster than promoting your account, but it requires financial investment and has its challenges.

Check this out: WordPress Blog Themes for Clients

The cons of this method are as follows: it is difficult to predict the effectiveness of advertising and the final cost of a lead. Many blogger accounts have an inactive audience, mostly consisting of bots and abandoned accounts. The more popular the blogger, the higher the advertising price—in some cases, it can be excessively high. Given these complexities, effective advertising from bloggers requires experience, knowledge, and building a customized strategy.

Nevertheless, advertising with bloggers is a great way to quickly inform a wide audience about your product.

A new trend for getting leads from social media is Live Streaming. Video content has gained such wide popularity that it has essentially become the “television” of the new generation. But Live Streaming has earned special love from viewers. Live Streaming allows people to get closer to your brand and communicate in real time. In addition, against the background of Instagram’s photo content, which is too flawless, Live Streaming is perceived as more alive and real.

Master Account-Based Marketing Strategy

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B marketing approach in which a company focuses its resources on a defined set of target accounts within a market. ABM employs personalized campaigns to engage each account.

What a digital agency can do:

• Create personalized content and campaigns for a specific client account. This could include custom landing pages, tailored email campaigns, and personalized ads that address the account’s unique challenges.
• Create dedicated microsites for high-value accounts that showcase customized content, case studies, testimonials, and product demos tailored specifically to that account.
• Host webinars or virtual events specifically for a group of similar accounts, focusing on topics that are highly relevant to their business challenges and goals.

With ABM, you can considerably research potential clients and review their existing marketing strategies, audience, goals, etc. 

Build a Strong Customer Referral Program

Referral marketing can boost your digital agency’s success. Your satisfied clients can be turned into your brand ambassadors, becoming an effective agency lead-generation tool. Their word about your high-quality services will stimulate their friends, colleagues, or acquaintances to contact you to discuss their issues.

Here is a simple checklist to help you create the most effective customer referral program possible:

• Make the link to the referral program as visible as possible. Many companies have a referral program, but it is difficult to find it, so its effectiveness drops.
• Rewards should be received, not only by those who invite but also by those who are invited. 
• Let the referral bonus be directly related to the product; otherwise, new users, having received the reward, may leave.
• Create a convenient form for distributing referral links.

According to the Business News Daily, most people trust acquaintances’ recommendations more than other types of advertising. A friend’s advice is more important to them and more valuable than any marketing campaign.

Final Thoughts

Generating leads for digital agencies is a multifaceted process that requires a strategic blend of various approaches. There are several ways digital marketing agencies can generate leads. Pay attention to:

1. SEO.
2. Lead Magnets.
3. Reputable directories.
4. Positive reviews.
5. Social media marketing (SMM).
6. Referral programs.
7. Account-based marketing.
8. Warming-up cold leads.

The key to successful lead generation lies in understanding your target audience, consistently providing value, and being able to adapt to market trends. The tools described in this article will allow you to generate leads and find new growth points for your digital agency. By combining them, you can build a solid pipeline of potential clients, boosting sustainable growth and long-term success.

FAQ: Ways To Generate Leads For Digital Agencies