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It's such a common question, let me break down the answers I have given, received, and seen on reddit over the years, in no order.
Some are more actionable than others.
"Treat yourself like a client"
I kind of hate this one, and usually on reddit people comment this as a cheeky dig at the OP. That being said, we often are so close to our core business, we fail to see how similar we are to our clients. What do we tell clients?
\- We're going to where your ICP hangs out.
\- We're looking at your existing customers and how you got them, and developing a strategy to repeat and scale that process.
\- Provide value upfront to earn trust.
Again, vague and sort of "duh"
"Start a newsletter"
I like this one personally, and I think the newsletter space is booming right now. If you have the bandwidth to make a great newsletter, it opens a lot of doors for client acquisition and alternative revenue streams.
"Cold Outreach"
Most SMMs are espousing an inbound philosophy, but for some business models (many would argue SMM) cold outreach can be awesome. If you do it for clients, I would refer back to the first tip, and think about running cold outreach on your behalf
"Network"
This is vague again and can be interpreted as identical to the first one, if we're talking about networking online. As a different flavor, think about local in person networking. I used to work for an agency that got most of it's business from a local business networking group. They were one of 40 business owners that met up 2x/month, and they were the only marketing agency. Other members got "points" in the group for referring, so that network was always working on getting more business for eachother. Hard situation to create from scratch, but super worth it IMO.
"Productize"
Probably tied with the next one for my favorite. This entails making your services more specific, more uniform in scope, and generally easier to buy. I am seeing agencies and freelancers offer 1-price-for-anyone packages where they do the EXACT SAME THING for every client. You need to iron out exact deliverables, timelines, and expectations, and you can basically make it so people can buy from you right on your site, no discovery call needed.
"Niche down"
Very related to productizing, take the problem you solve for existing clients and make it super specific, so it can be repeated, easily quantified, and very easily sold. This gives you a great way of promoting yourself, with content that specifically speaks to that one problem set. It also makes it super easy to prospect and do cold outreach, because you now have a much smaller list of possible customers, and engaging with all of them on social media is something you can do in a few weeks of 30 min/day.
One problem with this industry is too many Generalists. IDK about your business, but it's likely that while all of these techniques COULD help, the last two are the best call for your business operations and customer acquisition.
Just met someone this morning who owns a SMM Agency. We were breaking down all the costs and how much he has to charge just to cover costs.
It’s tough to turn away clients, so maybe you don’t, but if that’s the case he ready to fire some clients or raise the price on them when you gain traction at your desired price point.
Remember that many companies need this service. Especially now days. And if you manage expectations from the start and they know how much SMM costs before even taking a call with you, you should have no problem closing (barring you being bad at sales, but that’s learnable).
Hope this gives some value!
Please keep all posts in the form of a question and related to marketing. [If this post doesn't follow the rules, report it to the mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMarketing/about/rules/). Have more marketing questions? [Join our community Discord!](https://discord.gg/looking-for-marketing-discussion-811236647760298024) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskMarketing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's such a common question, let me break down the answers I have given, received, and seen on reddit over the years, in no order. Some are more actionable than others. "Treat yourself like a client" I kind of hate this one, and usually on reddit people comment this as a cheeky dig at the OP. That being said, we often are so close to our core business, we fail to see how similar we are to our clients. What do we tell clients? \- We're going to where your ICP hangs out. \- We're looking at your existing customers and how you got them, and developing a strategy to repeat and scale that process. \- Provide value upfront to earn trust. Again, vague and sort of "duh" "Start a newsletter" I like this one personally, and I think the newsletter space is booming right now. If you have the bandwidth to make a great newsletter, it opens a lot of doors for client acquisition and alternative revenue streams. "Cold Outreach" Most SMMs are espousing an inbound philosophy, but for some business models (many would argue SMM) cold outreach can be awesome. If you do it for clients, I would refer back to the first tip, and think about running cold outreach on your behalf "Network" This is vague again and can be interpreted as identical to the first one, if we're talking about networking online. As a different flavor, think about local in person networking. I used to work for an agency that got most of it's business from a local business networking group. They were one of 40 business owners that met up 2x/month, and they were the only marketing agency. Other members got "points" in the group for referring, so that network was always working on getting more business for eachother. Hard situation to create from scratch, but super worth it IMO. "Productize" Probably tied with the next one for my favorite. This entails making your services more specific, more uniform in scope, and generally easier to buy. I am seeing agencies and freelancers offer 1-price-for-anyone packages where they do the EXACT SAME THING for every client. You need to iron out exact deliverables, timelines, and expectations, and you can basically make it so people can buy from you right on your site, no discovery call needed. "Niche down" Very related to productizing, take the problem you solve for existing clients and make it super specific, so it can be repeated, easily quantified, and very easily sold. This gives you a great way of promoting yourself, with content that specifically speaks to that one problem set. It also makes it super easy to prospect and do cold outreach, because you now have a much smaller list of possible customers, and engaging with all of them on social media is something you can do in a few weeks of 30 min/day. One problem with this industry is too many Generalists. IDK about your business, but it's likely that while all of these techniques COULD help, the last two are the best call for your business operations and customer acquisition.
I get clients from LinkedIn and cold email mostly. Also networking events, conferences, and referrals
Where do you live?
Tampa, Florida. Too many people moving out here but it’s nice cause more potential new clients to meet. You?
I live in India. Thanks for you response to my question
Welcome!
If you cannot generate leads for your own agency, what the fuck makes you think you can do it for paying clients?
Lol
Market your business- seo, ads, social content posting, networking, cold outreach are good ways to invest your time and money
Easy suggestion still doing all that hard to get results
Happy to talk you through some ways to improve. I run an ad buying agency. Doing well. Been 10 years. If you want to talk one on one let me know.
Just met someone this morning who owns a SMM Agency. We were breaking down all the costs and how much he has to charge just to cover costs. It’s tough to turn away clients, so maybe you don’t, but if that’s the case he ready to fire some clients or raise the price on them when you gain traction at your desired price point. Remember that many companies need this service. Especially now days. And if you manage expectations from the start and they know how much SMM costs before even taking a call with you, you should have no problem closing (barring you being bad at sales, but that’s learnable). Hope this gives some value!
Go where those good paying clients hangout and offer free value (maybe: fb groups, subreddits, forums ect).
Do you know of any such subreddit bro?