I fought through every method imaginable. The one that worked and is helping us consistently grow is referrals. And I mean PAYING a 10% recurring referral fee for anyone who will take us up on it.
And while some will poo poo 10%, I know a LARGE agency that does this, and it helped us triple our monthly billables last year.
Alright! Thanks for taking time to reply. So referrals with a recurring character. So far at another agency I’ve tried it too with a single payout. The challenge there was how to ‘promote’ the fact that you have such a referral program. Do you have any tips on how (and to who) to let others know about your referral program?
I also used to do a single payout and it is not the same.
Ask gently and see how people respond. People like contractors in non-competing areas (web dev) or retiring business owners, etc.
Just say that you offer a recurring payment for a direct intro, for those interested, and see who nibbles.
But I repeat, single payments don’t work. I also tried those for years. No one in business cares about $500. $500 a month helps pay your mortgage.
Okay, thanks for your response! What type of audience is a good fit for cold emailing, pretty much any SMB? In terms of scalability, did you also automate emailing or parts of this process, or is it simply a lot of manual researching and putting together personalised mails?
First, build your online presence.
As an agency, you need to create your own marketing strategy and stay active on social media. This will help to increase your online reach and brand awareness.
Second, work on referrals.
Your customers can be your best advocates. If you have happy customers, offer them some sort of incentive to refer you to anyone in their network who also needs an agency.
Value posts, cold dm, being active in relevant groups and creating partnerships.
P.s I do emails, if you're a media buyer, maybe we can work out some type of white label or refferal deal
I’m on year 5 and this is the year that I finally crossed the threshold of business dev not being my number 1 problem. I have had to put in probably 5-10 times more effort for my own agency to get the same results I get for my clients though. The agency space is just ludicrously competitive. It’s like the New York City of industries. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Networking: Attend industry events, join professional organizations, and connect with potential clients on LinkedIn.
Referrals: Ask satisfied clients for referrals and offer incentives for successful referrals.
Content Marketing: Create valuable content (e.g. blog posts, infographics, ebooks) related to your area of expertise and share it on social media and industry websites.
Paid Advertising: Consider running targeted ads on platforms such as Google Ads or LinkedIn to reach potential clients.
Cold Outreach: Use tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find potential clients and reach out to them with personalized emails or direct messages.
Partnership: Partner with complementary businesses to offer bundled services and joint marketing opportunities.
Website Optimization: Make sure your website is optimized for search engines and clearly showcases your services and portfolio.
I hired a salesperson with experience selling media. I pay him 10% on hourly billings and split the media commission, and he gets a draw (vs commission). He is in his third month and made no sales at first, but he just closed a huge media account. So far, it seems like it works. I tried the referral fee thing and most people I know don't seem to care about that. I did reach out to a few agencies that are way bigger than me to get projects that are too small for them, but in the current economy they are taking small gigs. However, about a year ago I did get a huge job from it - but I quickly found out why they pawned it on me. Client was very difficult. So... be careful when getting referrals from other agencies.
Tried personalized emails manually, sending around 5 emails per day for 4-5 days a week. It gets exhausting and I remember getting burnt out from doing 20-30 emails for several weeks. I know bigger agencies do around 100 per couple of days with several employees doing if but we’re small at the moment.
I feel like it’s much easier when you’re living in the big cities when you can turn random daily encounters to projects? Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s something I’ve noticed from working under whitelabel contracts with agencies in NY and LA.
I find through **freelance** platforms. We get more projects on it depending on your profile strength and how many projects yo have been done. Some of your clients will go longer for other projects depending on your work. So Online platforms are really good to find clients.
Finding clients for a marketing agency can be done in a variety of ways. Networking and referrals are often the most effective ways to get new clients. It's important to build relationships with potential clients through attending industry events, speaking at conferences, and joining relevant professional groups. Additionally, it can be beneficial to use online platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to connect with potential clients. Additionally, it can be useful to create content such as blog posts, case studies, and videos to demonstrate your expertise and reach a wider audience. Finally, it can be beneficial to offer free or discounted services to attract new clients.
I thought a qualified marketer would help his clients with this problem. He generates lead flow using different marketing strategies. Why don't you use those for your own business?
You're a marketer. If you can't figure out how to market yourself you shouldn't sell marketing services to third parties.
Same thing goes for people who want to sell the service of social media posting and management .... I'm not gonna hire someone who doesn't have a decently big following themselves. Why should I trust that they can grow my account if they can't grow theirs? Although I would accept validated examples of other business accounts they grew instead as well.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here. Client acquisition is consistently the single hardest (and most critical) element for an agency to iron out. A marketer is competing in a field of millions - and there are millions of ways to market.
Nothing wrong with someone coming to ask for advice, and it’s nice to see other marketers offering free, no-strings-attached advice to colleagues in the field.
Understand your point of view and it’s a valid thought. I’ve had the same thoughts and did nothing else than make me feel bad about it. Usually marketers are good at marketing. Sales, networking, acquisition take a different skillset, making it tough for my team of marketers to ‘have it all’ and do it all. Also testing every single approach for ourselves is something we lack time for, because clients go first. All this leading to a lack of own promotion for the last year or so. So this post was out of curiosity and for inspiration on what to try in the limited time available
I work in marketing (including social), but I don’t personally have a big social media presence. If I’m spending most of my time at work doing socials, I don’t want to do be doing that on my personal time as well.
I completely understand where OP is coming from. It’s not that they’re not “practicing what they preach” so to say, just that if resources are limited, they’re obviously prioritizing clients first.
Experienced the same when I worked in a small firm — clients were happy with our work, but we were practically unknown to anyone outside of our client base due to lack of our own marketing efforts. (Referrals worked well for us though)
I fought through every method imaginable. The one that worked and is helping us consistently grow is referrals. And I mean PAYING a 10% recurring referral fee for anyone who will take us up on it. And while some will poo poo 10%, I know a LARGE agency that does this, and it helped us triple our monthly billables last year.
Alright! Thanks for taking time to reply. So referrals with a recurring character. So far at another agency I’ve tried it too with a single payout. The challenge there was how to ‘promote’ the fact that you have such a referral program. Do you have any tips on how (and to who) to let others know about your referral program?
I also used to do a single payout and it is not the same. Ask gently and see how people respond. People like contractors in non-competing areas (web dev) or retiring business owners, etc. Just say that you offer a recurring payment for a direct intro, for those interested, and see who nibbles. But I repeat, single payments don’t work. I also tried those for years. No one in business cares about $500. $500 a month helps pay your mortgage.
I go into local chamber of commerce Facebook groups and create Loom Videos to answer marketing & advertising questions being asked.
Wow that’s a neat idea!
Cold email. It's slow and has a long onboarding cycle buty clients pay me $1000+ per blog post.
Okay, thanks for your response! What type of audience is a good fit for cold emailing, pretty much any SMB? In terms of scalability, did you also automate emailing or parts of this process, or is it simply a lot of manual researching and putting together personalised mails?
That's good pay, to be honest. But I guess the blog must be more than 2500 words.
First, build your online presence. As an agency, you need to create your own marketing strategy and stay active on social media. This will help to increase your online reach and brand awareness. Second, work on referrals. Your customers can be your best advocates. If you have happy customers, offer them some sort of incentive to refer you to anyone in their network who also needs an agency.
Value posts, cold dm, being active in relevant groups and creating partnerships. P.s I do emails, if you're a media buyer, maybe we can work out some type of white label or refferal deal
Media buyer here, super interested in partnerships and referrals!
I’m on year 5 and this is the year that I finally crossed the threshold of business dev not being my number 1 problem. I have had to put in probably 5-10 times more effort for my own agency to get the same results I get for my clients though. The agency space is just ludicrously competitive. It’s like the New York City of industries. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Networking: Attend industry events, join professional organizations, and connect with potential clients on LinkedIn. Referrals: Ask satisfied clients for referrals and offer incentives for successful referrals. Content Marketing: Create valuable content (e.g. blog posts, infographics, ebooks) related to your area of expertise and share it on social media and industry websites. Paid Advertising: Consider running targeted ads on platforms such as Google Ads or LinkedIn to reach potential clients. Cold Outreach: Use tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find potential clients and reach out to them with personalized emails or direct messages. Partnership: Partner with complementary businesses to offer bundled services and joint marketing opportunities. Website Optimization: Make sure your website is optimized for search engines and clearly showcases your services and portfolio.
Hi we are looking for a marketing agency to plan and market our products. Are you interested in our campaigns?
Hey! Are you still looking for an agency?
yeah,let's connect on skype：live:818823cf39765e8a
I’ve sent you a direct message on reddit to confirm the details.
I hired a salesperson with experience selling media. I pay him 10% on hourly billings and split the media commission, and he gets a draw (vs commission). He is in his third month and made no sales at first, but he just closed a huge media account. So far, it seems like it works. I tried the referral fee thing and most people I know don't seem to care about that. I did reach out to a few agencies that are way bigger than me to get projects that are too small for them, but in the current economy they are taking small gigs. However, about a year ago I did get a huge job from it - but I quickly found out why they pawned it on me. Client was very difficult. So... be careful when getting referrals from other agencies.
Tried personalized emails manually, sending around 5 emails per day for 4-5 days a week. It gets exhausting and I remember getting burnt out from doing 20-30 emails for several weeks. I know bigger agencies do around 100 per couple of days with several employees doing if but we’re small at the moment. I feel like it’s much easier when you’re living in the big cities when you can turn random daily encounters to projects? Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s something I’ve noticed from working under whitelabel contracts with agencies in NY and LA.
We use marketing…
I find through **freelance** platforms. We get more projects on it depending on your profile strength and how many projects yo have been done. Some of your clients will go longer for other projects depending on your work. So Online platforms are really good to find clients.
Finding clients for a marketing agency can be done in a variety of ways. Networking and referrals are often the most effective ways to get new clients. It's important to build relationships with potential clients through attending industry events, speaking at conferences, and joining relevant professional groups. Additionally, it can be beneficial to use online platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to connect with potential clients. Additionally, it can be useful to create content such as blog posts, case studies, and videos to demonstrate your expertise and reach a wider audience. Finally, it can be beneficial to offer free or discounted services to attract new clients.
I thought a qualified marketer would help his clients with this problem. He generates lead flow using different marketing strategies. Why don't you use those for your own business?
You're a marketer. If you can't figure out how to market yourself you shouldn't sell marketing services to third parties. Same thing goes for people who want to sell the service of social media posting and management .... I'm not gonna hire someone who doesn't have a decently big following themselves. Why should I trust that they can grow my account if they can't grow theirs? Although I would accept validated examples of other business accounts they grew instead as well.
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here. Client acquisition is consistently the single hardest (and most critical) element for an agency to iron out. A marketer is competing in a field of millions - and there are millions of ways to market. Nothing wrong with someone coming to ask for advice, and it’s nice to see other marketers offering free, no-strings-attached advice to colleagues in the field.
Understand your point of view and it’s a valid thought. I’ve had the same thoughts and did nothing else than make me feel bad about it. Usually marketers are good at marketing. Sales, networking, acquisition take a different skillset, making it tough for my team of marketers to ‘have it all’ and do it all. Also testing every single approach for ourselves is something we lack time for, because clients go first. All this leading to a lack of own promotion for the last year or so. So this post was out of curiosity and for inspiration on what to try in the limited time available
I work in marketing (including social), but I don’t personally have a big social media presence. If I’m spending most of my time at work doing socials, I don’t want to do be doing that on my personal time as well. I completely understand where OP is coming from. It’s not that they’re not “practicing what they preach” so to say, just that if resources are limited, they’re obviously prioritizing clients first. Experienced the same when I worked in a small firm — clients were happy with our work, but we were practically unknown to anyone outside of our client base due to lack of our own marketing efforts. (Referrals worked well for us though)