How to get more clients for a marketing agency that already has some

How do you get clients for a marketing agency that already has some?

You get more clients by finding out where your best clients came from and doing more of that, on purpose and on a schedule. In our view, you put your effort into one lead source until it brings in new clients month after month, and only then add another.

The clients you already serve are your best clue. Work through these steps:

1. List each client and where they first found you. Was it a referral, a talk you gave, a post, a search or a cold email?
2. Mark the clients you'd like more of. Look at the work you enjoyed and the clients who stayed.
3. Find the channel behind the marked clients. That channel is the one to make steady first.
4. Set a weekly habit for it. For referrals, that might mean asking one happy client a week. For search, it might mean one new post that answers a client's question.
5. Count what it brings in each month. Track new leads, sales calls and signed clients from that channel.

It helps to see how a stranger becomes a client. We see it as a path: they find you through a free download, they learn from you, you follow up by email or text, and then you close the work on a call. Each channel feeds the start of that path.

When your first channel is steady, you can look at the full range of channels side by side. For the channels and the four steps, see lead generation for a marketing agency.

In what order should a digital marketing agency add new client channels?

Add new client channels one at a time, starting with the ones closest to people who already know and trust you. Move to the next channel only once the last one brings in clients without you pushing it every day.

Here's one order to try:

1. Referrals from current clients. These people already trust your work, so the talk starts warm. A planned way to ask can make this channel steady.
2. Partners. These are businesses that serve the same clients but sell something else, such as a bookkeeper, a web host or a printer.
3. Content where your clients search. Write posts or make videos that answer the questions your clients ask you on calls.
4. Direct outreach. Contact a short list of businesses in your niche, one by one, with a note about a problem you fix.
5. Paid ads. Paid ads are one kind of lead source you can add once you know which message turns leads into clients.

The order starts with warm contacts because they need less proof before they talk with you. Strangers need more proof, so those channels come later, once you've got results to show.

Referrals come first in the order above, so they're the first channel to build on purpose. For a referral program, see how to set up a referral program.

Before you add the next channel, ask yourself these questions:

• Does the current channel bring in clients each month without daily effort from you?
• Do you know how much of your week it takes?
• Do you know which message turns its leads into sales calls?
• Who will run the new channel while you keep the old one going?
• Can you take on the work if the new channel brings in more clients?

If you can't answer yes to most of these, give the current channel more time. Adding a channel too soon can spread your effort so thin that neither channel gets steady.