Here’s the truth: Starting a digital agency is easy, but running it and turning it into a successful digital marketing agency is tough, and ensuring its continued growth is even tougher! That’s why it is crucial to carefully focus on strategies to boost the growth of your digital marketing agency in the 2020s. But don’t worry, we’re here to prepare you for your growth journey.
As digital ad spending is huge and is estimated to reach $600 billion in 2023, starting your digital marketing agency sounds like a real winner, but without the right strategies and steps, it may be a bumpy ride and nothing more.
So, there’s a lot to worry about in hiring, accounting, optimizing accounts, marketing, automation, and, most importantly, getting results for clients. While achieving significant results for clients can potentially lead to new business opportunities, it’s not always guaranteed. That’s why we’ve gathered the top tips to tackle the million-dollar question: “How can you promote and grow a digital marketing agency?”
Let’s learn and explore together!
20 Proven Steps to Grow a Digital Marketing Agency
Growing your business to stand out among the best digital marketing agencies requires hard work and focus on the key steps. Increasing agency profitability should be a core goal as it not only measures success but also provides the resources needed for reinvestment into these growth strategies.
Here we begin with 20 proven steps integrating various aspects of marketing, advertising, and client management. We’ll cover a lot with our tips and tricks, ranging from attracting leads with lead magnets perfectly tailored to your target audience and enhancing online visibility to implementing AI to fostering client relationships through case studies.
Each of these steps is designed not only to grow your agency but also to sustain its growth through continuous engagement and innovation in this competitive market.
Let’s go through 20 steps one by one and learn how they can drive significant growth for your digital marketing agency.
1- Use a Lead Magnet for Your Agency
To kickstart a prospect’s journey, your agency should consider using a lead magnet, which could take the form of an e-book, cheat sheet, template, white paper, tool, or a similar valuable resource.
Given that many of your website visitors & target audience are unlikely to convert into leads without a compelling incentive, it becomes imperative to develop an effective lead magnet strategy.
Our recommendation is to leverage a valuable lead magnet as a means to gather their business contact details, subsequently initiating the nurturing process that will guide them toward a point where they’re ready to engage with your agency.
You can complement this by employing targeted advertising campaigns that highlight the unique value of your lead magnets, using dynamic retargeting to capture the attention of visitors who have shown interest but have not yet committed.
2- Increase Your Web Presence with Online Directories
No doubt that boosting your digital marketing agency’s online presence through strategic listings in online directories is important when considering that consumers & users turn to the web for recommendations and solutions.
In other words, in the process of promoting your agency, the visibility of your agency carries tremendous weight. Consider real-world examples like Yelp and Google for local businesses. They provide a direct pathway to a relevant audience actively seeking services.
So, with their ability to offer targeted exposure and local search optimization, online directories are powerful tools for expanding your agency’s reach and client base in the fiercely competitive marketing industry. At this point, we would like to remind you that it’s best to focus on industry-specific online directories, like marketing agency directories.
For example, most visitors come to the Digital Agency Network while searching for the best digital marketing agencies. So if you become one of these agencies your chances of being found online will increase.
3- Implement AI and Automation
Ever find yourself swamped with administrative tasks that drain your time and energy?
AI-driven automation steps in as the solution. By handling routine administrative functions, these tools liberate your team, allowing them to channel their creativity and expertise toward crafting captivating campaigns and pioneering strategies.
When you utilize AI tools, your clients receive timely updates delivered with precision and accuracy. Automated reporting processes ensure just that, keeping your clients in the loop without straining your human resources. But the benefits don’t end there. Have you ever wondered how to provide round-the-clock support without burning out your team? Enter chatbots.
These AI-based assistants offer instant responses to common queries, ensuring your clients feel supported and valued, whether it’s day or night.
4- Get Case Studies from Your Successful Clients
Creating case studies from your successful clients is a total goldmine for growing your digital marketing agency. Don’t just stop getting pumped about the results you’ve achieved for them.
Client case studies are like secret weapons on your website! Make a dedicated page to show off all those success stories and rave customer testimonials, as they can serve as a powerful tool for highlighting your agency’s capabilities.
For instance, The Charles, renowned as one of the top internet marketing agencies in the US, showcases its portfolio of past work to help prospective clients envision themselves as successful partners with The Charles. By putting themselves in the shoes of previous clients and empathizing with their achievements, potential clients can get a sense of the agency’s capabilities.
You can also further enhance client retention by regularly communicating with your clients to understand their ongoing needs and challenges, ensuring they feel valued and see your agency as an essential partner in their continued success.
5- Collaborate with Influencers
An agency doesn’t succeed in isolation. Your digital marketing agency needs to collaborate with other agencies and influencers in your industry. But how?
Host Facebook live sessions and invite an influencer or influencers to share their expert tips. They’ll love it. Webinars are also powerful.
Besides, if you have an affiliate program, then you can invite influencers to promote your offers to their audience.
6- Rank Your Target Keywords
This is important if your digital marketing agency is focusing on SEO. How do you convince businesses that your agency can improve their search rankings on Google?
It’s done by showing where your agency ranks in the organic search results.
Even if you can’t rank for “digital marketing agency” because it’s competitive, try and rank a less-competitive term like “digital marketing company New York.”
7.Offer Free Workshops or Webinars
Imagine a scenario where your agency becomes synonymous with invaluable industry knowledge.
By delivering impactful information and actionable takeaways through workshops and webinars, you establish your agency as the ultimate wellspring of insights. As participants experience the transformative effects of your guidance, they naturally gravitate towards seeing your agency as the guiding star of their digital journey. Exciting, right?
We suggest you step into the role of an educational powerhouse, where workshops and webinars serve as platforms to share insights, strategies, and actionable advice. As you research industry trends, challenges, and opportunities, you demonstrate your agency’s commitment to adding significant value and assisting businesses in conquering the digital landscape.
Also, extending an invitation for free consultations to potential clients, allowing them to explore your services further and understand how your expertise can empower them in reaching their marketing goals, is a good call too.
8.Attend Events
With the digital transformation in the last few years, there are many different approaches to working and finding new clients. As we’ve already noticed, events are on the rise to help marketers and agencies.
In terms of advertising your digital marketing agency, participating in events holds great significance for a multitude of compelling reasons. First and foremost, they provide a valuable platform for networking, enabling you to establish associations and nurture connections that can prove advantageous in both personal and professional realms.
Additionally, events often feature informative speakers and workshops, presenting opportunities to achieve new skills and knowledge, thus ensuring you stay at the forefront of your path. Furthermore, these gatherings serve as wellsprings of inspiration, where the experiences and successes shared by others can ignite your own motivation to strive for and attain your goals.
As a great first step, check out our events page.
9.Develop a Strong Selling Proposition
A unique selling proposition (USP) serves as the keystone that distinguishes your digital marketing agency from the crowd, and it’s your signature in the competitive arena. It’s the essence of what makes you exceptional and why potential clients should undoubtedly pick your agency over the numerous options out there.
To truly shine a spotlight on your USP, you must decide on what unique and unparalleled value you bring to the table for your clients. What extraordinary results can you empower them to achieve that they simply can’t access elsewhere?
Once you’ve developed your USP, it’s time to broadcast it across all your marketing endeavors. Whether it’s your website, social media channels, informative blog posts, or persuasive sales presentations, your USP should be front and center, leaving no room for doubt about the exceptional value your agency brings to the digital marketing landscape.
10.Step into Your Client’s Shoes
While this growth strategy may appear counterintuitive, it wields significant power when executed correctly. Clients recognize that the true measure of your expertise lies in the tangible results you deliver, not just in your promises.
When you fully immerse yourself in the client’s perspective, you demonstrate decisiveness and a commitment to achieving real outcomes. By becoming your own client, you not only set the stage for your own success but also equip yourself with the tools to promote your business with the same dedication you offer to external clients.
Truth be told, you can use the results you get (maybe a ranking boost in organic search for your agency website) as proof to win over new clients. Case closed.
Neil Patel, for example, helps businesses with content marketing. Interestingly, he uses content marketing to build his brand online.
11.Simplify Your Project Management Processes
Yes, clients seek assurance that the processes are straightforward and manageable. If your methods appear to be “as clear as day” and not overly “trying to reinvent the wheel,” it can lead to disappointment and the assumption that your digital agency may not be the right partner to drive growth for their business.
To address this, ensuring that your templates, reports, strategies, and tools are all easily relatable and comprehensible is a good call. Remember that clients already grapple with the intricacies of their own businesses, which is why they turn to your digital agency for assistance. At that point, remember that you need to have a process behind everything you do as an agency. Set specific policies and procedures for scaling.
These should serve as your framework for deliverables. You can also use templates or tools to automate your reporting process and you can get help from this list of the best tools for digital agencies.
12.Have a Flexible Pricing Model
As an agency, avoid setting your pricing in stone. Instead, make it flexible to ensure you can offer the right value for your services, as that is what ultimately matters.
If you don’t have a flexible pricing model, you’ll either charge less or go over the top with your charges. Either way, you’ll be leaving a lot on the table. You can check out our digital marketing agency pricing guide here.
When you interact with new clients, get to know their needs, expectations, and budget (if any). Then present different pricing packages that will suit them. Let them make the choice.
13.Work with the Right Team for a Digital Marketing Agency’s Growth
Successful agencies don’t make the mistake of handling every aspect of their service. They outsource a lot of work to freelancers in addition to hiring the right team in-house.
With so many tasks that need to be executed each day, don’t try to carry the burden alone. If you get too busy with fulfillment, you can’t grow your digital agency.
Additionally, you can outsource and delegate tasks that are not in your area of expertise. From keyword research to link building to social media management, you can find the right people to handle it.
14.Streamline Your Onboarding Process
The thin line that separates an agency that generates consistent leads from another that struggles may be the onboarding process. Is yours seamless?
Process St uses a simple 3-step onboarding process for employees. But you can use a similar approach for new clients.
If your onboarding process is complex, you’ll send a negative message to potential clients that your solutions will be the same. A simple and effective onboarding process is your first step in retaining the client. If you mess it up, clients will switch to your competitors. One effective way to streamline it is by having fewer (not more than two) form fields on the lead capture page.
All you’ll ever need to contact a client is their business name, first name, and email address. Any other information will be provided once they’re in your marketing funnel.
15.Master Upselling and Cross-Selling to Maximize Your Profit
Finding a new client for your digital marketing agency should be your main objective; that’s how you’ll guarantee your business’ consistent growth in the future.
Hence, it’s important to upsell to clients who are already familiar with your brand. You don’t want the clients to leave after a one-off project experience.
You’d open new revenue streams if you upsold your clients the right way. No, don’t be pushy or desperate, but recommend complementary offers that provide additional value.
For instance, if you’re a Google Ads PPC agency and that’s exactly why the client came, you could upsell a Facebook Ads solution to help your client maximize their reach on both platforms.
The same rule applies when cross-selling to clients. Always offer additional value at a fraction of the cost, if clients were to buy it individually or from other agencies.
16.Offer Live Video Packages
No matter your area of specialization, make sure your agency is using video to enhance clients’ experiences. Aside from providing relevant information, videos can captivate your audience and tell your stories better.
By Livestream, 80% of the users surveyed preferred to watch a brand’s video instead of reading a blog post, while 54% would rather see video content from a brand they support.
The average hours of online video watched per week have been increasing drastically:
Source: Hubspot
This is why you should offer video packages with your solutions. If you’re a PPC agency, then you can incorporate videos into your campaign packages to generate more interest and engagement.
17.Optimize Your Agency Website
Your digital marketing agency’s website is your online billboard. That’s what defines your identity and what your agency stands for. Unfortunately, a lot of digital marketing companies don’t invest in their web design as much as it’s needed.
Good news! That’s an opportunity for you.
Start by strengthening your website’s design to make sure that your visitors can easily navigate and find whatever information they are looking for.
For example, Favoured offers their visitors a clear design, allowing them to find related information on the upper menu swiftly.
18.Specialize in a Few Services
It’s a lot harder to break even when you’re handling every aspect of digital marketing. Specialization could be the missing piece in your success puzzle. It can be about your services or your digital marketing niche, which you are focusing on.
In a survey, over 32% of respondents identified themselves as “full-service” or “digital marketing” agencies.
On the flip side, the same survey shows that effective and successful agencies are always focused on one vertical.
They don’t like to serve clients with half-baked strategies. If they’re known for offering one service, you can bet they’re SO good at it.
Let’s take a closer look:
● Content Marketing Up focuses on content creation,
● Hanapin Marketing focuses on PPC,
● SingleGrain focuses on startup growth,
● ShoeString Videos focuses on video marketing.
You can decide which services should be your main focus by learning about them in detail through our digital marketing services list.
19.Utilize Tools for Digital Marketing Agency Growth
A marketing agency can provide many digital tools to its customers. When you want to work with an SEO agency in New York, they should own the most popular SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Majestic.
Especially a small business can’t afford to get many digital marketing tools to improve their business. You can promote yourself with the tools you use and how the client can benefit from them.
20. Spotlight Your Team’s Expertise
A “Meet the Team” page is one of the most critical sections that your agency’s website must have. It is your biggest opportunity to showcase your talent and expertise. This way, your potential and current clients can be sure that they are working with the right people.
Don’t you think that knowing the team enhances your confidence in a partnership and helps make the bond stronger?
On this team page, you can basically include simple profiles that outline each member’s professional experience and special skills. And adding personal touches like hobbies or favorite pets makes your team more relatable and approachable.
Such a sincere approach to the “Meet the Team” page builds trust and effectively presents your marketing agency’s structure and capabilities! So, you should highlight specific qualifications and notable achievements to emphasize the professionalism and expertise that your team brings to every project.
Last Thoughts
This is where we have learned all 20 effective tips to help take your digital marketing agency to the next level. But bear in mind, though, that growth doesn’t happen overnight.
Keep it up, and always strive to understand your target audience better because, in the end, that’s where every marketing tactic begins.