8 Cool Lead Generation Hacks For Digital Agencies

As a digital agency owner, you can’t simply hire a sales team and sit back. Being a marketing specialist, an agency must publicize itself well. Before you help your clients, you must prove you’re good.

The agency business is ever-more competitive — there’re big and small agencies thronging the industry. According to rough estimates, there are about 120,000 agencies (including digital, PR, and design studios, etc.) in the US alone and about half a million all over the world.

As a digital agency, you’re running against big global networks as well as really small 1-5 people teams. There’s a nagging pressure from your existing clients. Their longevity is never a guarantee.

Consistent leads are at the heart of digital agency success. Still wondering how to weave a winning lead generation strategy? Here are eight quick tips that will help you gear up and race ahead:

1. Video Marketing

It’s no secret that there is a massive content clutter out there. It gets harder to outmanoeuvre those who are already big names. Video marketing can help you to stand out and showcase your calibre.

“By 2020, online videos will make up more than 80% of all consumer in-ternet traffic (85% in the US)” – Cisco

Videos convey more in less time. In a state of dynamic social media al-gorithms, video content gets the highest social reach.

A video ignites emotions and triggers action. Video content helps you to befriend your audience. It enables you to come across as a trustworthy brand.

“59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than reading text.” – Wordstream

Videos add a human touch to business communication. You can create a variety of educational videos to add value to your potential customers.

Take a look at this example from HubSpot:

You could even create a gated online course (a video series) and have your prospects access it in lieu of their contact details.

Not sure how to start creating video content? With the availability of free and cost-effective tools, you can:

• Start creating live-action video using your smartphone
• Create animated explainer videos using cloud-based tools

Video marketing may seem too far-fetched but it’s not. You can quickly create some quality videos and get yourself in the fast lane.

2. Website Tools

The good old website gives you ample opportunities to get new pro-spects into the sales pipeline. eBooks, reports, and free templates work as awesome giveaways for prospective customers.

Source: Click Every Media

A newsletter subscription is the bread and butter for building an opt-in mailing list. Another terrific way to engage your audience is through in-teractive content pieces such as quizzes, polls, and interactive in-fographics.

Take a look at this interactive assessment from GoToMeeting:

A fantastic hack to lure prospective clients is to provide them with free website grading and auditing services.

Source: Eternal Works

A quicker and easier alternative is to embed a third party SEO auditing tool and start collecting leads right away. A website is at the centre of all your online marketing. You must make the most of it to connect with potential customers.

3. Paid Campaigns

“If you build it… you may still need Google AdWords.” – Jennifer Mes-enbrink

Running a paid campaign is a stellar strategy to get some quick leads. You can start with ad platforms such as Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. These are better suited for reaching out to a B2B audience. You can even try paid ads on Reddit and Quora.

“Over 50% of B2B marketers rank social media as a “very” or “somewhat” low-cost ad option.” – Marketing Charts

You should not forget to optimize your campaign landing pages for collecting leads.

Source: Fuel Online

Here are some ways to make your ad campaigns more exciting:

• Promote introductory and educational videos on YouTube.
• Create landing pages for your eBooks and promote these through paid campaigns on LinkedIn and Google.

You must, however, be careful as ad fraud is quite rampant these days. Many a time all a paid campaign will fetch you is ‘bot traffic’.

According to a study conducted by market research firm Juniper, online advertisers stand to lose a whopping $19 billion to ad fraud in 2018 alone.

To avoid ad fraud, you must delve deeper into campaign metrics such as:

● Traffic sources
● Geographical location
● Ads served
● IP addresses
● Conversion rates

You can make use of AI tools such as Albert and Pathmatics to target specific user-preferences and improve the performance of your paid ads.

Paid ads can help you get those shorter-term leads and provide a much needed support to your branding efforts.

4. Awards

Getting an appreciation for your work is a big motivating factor for you and your team. Besides fame, awards can fetch you publicity that converts into long-term leads. Some of the popular digital marketing awards include AVA Digital Awards, Internationalist Awards for Innovative Digital Solutions, and The Webby Awards.

There are quite a few others for specific agency types. You can create a section on your site that showcases the awards your agency has won.

Source: TRIMM

Agency awards don’t just make you proud, they get you sales as well.

5. Guest Posts and Press Mentions

Consistent guest blogging is the lifeblood of an agency business. You must pitch trending stories and get visibility by getting authorship on top marketing and business magazines.

It’s good to ensure that you’re not mass mailing editors with spammy pitches. Each site has its own requirements and editorial guidelines. You must go through these before sending a personalized pitch to an editor.

Here’s an example of a pitch that got me authorship on a reputed marketing blog:

Another way to get free press mentions is to send tips to journalists que-rying on free platforms such as HARO and SourceBottle. You can talk about successful press mentions on your website and social media pages.

Source: Ignite Visibility

Guest blogging and media coverage are powerful tools to turn your agency business into a known brand.

6. Publish Content Everywhere

“As marketers, we should be changing the mantra from always be closing to always be helping.” – Jonathan Lister

You must publish expert content everywhere — especially in communities like LinkedIn, Quora, and Medium. You can even host AMA’s to help your audience and interact with them.

It’s good to keep adding value to your target customers and they’ll come back for more.

7. Brand Yourself on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over half a billion users worldwide.

“1 million LinkedIn users are senior level influencers and 40 million are in decision-making positions.” – LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog

The platform is a treasure trove of B2B leads.

As the owner of a digital agency, you must benefit from this bustling community of professionals. Here are some tips to generate some quality leads from the social network:

● Complete your profile – it should tell your audience what you can do for them.
● Interact with potential clients by commenting on their LinkedIn up-dates.
● Make sure you’re adding regular updates that provide valuable in-formation to your audience.
● Grow your network by sending personalized connection requests to prospects.

LinkedIn is a platform that no agency can afford to miss out. Dig deeper into it and you’ll never be short of queries from prospective clients.

8. Social Media Monitoring

There’re a host of agency prospects looking for the right services across social media channels. You can use keywords like ‘Looking for a digital agency’ and monitor conversations around them.

Pixel PR, a digital agency from Poland used social media monitoring to close a deal worth $2.5k. They used a social media monitoring tool called Brand24 to track terms like:

● Looking for a digital agency
● Can anyone recommend a web designer
● Can somebody recommend a web developer

It helped them to constantly interact with new prospects who have an immediate requirement.

Social media monitoring is a terrific lead generation technique. It can help you to find real leads ready for closure.

As a digital agency, you have to be your own client first. If you can pro-mote your business well, you’ll surely get the results for your clients.

Keeping in mind long-term growth, it’s a good idea to work on building your agency brand. Being persistent will surely help you get a constant supply of qualified leads for your agency.