Businesses need marketing to compete in any industry. The demand is high for marketers, however there's also a large supply of marketers and agencies to fill that need. What this means is there's a lot of competition when trying to find your first marketing client and it is not very easy.
To give some background about my experience, I went to college for marketing. In my studies, we mainly focused on market research. There was not much digital marketing taught at all. I had to learn from books, youtube videos, and online courses to understand the power of digital marketing. I started my marketing agency The Marketer 3 years ago and I have failed and succeeded many times since then. I have learned the best way of landing high paying clients that any marketer can use to start their own agency.
I wanted to bring up youtube and online marketing courses because I feel most new digital marketers learn from and follow these marketing gurus. One of the ways they tell you to get your first client, I have found to not be effective at all. Cold calls and cold emails never work. If they do start a conversation with a potential client it is likely that client will not be an ideal client for you.
From my experience, people only buy from who they trust. Marketing is all about building trust and if you have not built that with a prospect then it is most likely they will not buy from you or will want your services at a very discounted rate. My mentor Ilise Benun has always said there are 3 key tactics for finding the right clients: Strategic Networking, Targeted Outreach, & Directed Content.
Strategic Networking
The single most effective way to land your first client is to network. Join several networking groups and try to connect with new people everywhere you go. I would recommend joining 3 types of networking groups.
Your Industry Specific Networking Group (ex: Marketing Groups)
Your Client’s Industry Specific Networking Group (ex: Local Bar Association)
A General Business Networking Group (ex: BNI or Chamber Of Commerce)
If you have not had a client before and you are trying to sign your first client, networking is the best way to achieve this. When you speak to new people and set up 1-2-1s this is the perfect opportunity to impress them with your knowledge of marketing and identify their specific pain points.
The best way to get someone to care about your business is to show that you care about their business. During your first conversations with new business contacts, you can explain how your marketing services can solve their biggest problems. If they are willing to hire any marketer to help them, they most likely will give you a try. Building trust and relationships are the best way to start getting the right marketing clients. If you deliver great results (which is truly what makes or breaks a marketing agency), that client will refer you to other business owners they know. Over time with continuous networking, you will have a full pipeline of potential clients requesting to work with you.
Targeted Outreach
The importance of picking your niche allows you to define yourself as a marketing expert in the industry you choose. After you decide to pursue a specific niche you should start finding the decision-makers for local companies you wish to work with. For instance, if you are targeting medical offices, the doctor may not be the decision maker you need to speak with, it may be the office manager instead.
Utilizing powerful tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator can help connect with the right people and begin building trust through the content you post. If your content is targeted to solving an industry-specific pain point, and your connections are in that industry, more likely they will reach out to you first.
I would advise against immediately messaging a new connection. I would also advise against using a bot to connect and message new people. Most of the time the people on the other end can tell it is a bot. What this says to the connections is “I don’t really care about you”.
Once you connect with your ideal decision-makers, it will be time to focus on creating the right content to build trust and authority. I would suggest after a month of being connected, it would be a good time to reach out and ask to set up a 1-2-1 to connect. Then during that conversation, it is up to you to identify key issues they are facing and how your services can solve them.
Continuously building trust with targeted key decision-makers will help you grow a clientele of ideal businesses.
Directed “Pain Point” Content
The cherry on top is posting the right content. Before a new connection reaches out to you to request a discovery call, they most likely are going to look at your social media posts and your website first. If your messaging is consistent it is more likely the right clients are going to “bite”. Picking a niche and understanding specific pain points for that niche is crucial to creating the best content. As marketers, we should only post valuable content. Content that helps people more than just a basic business tip. A specific marketing hack they can implement today to fix their specific pain point.
When a connection starts to show interest in your agency they will likely check your profile out. If your content has been consistent and highly valuable, you position yourself as an expert. When someone reaches out to you this means they know they need marketing help and they trust you as an expert. When you reach out to people it is less likely they will look at you as an expert.
This brings me to my very last point. Search engine optimization for your marketing agency is one of the best ways to get high paying clients. When a company identifies their need for a marketing agency and they find your website as the first choice in Google, you are going to be well respected before they have even spoken to you. I’m sure if anyone reading this has started working with their first few clients you have experienced low ballers and clients who tell you what to do instead of the other way around. People like to be in control but this is not ideal when you are the expert in the relationship. SEO for marketing agencies is very competitive (understandably), but there is so much added value when a client finds you instead of you finding them.
I believe if you actively implement these 3 key tactics you will land your first client sooner than you think. And if you deliver great results you will receive an avalanche of referrals which will keep your agency busy and prosperous. If your agency hits a slow season, double down on networking, outreach, and content.
Let me know if you have implemented these tactics and how they worked out for you!
Thanks for reading,
-The Marketer
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About the Author:
Brenden DeLaRua
The Marketer
Brenden The Marketer owns a marketing agency based out of St. Petersburg Florida specializing in digital marketing, advertising, web development, SEO, and more. The Marketer works one on one with B2B and B2C businesses to strategize and implement successful marketing campaigns.