Want to grow your agency? You need a healthy supply of leads to achieve your growth goals.
But it’s not as easy as it sounds, is it?
Since I own The Campfire Circle, an agency that grows and optimizes agencies, I live and breathe agency growth, and I think I have some insights you’ll find helpful.
I’ve developed a more organic, cost-effective approach to lead gen. The leads I generate convert at a higher rate. In this post, I’ll tell you all about it.
Why Traditional Lead Gen Strategies Aren’t Effective
You may have noticed that lead gen methods you have used in the past are becoming more expensive, such as the ROI from paid strategies like PPC and social media ads.
Not to mention, the modern-day brand knows when they are “being marketed at.” So, digital advertising is not the strongest way to generate leads.
If a target brand finds you through more organic avenues and views your agency as a thought leader in their industry, the leads will convert much higher.
One more thing to understand about traditional lead gen strategies, specifically cold outreach: the sales cycle is longer from getting their attention to converting them into clients. This is because with cold outreach, you first need to make your audience understand why they need your services, and then you have to convince them that you’re the agency for them.
When leads come in more organically, they show an affinity for your services. So, let’s discuss how to get leads to come in organically.
A More Organic Approach to Lead Gen: Lead Magnets
Lead magnets bring in organic leads with a high conversion rate.
A lead magnet is simply an asset housed on a landing page and gated with a lead capture form. It usually looks like a webinar, industry report, eBook, white paper, etc.
My most popular and successful lead magnets are in the form of industry reports. I survey 300 members of a target audience, gather my own data on an agency’s behalf, write a comprehensive report with the data I gathered, house it on the agency’s website, and use the landing page as my “hub” for 3 months of lead gen. Industry reports establish a ton of credibility for your agency.
My advice is to create one lead magnet per quarter and promote each one throughout that quarter.
Even better than leads, you need qualified leads. And to achieve that, you must demonstrate expertise to catch their interest in your agency. A lead magnet full of thought leadership is the perfect way to demonstrate your expertise. And data shows brands are willing to pay more for an agency with expertise in their industries.
Promoting Your Lead Magnet
You can put together the most incredible lead magnet in the world, but it will fall flat if you don’t promote it heavily.
When I create and promote lead magnets for agencies, here are my top 5 promotion strategies:
- Feature the lead magnet in high-profile publications like Entrepreneur
- Organic and paid social support
- Email blasts to brands
- Partnerships with industry influencers
- Newsletter placements
Crucial: Nurturing Your Leads
Once someone downloads your lead magnet or signs up for a webinar, it’s crucial that they are strategically nurtured so that you can convert them into a client for your agency.
My rule of thumb is to drip them five emails two days apart. The first four emails should be thought leadership and establish credibility. So I recommend leveraging blog posts, social proof, any press your agency has gotten, and helpful tips. The fifth email is a CTA to book a consultation with your agency.
Final Thoughts: I Want to Try a Lead Magnet For My Agency!
I hope I’ve done a good job of explaining lead magnets for agencies, and that this post will equip you to publish and promote one lead magnet per quarter, and that your lead gen efforts will be transformed.
However, as you can imagine, lead magnets take a lot of time and effort to be effective. Agency owners are often busy doing awesome client work and don’t have enough time to implement strategies like lead magnets to grow their agencies. That’s where I come in. Lead magnets are my most popular service, so if you want to chat about them, contact me here.
Have you leveraged lead magnets at your agency? We’d love to read all about it and see the link in the comments below!