Today, I\u2019m going to share with you how to get clients for your SMMA business without spending any money. I know it\u2019s hard being a digital marketer these days, but I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time. I have some insider secrets on how to get people coming through your doors without breaking the bank.<\/p>\n
You know that your agency has the potential to do more work and increase your revenue. The problem is clients don\u2019t just drop from trees or to be a little bit more modern about it; they don\u2019t just land in your inbox when you need them.<\/p>\n
So, how exactly can you find new clients to add to your roster? Well, that\u2019s what we\u2019ll talk about here coming right up. I will give you different strategies you can implement to bring clients to your social media marketing agency<\/strong><\/a> starting today.<\/p>\n The goal here is to find and make a list of your potential clients. You want to start local, you can go broader later, but start local and just create a lead list. Collect information such as:<\/p>\n For this, you can use Google sheet, Google Docs, or it can even be pen and paper<\/p>\n So, let\u2019s take a look where you can find potential clients for your agency.<\/p>\n The first way where you can find clients for your SMMA agency is through Google. Here, all you want to do is just go on Google and type in your targeted niche and the city you want to target. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s a chiropractor.<\/p>\n All you do is type \u201cchiropractor near me\u201d and see what ads pop up in the Google map pack.<\/p>\n And so you can click on the profile, go to their website, reach out, contact them, and see if you can help them.<\/p>\n If you want to save hours of researching, prospecting and all types of repetitive tasks, I highly recommend you use some kind of lead generation tool like Apollo.io<\/strong><\/a>, or LeadFuze<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n With these lead generation tools, you can find thousands of highly targeted leads with just a few clicks of a button.<\/p>\n All you have to do is just type in the targeted city and industry you want to work with and you\u2019ll get all the necessary information needed.<\/p>\n Then you just download this list, and you can upload it to any marketing CRM software you use like GoHighLevel<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n This way, you will save literally hours of painful researching so as an agency owner you can focus on more important tasks like reaching out and getting your clients results.<\/p>\n Another great way to get your first SMMA client is using Facebook groups. This method is all about identifying Facebook groups where your prospects are hanging out. And what you want to do is you want to join groups in your targeted niche.<\/p>\n Search for keywords for your niche, and then you want to add people or connect with people who might be looking for a service.<\/p>\n Then what you want to do is once they accept your friend request is you want to send them a private message (more about it later)<\/p>\n You want to do it in this order: first, you want to add them and then private message them because if you private message them, it\u2019s gonna go through their filters, and they\u2019re not going to see your messages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n \u00a0So, what should you be searching for or looking for in these groups?<\/p>\n We\u2019re looking for businesses so here are some phrases that you could type in:<\/p>\n You can do a combination of these or you can type these in with your niche.<\/p>\n You want to get creative here because there are a ton of keywords people are typing in. You\u2019ll start to notice what people are commonly typing in.<\/p>\n So what you could do is once you\u2019re accepted in the group is you would just scroll through the groups read what people are writing and see if anybody needs help with digital marketing.<\/p>\n Groupon<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Yelp<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0are huge platforms with thousands of customers where you can find local businesses in your area.<\/p>\n What you can do is go to Yelp, or Groupon and search for example a restaurant and you\u2019ll find their contact information.<\/p>\n From here, you want to start collecting all the information that you will need for an outreach.<\/p>\n So that is the process of lead generation in a nutshell. It\u2019s just collecting as much information about those businesses as possible, so that way you can have the highest likeliness of setting a meeting with them.<\/p>\n Now the next strategy I recommend isn\u2019t something I actually do, but it is a good strategy nonetheless. And that is going to networking events.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a computer nerd, so I would just rather not do it. But it is a good strategy because, again, this is a people business.<\/p>\n So if you can attend networking events and meet your potential clients, whether it\u2019s BNI<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0Meetup<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n But by doing this, you can meet your potential clients directly, introduce yourself, and, like with all methods mentioned earlier you don\u2019t sell to people at these events<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You just open the door to a relationship where you may potentially land them as a client in the future.<\/p>\n You may not like to do this, but the better you are at communicating with people, the more success you have in this business.<\/p>\n So maybe it\u2019s something worth considering. And certainly worth trying out even if you\u2019re not naturally good at those types of things.<\/p>\n This step right here is my absolute favorite one. The challenging thing about pursuing clients is that sometimes it\u2019s hard to know if they\u2019re spending money at all in marketing.<\/p>\n Do they even have a marketing budget?<\/p>\n What are they spending?<\/p>\n Are they even interested to hire an agency?<\/p>\n Is it worth calling them up again and again and again?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll let you in on a shortcut. Aside from cold calling business owners, the company that you need to approach must not be a direct competitor. You should be offering different services or specialties altogether.<\/p>\n For example, if you own an SMMA business that specializes in PPC, why not approach a digital marketing company that specializes in SEO.<\/p>\n Ask if you can offer your PPC services to their clients. This way, you can already get a clue if there is even a budget there and if they have a need for your services. At the same time, offer to do the same for them. Pitch the company to your existing clients.<\/p>\n Both companies will benefit. You get access to their clients, and you give them access to yours. Gain new clients for your agency.<\/p>\n The most important thing that you can do, honestly, is to offer value, whether that\u2019s to direct clients, to business owners, local businesses, national clients, or other agencies. It doesn\u2019t matter. Just offer value. Offer to be genuine, helpful, be open, be trustworthy, be honest. That is the best way that you\u2019re going to be able to grow your agency and have a strong reputation.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve put together a list of all potential clients and you need to start reaching out to them. And for this, we can use cold calling, cold emailing, social media outreach, or even door-to-door.<\/p>\n The goal of outreach is selling the meeting, not the service.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, let me show you the most effective SMMA outreach methods<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Essentially, the way cold emails work is you\u2019re sending out emails at scale to businesses in certain industries, and then a small percentage of those businesses will email you back. Then you have a dialogue and proceed to sign them up as a digital marketing client.<\/p>\n What I did was create a list of essentially all the real estate agents in London using Apollo.<\/p>\n And there were thousands\u2026<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And once we got our list of prospects list, now we would do, is every day, we would send out approximately 300 emails to these real estate agents.<\/p>\n The emails were customized. We pulled the names from our Excel list so that when each individual real estate agent received the email, it was addressed to his or her name.<\/p>\n Here is an example.<\/p>\n \u201cHi [Name],<\/em><\/p>\n I noticed that your website [Website URL] is not completely mobile device optimized and has a few search engine optimization issues.<\/em><\/p>\n I specialize in working with real estate agents and helping them build an exceptional online presence.<\/em><\/p>\n Would you be open to a quick 10-minute conversation?<\/em><\/p>\n Best Regards,<\/em><\/p>\n [Your Name]\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n And we found that about 1 in 100 real estate agents would genuinely be interested in working together.<\/p>\n But you can send out 200 emails at the click of a button every day, and you can actually send out much more of this depending on the software you use.<\/p>\n I personally use and highly recommend\u00a0Instantly.ai<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n And the way it worked is he got the email, he responded to the email, I gave him a call, we had a preliminary discussion on the phone, we met in person, I got to know him a little bit, got to know what he needed to create created a proposal for him, and then we signed on to a monthly agreement.<\/p>\n So that is SMMA cold email<\/strong><\/a>, which is the old way of generating leads but still one of the most effective one depending on your niche.<\/p>\n These are just a few examples of platforms where you can look:<\/p>\n There are obviously tons of other places so you could look at things like Reddit and blog forums.<\/p>\n I recommend you focus on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin because those are the most popular.<\/p>\n And why would we want to look at social media is because if you\u2019re looking to a brand and you\u2019re coming in and saying,<\/p>\n \u201cHey, I run a digital marketing agency. I can help you grow on Instagram or we can help you run Facebook ads.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s a lot easier when they\u2019re already set up on social media, right?<\/p>\n Whereas if you go to a business that is not on social media is going to be a harder sell. They\u2019re maybe not even convinced of social media and how powerful it can be.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re starting off, you want to look at brands that don\u2019t have a big following.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s say you\u2019re offering social media management because that\u2019s a very easy service to offer. You don\u2019t need a whole load of results or a case study to do that.<\/p>\n You just need to be able to know how to manage an Instagram page effectively.<\/p>\n So, find ones that are not doing too well and you\u2019re just going to come in and say,<\/p>\n \u201cHey, we can help you to manage your account, and get you more clients.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And you can do this on Facebook, Pinterest, and any other platform.<\/p>\n Here are some rules that you want to keep in mind during outreaching on social media:<\/p>\n The goal when you message them is you want to jump on a quick call to discuss business needs.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the simplest, basic, and some would say barbaric method of getting a digital marketing client, and this is the simple cold call<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n And what you do for this is you make a list of relevant potential clients in a given area. You can do that manually or using the tools mentioned earlier, Apollo or LeadFuze.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s say we\u2019re doing chiropractors in LA or dentists in Houston, Texas, etc.<\/p>\n You make that list, and then you simply get them on the phone, ask to speak to the owner, and then give them a pitch about digital marketing.<\/p>\n And the goal of your first call is\u00a0you don\u2019t want to sell them at all.<\/strong> You want to arrange a meeting.<\/p>\n This call is not for selling. You just want to screen them to make sure that they\u2019re a good fit.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s what you want to find out:<\/p>\n So after you gather all this you can either close them or you can just schedule the next call immediately.<\/p>\n Here is what you can say to your potential customer.<\/p>\n \u201cHi there,<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s [Your Name] from [Your Agency]. I noticed that you booked a consultation call with me about getting your business online.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been having a look at your website and I was thinking that we could offer you a few services that are going to actually increase customer sales so to get more people booked into your yoga classes and generally is just going to make your life easier as a business owner.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n So you just talk to them normally and once you\u2019ve done your prior research, it will be easier.<\/p>\n Obviously, have practice, and the more calls you make, the more comfortable you will get with talking to these clients.<\/p>\n Now, the main difference between cold calling a business and selling them a website versus cold calling a business and selling them a digital marketing plan is that when you\u2019re talking about websites, you\u2019re going to be talking about things that are wrong with their current website<\/p>\n For example,<\/p>\n When you\u2019re talking about digital marketing, you\u2019re talking about return on investment.<\/p>\n You\u2019re talking about how if you spend X dollars in Facebook ads and in Google ads, then you\u2019re going to make Y dollars back in revenue.<\/p>\n And the math is going to make sense that you\u2019re going to make back significantly more than you spend.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s the pitch you want to lead with.<\/p>\n Now, in my experience, I have done this to get website design clients, because my agency started off building websites.<\/p>\n And then about a year into its life, we transitioned it into offering digital marketing instead.<\/p>\n So, most of my cold calls- well actually, all of my cold calls- were done in our website design phase. When I was in that phase, it generally took me about 50 calls to get one person who\u00a0was interested<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And then when I got the interested person, there\u2019s about a 25% chance that that person would actually sign on and become a client.<\/p>\n So if you do the math, that is 1\/50, and then 1\/4 (25%), so you\u2019re looking at about 200 cold calls before you get a client through that method.<\/p>\n And this was how we got our first handful of clients. And when I\u2019m working with a coaching client and coaching them on how to start their agency, this is one of the places I suggest starting.<\/p>\n The benefits of approaching a business in person are that it shows the business owner, you\u2019re confident and dedicated. And it shows them that you care about the success of their business.<\/p>\n Because most people don\u2019t have the drive to actually knock on a business\u2019s door and try to pitch them digital marketing or a website.<\/p>\n Now, if you remember my guide about how to sell websites. When I talked about cold approaching in person, I talked about talking about how the prospect\u2019s website is not mobile device optimized.<\/p>\n I would open up my cell phone, I would walk into Simon\u2019s Bike Shop and have his website open on my phone, and show the owner that it doesn\u2019t show their property on the phone.<\/p>\n Now that works if you\u2019re selling SEO.<\/p>\n For other SMMA services, this is what I recommend. If you\u2019re trying to sell a monthly digital marketing contract to a business what I would do, let\u2019s say, a chiropractor.<\/p>\n What I would do is stand outside that chiropractor\u2019s office, I would bring up my phone and I would type in Google \u201cchiropractor near me.\u201d<\/p>\n Chances are the chiropractor in question is not going to show up because the reality is most businesses are not optimized for SEO properly, and they\u2019re also not running Google ads.<\/p>\n So I would put on the phone \u201cchiropractor near me\u201d. Then I would walk into the business I would talk to the owner, and I would say:<\/p>\n \u201cHey, I\u2019m a digital marketing specialist. I help businesses get noticed online and grow online.<\/em><\/p>\n I noticed that when I googled \u201cchiropractor near me,\u201d literally five steps outside your doorway, you didn\u2019t even show up.<\/em><\/p>\n And these five competitors showed up in front of you. This is a problem, and I can fix it for you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n So that would be my strategy.<\/p>\n And if you did that plan, and it turns out the chiropractor you\u2019re approaching does show up, I probably would just move on to the next one.<\/p>\n Because when you\u2019re doing something like a cold approach, whether it\u2019s through phone, or whether it\u2019s in person, you\u2019re gonna need some leverage to work off of and that can be your leverage.<\/p>\n For example, your leverage is to find a business that is not optimized for the front page of Google and is not showing up anywhere in Google ads.<\/p>\n What Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, at this point, that should be enough to get some leads coming in, it\u2019s not going to be quick. And it\u2019s not going to be easy.<\/p>\n But it will work because I do this myself and it is still working today.<\/p>\n It does take time, especially in the early days, when you don\u2019t write emails well, and you don\u2019t know how to communicate well with people. But as you get more into it, it gets quicker.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s time to speak to a business. Meetings can be virtual, especially now.<\/p>\n And what happens once you\u2019ve set a meeting? This is the biggest challenge as an agency owner. The good news is just like everything else. There\u2019s a system for it.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s say you\u2019ve got the sales manager on a Zoom call.<\/p>\n The first it\u2019s called the rapport stage and it\u2019s basically where you make friends. You get to know the person you\u2019re speaking to. You need them to like you and to trust you.<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to learn and get fuel for later on in the meeting.<\/p>\n So what you\u2019re going to do is you can have some small talk first of all with the business owner. You can talk about the weather or some common interest.<\/p>\n What I\u2019d recommend you\u2019re doing actually is researching that business owner on social media beforehand find some common interest that you may have with them so you can throw that out there.<\/p>\n Then you\u2019re going start talking about their business so<\/p>\n well find out what their existing marketing strategy is this is something<\/p>\n Next up, it\u2019s time to go digging. And this is where you ask for more information about the company and you try to work out what they\u2019re trying to achieve.<\/p>\n You want to ask them questions about the business and find out:<\/p>\n You want to learn about the issues that they\u2019re facing as a business.<\/p>\n Start thinking about maybe how you can help them to solve those problems. Write down all of this stuff that is going to be ammunition for later on in your meeting with this business owner.<\/p>\n So you\u2019ve learned about the business, you\u2019ve got some ammunition you\u2019re now going to present your service to the business owner.<\/p>\n This is whatever services you are actually offering it the business owner and what it is you think they actually need.<\/p>\n And here you\u2019re going to educate them. This is your chance to show them exactly how it is you can do what you do.<\/p>\n And what I always recommend you doing is getting it a simple set of screenshots together. Teach them about maybe Facebook ads. You don\u2019t need to create some fancy presentation. All you need to do is be able to explain this very simply in a series of screenshots.<\/p>\n Finally, it\u2019s time for the close and that leads us to the next step which is to close the deal and actually sign those leads as potential client.<\/p>\n Finally, we have the close. So let\u2019s run through how exactly to do this. There are really just two steps to closing a deal on digital marketing services.<\/p>\n Here we\u2019re literally going to ask for the sale. and here\u2019s what I\u2019ve found. I used to think I need to have a whole bunch of objection handlers or something like that.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I do: I get to the end of the presentation, and I say:<\/p>\n Okay, here\u2019s our pricing, here\u2019s why our pricing is this. This is what I have for you; if you\u2019re interested in this, let me know. And I know you probably want to think about this, so think a little about it. And let me know when you want to go ahead with a campaign.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And by simply going through this whole process, and not being pushy in any way compels them to want to work with me.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not trying to push them to sign the deal, I just want to provide some information and help them out. And they know I can help them.<\/p>\n If they want to hire me, that\u2019s great. If not, who cares? There are tons of other clients out there. I\u2019m not struggling for clients. So it\u2019s not a problem. And by having that approach to sales, I actually found it converts better and it\u2019s way more fun.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s time to create and deliver a proposal. I recommend actually create a detailed proposal, not just some generic, but actually explaining the issues you already have. Here\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re going to do over the next, let\u2019s say, 12 months to get you results with this campaign.<\/p>\n I prefer selling this way, and it becomes very easy to sell when you do it this way. By doing that, you just build up a ton of credibility.<\/p>\n So step number five is all about customer acquisition strategies. You sign a client, you get the results, and then that client will go ahead and give you referrals. And trust me, the longer you are in the agency game, the more and more referrals you get.<\/p>\n And your goal at this point is to ask for referrals because as an agency owner, these are your bread and butter. It\u2019s an easy way to get more clients without having to do much outreach.<\/p>\n In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a 25 \u2013 95% increase in company profitability<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n#1. Find SMMA Clients<\/h2>\n
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1. Manual Lead Generation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"chiropractor](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/chiropractor-near-me-google-search-results.jpg\"\/)
![\"chiropractor](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/chiropractor-near-me-google-search-results.jpg\")
<\/p>\n2. Automated Lead Generation<\/h3>\n
![\"apollo](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/apollo-leads-1.png\"\/)
![\"apollo](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/apollo-leads-1.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Facebook Groups<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\ud83d\udca1\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4a1.svg\"\/)
![\"\ud83d\udca1\"\/](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4a1.svg\")
\u00a0Pro Tip<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
3. Yelp & Groupon<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Yelp](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Yelp-Restaurant-Contact-Information-1024x555.jpg\"\/)
![\"Yelp](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Yelp-Restaurant-Contact-Information-1024x555.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n4. Networking Events<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. Partner with a Related Non-Competing Company<\/h3>\n
#2. Choose the SMMA Outreach Method<\/h2>\n
1. Cold Emailing<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"prospect](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/prospect-list-1-1024x412.jpg\"\/)
![\"prospect](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/prospect-list-1-1024x412.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n![\"\ud83d\udce9\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4e9.svg\"\/)
![\"\ud83d\udce9\"\/](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4e9.svg\")
\u00a0Cold Email Template Example<\/strong><\/h4>\n2. Social Media Outreach<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
![\"\ud83d\udccb\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4cb.svg\"\/)
![\"\ud83d\udccb\"\/](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4cb.svg\")
\u00a0Social Media Outreach Rules<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n
3. Cold Calling<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
![\"\ud83d\udcde\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4de.svg\"\/)
![\"\ud83d\udcde\"\/](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4de.svg\")
\u00a0Cold Calling Script Example<\/strong><\/h4>\nSMMA Services Difference\u00a0in Selling<\/h4>\n
\n
What You Need To Know About Cold Calling<\/h4>\n
4. Approaching Businesses in Person<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\ud83d\udce2\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4e2.svg\"\/)
![\"\ud83d\udce2\"\/](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f4e2.svg\")
Sales Pitch Example<\/strong><\/h4>\n#3. Arrange a Metting<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Step 1. Set Up a Rapport with Your Client<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Step 2. Go Digging<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 3. Present Your Services<\/strong><\/h3>\n
#4. Close Your First SMMA Client<\/h2>\n
Create a Proposal<\/h3>\n
#5. Rinse and Repeat<\/h2>\n
Ask For Referrals<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/customer-retention-infographic.png\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businessolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/customer-retention-infographic.png\")
<\/figure>\n