Lead generation for marketing agencies: win clients with proof

Lead generation for a marketing agency means finding businesses that need what you sell and giving each one a reason to talk to you this month. About 260 people in the US search for "lead generation for marketing agencies" every month, and as many search for "marketing agency leads". The agencies that win more clients rarely send more messages. They send messages that carry proof about the prospect's own market.

This section covers where agency clients come from, what makes a prospect answer, and how to turn a first reply into a signed proposal.

Where marketing agency leads come from

Most agencies get clients from four places. Each has a cost, and each needs something different from you.

• Referrals. The cheapest clients and the easiest to close, but you cannot schedule them. Most agencies stall at the size their referrals allow.
• Outbound. Messages to businesses you chose. You control the volume and the type of client, but a generic message gets ignored, and too many of them burn your name.
• Inbound. Content and search that bring businesses to you. Slow to start, steady once it works, and it attracts clients who already believe in the channel you sell.
• Partners. Web designers, accountants and other agencies who pass work along. Good clients, few of them, and the partner expects the same in return.

Referrals and partners grow with your reputation. Outbound and inbound grow with your effort, which is why most of the work in agency lead generation sits there.

Why most agency outreach is ignored

A business owner gets the same three messages every week: "we can improve your SEO", "your site could rank higher", "we noticed a few issues with your website". None of them says anything the owner can check, so none of them is worth a reply.

The messages that get answered share one trait: they name something specific about the prospect's market that the prospect did not know. Not a score, not a list of technical errors, but a missed customer the owner can picture.

What proof looks like in a first message

The strongest proof is a search the prospect's customers make every month, which a competitor answers with a page and the prospect does not. It fits in two sentences and the owner can check it in a minute. Here is a worked example; the business and the numbers are made up to show the shape.

• Part of the message: The search

  Example

  "emergency boiler repair"

• Part of the message: How many people make it

  Example

  Say, about 300 US searches a month

• Part of the message: Who answers it

  Example

  A named competitor, with the link to its page

• Part of the message: What the prospect has

  Example

  No page for it

A message built on one line like this does three jobs at once. It shows you looked at their business, it puts a number on what they are missing, and it gives them something to forward to whoever signs the budget. That is the idea behind SEO prospecting with proof for each prospect.

Which prospects are worth the message

Not every business is a good prospect, however well you write. The ones worth your time have three things in common:

• Their customers search before they buy. Trades, local services, clinics and many B2B services. A business whose customers never search has little to gain from search work.
• Their competitors already have the pages. If nobody in the market has a page for the searches that matter, the market is too small or too new to sell.
• They have a gap you can name. A prospect with no clear gap is a hard sell, whatever the size of the business.

Some of the easiest first projects are local businesses without websites: the gap is the whole site, and the owner already suspects it. Agencies that sell search work should judge bought SEO leads the same way, and web designers their web design leads.

From first reply to signed proposal

A reply is the start of a sale, not the end of one. The step after it is usually a proposal, and the proposal is where many agencies lose the client they just won the attention of.

A proposal that wins carries the same proof as the first message, at full size: the market's searches grouped by need, the pages the leading competitors have and the prospect lacks, and the pages you will build first. Our guide to writing an SEO proposal shows what goes in it and what to leave out. For a local business, a local SEO audit that shows the rivals often does the same job.

The format of the pitch matters less than its evidence. Whether you meet in person, send a video or write an email, the prospect remembers the number and the competitor's link.

Mistakes that cost agencies clients

• Leading with your services. The prospect cares about their customers, not your list of channels.
• Sending a technical audit as the first message. Errors with no money attached read as homework.
• Promising rankings. A client who was promised a position judges you on it, and nobody controls it.
• Pitching a business with no gap. You will spend the call inventing a reason.
• Writing the proposal from a template. The client can tell, and so can the competitor who did the research.

How Querytally helps agencies

We deliver the proof, so you can spend your time on the pitch.

• Your list, our proof. Send a list of company sites. For each one you get the searches it has no page for, the US monthly searches, and the competitor that has the page, with the link. Sites without a clear gap come back as "skip". See prospect lists checked for gaps.
• The market report. One site or one market as rows you can check: what its buyers search for and which pages the leading competitors have and lack. See the page for SEO agencies or the page for web designers.

A person checks every row, and every row links to the competitor's page, so you can verify any of it. More on how gaps work in competitor gap analysis.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best lead generation for a marketing agency?

The one you can repeat. Referrals are the best clients but you cannot schedule them, so most growing agencies add outbound messages that carry proof, and content that brings searchers in. The channel matters less than whether each message names something specific.

Should I buy marketing agency leads?

Bought leads are names, not proof. If you buy them, you still need a reason for each business to answer. A list is only worth what you can say to each company on it.

How many prospects should one message go to?

As many as you can name a real gap for. A short list of prospects with proof beats a long one without.

How is it made?

A person checks every row, and every row links to the competitor's page, so you can verify any of it.

Read the page for SEO agencies to see the full report.