When you’re an agency owner, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day madness of meetings and project deadlines, at the cost of your marketing strategy. This is why we put together this list of online marketing tips to help you optimize your strategy and promote a local marketing agency.
Why a promotion strategy is important for a local marketing agency
The objective of a promotional strategy is to create a good reputation with your target market. It allows you to create strong brand awareness, generate leads and build a long-term relationship with your audience.
This will in turn bring more benefits for your agency via word-of-mouth marketing which is especially true with local businesses as they tend to be a part of a close-knit community.
It will have a snowball effect since most local businesses tend to offer complementary services and may therefore be a part of the same community. For instance, plasterers and scaffolders will have a similar clientele (such as homeowners).
As an agency owner, the objective of your promotion strategy should be to get in front of plasterers who will then in turn refer you to scaffolders if they like your work.
Of course, it’s up to you to decide on your niche and the target audience.
How to promote a local marketing agency
Depending on the niche that your local marketing agency serves, the promotion strategies that you use would differ.
Note that not all strategies listed may work for you. Choose ones that you are most comfortable with and stick to it. Some may work really well, and some not so much.
Leverage your personal network
As a local marketing agency owner, it’s likely that you chose a particular target audience because you either have a strong network in the sector or know people that may require your marketing services.
One of the best ways to leverage your personal network would be to either attend a networking event or simply reach out to those you haven’t been in touch with.
Also, there are many Facebook groups for agency owners that you could join to engage with like-minded individuals like yourself.
This will give you an opportunity to speak about what you do at the agency – so the next time they hear about someone in need of your local marketing services, they’ll remember you and refer you to more business.
Encourage word of mouth marketing
Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. According to a Nielsen report, 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.
This makes sense, since people tend to trust personal recommendations from friends and family.
This form of marketing is built around trust, loyalty, and expertise. There are two key areas where word of mouth marketing shines, great results and great service.
As mentioned above, it has the tendency to create a snowball effect. You start off with one local business who’s achieving results that will leave customers telling all their colleagues that they need to hire your agency.
Before you know it, your marketing agency is in front of so many potential clients who are eager to work with you.
If you want to dominate word of mouth marketing for your agency, it may be worth spending some time exploring these strategies:
- Get video testimonials from clients.
- Encourage reviews, retweets, shares and comments on various social media channels.
- Create case studies that clients can easily share on their profile.
- Create a referral program for local businesses to refer to other similar businesses.
- Work with influencers and affiliates to promote your services in the target areas.
Create and optimize your agency website
It’s important that you portray your agency in front of your audience in a professional manner.
Take the time to put together a thoughtful brand, and a professional website that helps you share your message. Use this to explain what your local marketing agency stands for.
A website can help promote a local marketing agency in the following ways:
- Showcase your portfolio of successful clients in the form of case studies.
- Gather reviews and testimonials for better social proof.
- Create and share valuable content in the form of blog posts.
- Build a mailing list so you can share offers and updates about your agency.
- Build landing pages to divert traffic from paid channels such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads;
- Track the activities of visitors and re-market to them using Facebook Pixel.
Also, you could take steps to optimize your website by strengthening your website’s design, as well as On-Page and Off-Page SEO.
Effectively use case studies and testimonials
One of the best ways to promote a local marketing agency is to create and share case studies of local businesses that you’ve helped obtain great results.
If you’re just starting out, you could offer services for free or request payments upon achieving certain results.
Encouraging video testimonials from clients and adding them to the landing page is one of the best ways to build trust with cold leads and converting them into clients. It’s important that you write a marketing case study that makes it very relatable to your leads.
Here are some steps you can take to write effective case studies to land clients for your marketing agency:
- Define your target audience: case studies work best if it resonates with a specific type of audience. Ideally, they should be able to understand your ideal clients’ wishes, insecurities, and goals which are then addressed in these case studies.
- Document the process: Case studies should be able to outline the process you followed to achieve a particular result for the local business – from start to finish. Outline it as a story by presenting the client’s problem, how you helped them overcome these problems and finally mention how your clients benefited from working with you.
- Include testimonials: depending on how comfortable your client is in sharing their experience working with you, you could either include a written or video testimonial. This can further enhance your case studies and improve its credibility.
- Provide actionable advice: An effective case study doesn’t just make you and your client look good. It also provides information or advice that anybody can use, whether they decide to hire you or not. Don’t be stingy—share some key secrets of your trade, your knowledge, and anything interesting you learned in the process of helping your client. Give the reader something they can take away and apply to their own work.
Sharing useful content related to your niche
One of the best ways to showcase yourself as a subject matter expert is by sharing content across various channels.
This could be either through the website blog, Twitter, niche online forums (see below) or dedicated Facebook groups.
Consistently creating content for your target audience is a great way to promote a local marketing agency. Here’s why:
- You can build authority and showcase yourself as an expert in the field;
- Pick up on organic search such as Google by sharing articles and content on your blog;
- Drive traffic from social media channels back to your website/landing pages to share your offer;
- Build your mailing list or create a following so you can share updates about your agency;
Offer a lead magnet to create a mailing list
A lead magnet is a valuable resource that you present to your customers. It’s an effective way to capture their information, get them into a funnel, generate interest in your agency and nurture them until they are ready to commit to you.
Here are some examples of lead magnets that you can use to promote your local marketing agency:
- Website/SEO/Local SEO audits and analysis (there are many tools that can help you with this).
- Checklists to optimize a local business website.
- Demo of your local marketing service.
- Database of tools required to promote a local business online.
- Templates to help run local business operations.
- Consultation/strategy sessions with local businesses.
- Webinars that share insights and tips on growing a local business online.
- Email course detailing various aspects of improving local marketing.
Engage in niche online communities
Social media is really about people, and engaging in the right conversations with the right people. Set aside a few hours each week to participate in discussions.
Not only will this enhance your chances of learning new tools and techniques that you can apply to your agency, but it will also provide an opportunity for you to forge new relationships with others involved in the industry, and maybe even get some referrals from them.
There are many dedicated groups relating to various niches that you could request to join either on Facebook, LinkedIn or Reddit.
For instance, if your target audience is personal trainers, a simple search will yield a list of groups/communities that you could join. You could also include location-based searches by including the city that you’re located in.
It’s important that you provide as much value as possible when engaging with members in the group. Remember, the point here is to showcase that you’re the expert. Don’t spam the group promoting your services – as this is against most – if not all – group/community rules.
Participate in guest speaking opportunities
Speaking at a major marketing conference can bring many opportunities. Thousands of people will see you speak and follow your presentation online.
This is a great way to showcase your knowledge and build authority in the services that you’re offering. There are many opportunities that you can find online where your target audience hangs out – these include podcasts, YouTube channels, Facebook Live and even virtual events.
The point here is to scout for creators/influencers that your target audience is likely to follow and then get in front of them.
Include client logos
Featuring brands you’ve worked with builds credibility for your agency. When potential clients see other big brands who have said, “Yes” to you, they’ll continue the momentum and say yes to your services too.
Take the top six logos of local businesses you’ve worked with who are the most well-known among your audience, and feature their logos in a client list on your home page.
Write guest posts on relevant niche blogs
Guest blogging on similar or related sites gives your customers an opportunity to learn more about you while also opening up your reach by gaining an opportunity to talk directly with a new customer segment.
It’s also a great way to get quality backlinks, and at the same time, position you as an expert in your niche/industry. This can improve SEO performance, because Google searches use the number of links pointing toward your website as a metric for ranking a page in search results.
Reach out to editors of popular industry blogs and pitch a story idea; this will get you viewed as a knowledgeable authority. Also, reaching out to industry-leading blogs that have your target audience in mind will make them think you’re active in the community.
Contributing thought leadership blog posts to another company’s blog that has the same target audience you’re trying to reach will increase your brand awareness, build trust, and overall increase traffic to your site – which means more bookings and enquiries from local businesses.
Final thoughts
Clients want reliable and knowledgeable partners they can rely on. You need to be sure that potential clients know you possess both of these qualities without having them do any of the searching themselves. The best way to get potential clients to choose your agency is to be all over online marketing, letting them know that you are the agency they need to grow their business.
