An Introduction to Lead Generation in Digital Marketing

You can have the best marketing agency services in town, but without customers, your digital agency startup won’t make it for long. To ensure a steady stream of new customers, you need to consistently generate leads for your digital marketing company. Whether you run a boutique agency, a marketing consultancy, or a large enterprise agency, the same basic system for lead generation in digital marketing can be used.

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If you’re ready to grow your business and find more dream clients, this blog is for you. We’ll cover exactly what digital lead generation entails, why it should be a top priority for your business, the different types of digital marketing leads, and some examples of actionable strategies you can start putting into play today.

What is lead generation in digital marketing?

Lead generation in digital marketing refers to the process of attracting potential customers' interest in your services through a variety of digital approaches such as content marketing, social media posts, email campaigns, and search engine marketing. It also includes capturing their contact information so you can continue moving them along your sales pipeline, with the ultimate aim of conversion.

With more competition and digital noise than ever, winning a new customer today requires agency skills, grit, and persistence. Lead generation for digital marketing agencies is a non-negotiable activity, helping them acquire new customers and fuel business growth. The activities that make up agency lead generation strategies do double-duty in other areas as well, like bolstering recognition of your agency brand identity and reputation in your marketing niche.

Importance of lead generation in digital marketing

It’s difficult to overstate the central role of an excellent digital lead generation strategy for marketing agencies. Even if you’re starting with no experience or client base, you can build a profitable digital agency startup with the right lead gen strategy. Let’s take a look at why this activity is so important.

Set yourself up for rock-solid client relationships

Lead generation enables your agency to initiate and nurture relationships with prospects by understanding and catering to their needs before they even spend their first dollar. This can involve producing high-value content, demonstrating an understanding of their core challenges, introducing new technology that can improve their business, and more. All of these lead gen activities help your agency connect with potential clients throughout their buying journey, inviting them to view your agency as a trustworthy, credible partner.

Drive sales and supercharge agency revenues

The ultimate purpose of lead generation in digital marketing is to sign more clients, but it isn’t just about lengthening your client list. Strategic, targeted lead generation for digital marketing agencies can draw in better clients, not just more clients. Digital lead generation enables agency owners to focus marketing efforts and resources on prospects with a high intent to purchase and a good match to their portfolio of solutions, resulting in an improved agency-client fit.

Get more out of your marketing efforts with a targeted approach

By taking the time to create an informed strategy for lead generation, you can make your efforts go further by targeting different segments of your audience. Whatever your marketing niche is, chances are you can break it down into more granular sub-groups that can be marketed to in different ways. By targeting particular characteristics of each market segment, you can deliver more relevant lead generation content to each, and find more well-aligned clients for your business.

Measure the impact of your sales and marketing efforts

It’s not uncommon for those starting a new digital marketing company to take a haphazard approach to finding clients, but without a solid plan, measuring success is difficult. Lead generation in digital marketing is most effective when it can be tracked, measured, and analyzed allowing for strategy refinement. By keeping an eye on metrics like conversion rates, cost per lead, and customer acquisition costs, you take a data-driven approach to finding digital marketing leads.

Compete more effectively in a crowded marketplace

No matter where your business is located, chances are your agency won’t be the only game in town. Stiff competition is a reality for all businesses today, but with a strong digital lead generation game plan, you can more easily differentiate your business from the competition. By consistently showing up and staying top-of-mind for prospects, you’ll establish your agency as an industry leader and win more business in the process.

Goals of lead generation in digital marketing

Lead generation is, of course, about filling your sales pipeline with a healthy volume of prospects. But that’s not the only agency business goal you can achieve with the right lead gen approach. Let’s take a look at some other impacts it can have on your agency’s success.

Increased agency brand awareness

Lead generation efforts often begin with raising brand awareness among target audiences. By using a mix of digital channels to get in front of prospects, agencies can expand their online presence and gain recognition in their niche more broadly. Consistent exposure to valuable lead gen content and engaging messaging helps boost brand recognition and familiarity beyond just the captured leads.

Enhanced engagement with customers

The best lead generation efforts aim to engage prospective customers and encourage interaction with your digital agency brand. Through compelling content and strategic communication, you can invite prospects to engage with your agency through likes, comments, survey participation, and more. The key is to treat digital lead generation as an opportunity to provide value to prospects and address their needs, rather than just a way to get their attention.

A more robust overall marketing strategy

Lead generation for digital marketing doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Instead, it’s part of a thoughtful overall marketing strategy that can help you reach your goals faster. Here’s how.

Alignment with agency business goals

Whether your focus is to increase sales, expand your market reach, or launch a new solution, lead gen strategies can support your objectives. By aligning your lead generation strategy with other components of your go-to-market approach, you can ensure the different facets of your strategy work together to reach your goals.

Cross-channel approach

Leads for digital marketing agencies can be found across many channels, so a multi-channel approach is usually the best bet for ambitious agencies. From social media and email marketing to SEO and content creation, lead gen strategies are best when they’re integrated across multiple channels to maximize reach and effectiveness. This helps you find your dream clients wherever they are online and encourages consistency in messaging across channels which is important when building your brand.

For an example of how LinkedIn can be used as a powerful lead gen channel, check out this episode of the Conquer Local podcast:

Types of leads in digital marketing lead generation

All leads aren’t created equal, and it’s important to understand how types of leads are categorized. Correctly identifying lead type enables you to take the best possible step toward winning their business. The two main categories of leads are marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) and sales-qualified leads (SQLs). Let’s take a look at both.

Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)

MQLs are prospects who have demonstrated interest in your agency’s services but don’t necessarily have the information to be ready to make a purchase. They show interest by engaging with lead gen efforts, for example by downloading lead magnets, subscribing to your newsletter, or attending a webinar hosted by your agency. While they’ve demonstrated interest, MQLs require further nurturing to move them through the sales funnel.

Sales-qualified leads (SQLs)

SQLs are prospects with a higher chance of purchasing because they’re already actively considering their buying options. This means that, unlike MQLs, SQLs have the necessary information about your service required to make a choice, a budget ready to go, and key decision-makers involved. These leads have likely engaged with your sales team already or independently sought out the necessary information.

Both of these are important, but each requires a unique digital strategy approach when it comes to moving them through your sales funnel. MQLs are best nurtured through efforts aimed at providing value, building trust, and guiding them toward a purchasing decision. This can include personalized email campaigns, educational content, and ongoing engagement through social media. On the other hand, SQLs can be passed on to the sales team for direct engagement, where they can receive personalized sales pitches, product demos, and even pricing offers tailored to their requirements.

Successful lead generation in digital marketing

Successful lead generation in digital marketing relies on a variety of strategies and corresponding performance metrics.

Winning lead gen strategies include:

• Content marketing: Creating content that provides value upfront and demonstrates your agency’s expertise—often in exchange for a newsletter signup—will attract leads. Clicks, conversion rate, and cost per conversion are all effective metrics for tracking content marketing success.
• Email campaigns: Email is well-suited to audience segmentation and A/B testing of metrics like open rates and click-through rates, so try a variety of nurture campaigns and see which garners the best results.
• Social media organic and paid posts: Social media platforms can be used to get in front of audiences both organically and with ads. Audiences can be guided toward landing pages or lead generation forms where you can gather more information. Keep an eye on click-through rates and return on investment (ROI), since ad budgets can creep up quickly.
• Webinars: Hosting or participating in webinars is a great way to demonstrate thought leadership to your target audience. These can give prospects a sneak peek of the value they’d get from having you as their partner. Make sure you have a system set up to track if prospects discover you through a webinar.

As is often the case in digital marketing, a multi-pronged approach is usually optimal, so give yourself the best chance at success by using different platforms to find leads for your digital marketing agency.