How to Get Clients for Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA)

If you’re a social media marketing agency (SMMA) owner, you know that getting new clients is essential for growing your business.

But attracting new clients can be challenging.

The social media marketing industry has become extremely crowded, with everyone from freelancers to mega-agencies competing for new clients.

So, how do you stand out and convince your ideal prospects to hire your SMMA?

In this blog post, we’ve shared the top 3 channels to get clients for your SMMA and outlined the complete step-by-step process for each channel.

How to Get Clients for SMMA — Table of Contents

• 3 Best Channels to Get Clients for SMMA
  • Cold Email Outreach
  • Social Media
  • Business Partnerships
• How to Get Clients for SMMA via Cold Email Outreach
• How to Get Clients for SMMA via Social Media
• How to Get Clients for SMMA via Business Partnerships
• Ready to Acquire New Clients for Your SMMA?
• FAQs

3 Best Channels to Get Clients for SMMA

There are lots of different channels to get new clients for your social media marketing agency.

But if you want quick results with minimal upfront investment, the following three channels have proven to yield the highest ROI.

• Cold email outreach
• Social media
• Business partnerships

1. Cold Email Outreach (Low-Hanging Fruit)

Cold email outreach is one of the most effective ways to generate new leads and get clients for a social media marketing agency.

Cold emailing allows you to directly reach and engage with potential clients in a personalized manner. Through cold emailing, you can effectively introduce your services, nurture relationships, and eventually generate new business opportunities.

It’s cost-efficient, scalable, and can help you showcase your agency’s expertise to a targeted audience.

When done right, cold emailing can be a low-cost way to get new clients and grow your business.

For this, you need to first identify your ideal prospects and find potential clients who could genuinely benefit from your services.

Here are some ways to go about it:

• Look for businesses in your target industry verticals like e-commerce, healthcare, real estate, and others that align with your goals.
• Research companies that are actively hiring for marketing roles or lack an in-house marketing team.
• Reach out to businesses that have weak online presence or whose ads are not performing well in your target niche.

Once you’ve built your prospect list, you need to craft a personalized email and explain how you can help grow the social media presence and engagement for each prospect.

2. Social Media

Ironically, one of the best places to find clients for your social media marketing agency is on social media!

It allows you to directly engage with potential clients where they already spend time online. You can also showcase your showcase expertise and past campaign results by posting case studies, client testimonials, and samples of work.

There are so many different ways to get more clients for your SMMA on social media platforms.

Some of these methods include:

• Running paid social media ads
• Joining relevant communities and mastermind groups
• Reaching out to your ideal prospects directly via DM
• Publishing helpful content regularly to grow brand awareness
• Hosting free workshops and webinars

Apart from these, social media is also a great place to share case studies, results from previous campaigns, and testimonials from existing and past clients.

This way, you can establish social proof and credibility for your agency.

We will talk more about all these social media marketing strategies to help promote your agency and get more clients later in the post.

3. Business Partnerships

Another channel you can leverage to land new clients for your social media marketing agency is partnering with a non-competing service provider in your niche.

Partnering with complementary businesses allows you to get exposure to their customer base and networks, which expands your reach for potential new clients.

These partnerships can be mutually beneficial as your partner can also get access to your networks.

This is because digital marketing is a collaborative industry where thousands of service providers specialize in a niche.

If you want to get relevant clients via business partnerships, you need to first identify who your ideal clients are by creating ideal customer profiles and buyer personas.

After that, think about what other services they might need or are already outsourcing.

Note that these must be services that you don’t offer but a potential partner is offering. For example, as a social media marketing agency, your potential business partners could be agencies that provide SEO or website development services to your target niche.

Once you’ve found businesses that you can collaborate with, set a weekly target number of business owners to contact and see if there are opportunities to partner with them.

You could do this by simply setting up a coffee or Zoom meeting to get familiar with each other. If you find an agency that could be the right fit, you can even provide each other with referrals to get more clients.

How to Get Clients for SMMA via Cold Email Outreach — Step-by-Step Process

Now that you know the three most effective channels to get new clients for your SMMA, let’s see exactly how to actually do it, starting with cold email outreach.

For SMMA client acquisition, cold emailing is very effective because you can get started with it even if you have a limited budget.

Plus, you can scale your cold email campaigns at a later stage easily if needed. The more prospects you reach, the more chances you have of boosting your sales.

If you want to get clients for your social media marketing agency via cold email outreach, here is the step-by-step process you can follow:

• Step #1 — Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile
• Step #2 — Come Up with an Irresistible Offer (USP)
• Step #3 — Build Your Prospects List
• Step #4 — Find a Reliable Cold Email Outreach Solution
• Step #5 — Write Personalized Cold Emails for Each Prospect
• Step #6 — Develop an Effective Follow-Up Strategy
• Step #7 — Schedule Your Emails
• Step #8 — Track the Performance of Your Emails
• Step #9 — Optimize, Iterate, and Scale Your Outreach Strategy

Step #1 — Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile

If you want to launch a successful cold email outreach campaign, the first step is to create an ideal customer profile to identify what your prospective clients are like.

This is because your efforts will be much more effective if you speak directly to a specific group’s needs and pain points.

To create an ideal customer profile, you need to:

• Define your niche — Determine the industries or business types you want to serve. Are they e-commerce businesses, local restaurants, tech startups, or something else?

• Identify their challenges — What are the common pain points or problems they face in terms of social media marketing?

• List their characteristics — Think about their size, location, annual revenue, and other attributes that can further define them.

Establishing a clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) can help you ensure your outreach resonates with the audience you’re speaking to.

Step #2 — Come Up with an Irresistible Offer (USP)

After creating your ideal customer profile, the next step is to come up with an irresistible offer that gives your prospects a compelling reason to open and respond to your email.

This is important because there are literally thousands of agencies out there. So if you want to stand out, you need a unique selling proposition (USP) that’s hard to resist for your prospects.

But how do you do that?

One of the best ways to make your offer compelling is to relate it to a key challenge or pain point your prospects are facing. Furthermore, if you have a relevant case study or success story, make sure to highlight it along with your offer.

You can also add more value by offering a free consultation, discount, or an extra service to sweeten your deal.

Always remember, your USP is what separates you from your competition, so it must be captivating to get them to hire your social media marketing agency.

Step #3 — Build Your Prospects List

Now that you have a clear idea of who you’re targeting and what you’re offering, it’s time to build your prospect list.

A prospect list is basically a list of your potential clients. These are the people that you think could benefit from your services.

Your prospect list must include the following key information:

• Prospect name
• Company name
• Location
• Industry/Niche
• Email address

There are plenty of ways to build a prospect list.

For starters, LinkedIn is the best platform for finding potential prospects. Search for people by job title and industry to find contacts at companies you want to target. You can also join relevant LinkedIn groups to connect with more prospects.

Company websites are another great source.

You can look for contact info on the “About Us” or “Contact” pages to add sales prospects to your list.

Apart from them, B2B lead databases can also provide you with a ready-made list of prospects to help jumpstart your pipeline.

Sites like Apollo.io offer contact info for decision-makers across many industries. You can search by company attributes like location, size, technologies used, and more.

These databases make prospecting much more efficient. But before reaching out to your prospects, just verify that the prospects are still at the company.

Step #4 — Find a Reliable Cold Email Outreach Solution

Once you’ve built your prospect list with key information, the only thing that’s left to do is find a reliable tool to send your outreach emails.

One of the best and most cost-effective solutions for cold email outreach is Saleshandy.

Saleshandy makes it easy to import your prospect list and create customized email templates to start sending targeted outreach emails.

Furthermore, you can also find B2B cold email templates for different use cases in the library or create your own from scratch.

Saleshandy also offers advanced features that automate your outreach workflow and increase the ROI of your campaign.

• Email Personalization — With the Merge tags in Saleshandy, you can add your prospect’s unique information to your emails.
  
  For example, you can include the prospect’s first name, company name, or their primary pain points. This makes your messaging seem like it is directly written for the recipient.

• Auto Follow-Up Sequence — With the Auto Follow-Up feature, you can set up automatic follow-up emails. These emails will go out to any prospects who didn’t respond to your last email. Sending follow-up emails can increase the number of people who respond to your emails.
  
  Even if someone misses your first email, the Auto Follow-Up sends them a second or third email automatically. This way, you can engage your recipients without putting in extra time and effort.

• A-Z Testing — The A-Z Testing feature is an advanced version of A/B testing. With A/B testing, you try two different versions of something. But with A-Z Testing, you can create and test 26 different versions!
  
  This works for any part of your email – the subject line, pre-header text, or email body. For example, you could test 26 different subject lines. Or test 26 different openings for your email content.
  
  With it, you can track which version gets the best response. Based on the results, you can use the highest-performing version for all your campaigns.

• Advanced Email Deliverability — Saleshandy comes with an advanced email deliverability toolkit that includes real-time email writing assistance, email verification, email warm-up, bounce guard, and more.
  
  These features ensure that your emails are successfully delivered to your prospects’ primary inboxes, not their spam folders.

• Sequence Score — The Sequence Score feature lets you see how well your email sequence is working. This score is based on how you’ve structured your whole sequence – the email setup, sequence setup, and email copy.
  
  The final score that you get will give you insights into what is effective or needs improvement.

• Sender Rotation — With Sender Rotation, you can connect as many email accounts as you want in a single email sequence.
  
  When you send automated emails, Saleshandy will randomly use different accounts to send each email. This reduces the overall risk of surpassing the daily sending emails from a single email account.
  
  As a result, you can enhance your email deliverability and minimize the chances of your emails being flagged as spam.

• Unified Inbox — If you use multiple email accounts for sales outreach, it can be hard to manage all the replies. But Unified Inbox solves this issue.
  
  With it, you can find your prospects’ responses from all your accounts in one place. So you don’t have to check each account separately. This saves you time and helps you respond faster.

Most importantly, Saleshandy offers extremely affordable pricing plans to fit any budget.

1. Cold Emailing

• Outreach Starter – $25/Month
  • 2,000 Total Prospects
  • 10K Emails per Month
• Outreach Pro – $74/Month
  • 30K Total Prospects
  • 125K Emails per Month
• Outreach Scale – $149/Month
  • 60K Total Prospects
  • 250K Emails per Month
• Outreach Scale Plus – $219/Month
  • 100K Total Prospects
  • 350K Emails per Month

2. B2B Lead Finder
   (Only Email)

• Lead Starter – $39/Month (1,000 Credits)
• Lead Pro – $79/Month (2,500 Credits)
• Lead Scale – $159/Month (5,000 Credits)
• Lead Scale Plus – $249/Month (10,000 Credits)
  
  (Email + Phone Number)

• Lead Starter – $66/Month (1,000 Credits)
• Lead Pro – $144/Month (2,500 Credits)
• Lead Scale – $269/Month (5,000 Credits)
• Lead Scale Plus – $509/Month (10,000 Credits)

For just $25/month (billed annually) you can connect unlimited email accounts upload up to 2,000 prospects and send up to 10,000 cold emails.

With such low costs, any startup or agency can leverage cold email outreach to generate more qualified leads and close new clients.

Step #5 — Write Personalized Cold Emails for Each Prospect

If you want to succeed at getting new clients for your SMMA, you need to write personalized cold emails.

This is crucial because sending generic outreach emails simply won’t convert. In fact, most prospects can instantly spot copy-pasted templates and are more likely to ignore or unsubscribe from such impersonal messaging.

Instead, you need to customize your outreach with relevant details for each prospect.

Email personalization helps to establish a real connection and shows you did your research on them. This makes prospects much more receptive to your pitch and offer.

Some ways to personalize can include:

• Referencing their company, role, and challenges
• Commenting on their recent news, products, and campaigns
• Tying your offerings directly to their needs

But if you’re still struggling to write personalized cold emails, you can simply use any of the below three templates:

Email Template One

Subject:Free help!
Hey [first name],

I've been following your [their company] on social media for a little while now and I couldn't help but notice there are a few things you could do to improve your social media marketing to the next level.

Here's what I'm thinking:

[outline free advice/help]

Let me know if this helps, and if you'd like, I have a lot more advice and ideas in stock. 

Should we jump on a call some time this week maybe?

Cheers,
[Your name]

Email Template Two

Subject:[prospect company] <> [your company]
Hello [prospect name],

I have an idea that I can explain in 10 minutes that can increase [ their company]’s social media reach by 10x.

I recently used this idea to help one of our clients [their competitor] almost triple their [social media impressions/reach].

[prospect name], let’s schedule a quick 10-minute call so I can share the idea with you. 

When works best for you?

P.S. - The best part about working with us is we guarantee results. Meaning if you don’t get results, we don’t get paid!


Cheers,
[Your name]

Email Template Three

Subject:Quick question, [prospect name]
Hi [prospect name],

As a [prospect position/job role], I understand your time is valuable so I’ll keep this brief.

I know how challenging it can be to manage social media on top of your regular workload. But we can act as an extension of your team so you can focus on your core business priorities.

Let's explore if this could be a good fit. 

Are you free for a 15-minute intro call on [date] or [date/time]?


Cheers,
[Your name]

While these cold email templates can come in handy, personalization (when done manually) takes time and is almost impossible to scale.

Saleshandy provides Merge Tags and Spintax features to automate cold email personalization at scale.

You can create dynamic templates that auto-populate prospect names, company info, and other details into each email. Spintax, on the other hand, lets you generate multiple variations of sentences and paragraphs to make each message unique.

To use Spintax, you’ll need to include multiple words or phrases between the {spin} and {end spin} tags, separated by a vertical line or pipe (|).

Here’s how:

This is a simple way to make your emails feel more personalized without manually customizing each one.

Step #6 — Develop an Effective Follow-Up Strategy

When you’re doing cold email outreach, sending only one email to your prospects and waiting for a reply is a passive strategy.

It’s like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean and hoping someone finds it.

Most cold emails go unanswered on the first attempt. That’s why having an effective follow-up strategy is critical for getting results.

Research has also shown that you need to send at least five follow-up emails before a prospect responds to your email.

Follow-up emails are important because they act as a gentle reminder to re-engage your non-responsive prospects, provide additional information, or request updates.

However, you need to write each follow-up email strategically otherwise you could come across as overly salesy or pushy.

Ideally, you should wait at least 2 to 3 days after your initial email to follow up with your prospects.

After that, your waiting period between each follow-up email should gradually increase depending on the number of follow-ups you plan on sending.

Here’s a chart highlighting when to send each follow-up email after sending the initial outreach email:

This way you can ensure the maximum number of your prospects Get more responses from prospects who ignored your first email.

It also helps you demonstrate that you really want their business and won’t give up easily. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting prospects into paying clients.

Simply put, the more follow-ups, the more opportunities you have to connect with prospects and win them over.

Step #7 — Schedule Your Emails

When sending initial and follow-up emails for sales outreach, it’s vital to schedule your emails to be sent at optimal times. This simple tactic can help you increase your open and response rates.

According to a recent survey, the best day to send cold emails is Tuesdays, while the best time to send cold emails is between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM.

During this time, officials and professionals are starting their workday, and it’s when people tend to check their inboxes.

So, if you want more reads, schedule your emails during this time.

The second best time to send cold emails is late afternoon/evening after 5 PM. Around this time, most prospects wrap up their day and catch up on pending emails.

Whatever you do, avoid sending cold emails on Monday mornings, during lunch hours, and late at night. That’s when prospects are unlikely to be checking inboxes.

Instead, plan your campaigns such that you can schedule your emails during optimal times to get more engagement.

Step #8 — Track the Performance of Your Emails

Tracking the performance of your cold email is crucial for optimizing your outreach campaigns over time. It helps you see exactly which emails your prospects are engaging with the most, so you can send more of those and hook more leads.

While tracking the performance of your email campaigns, here are the key metrics you should check:

• Open rates – This tells you if your emails are getting opened by prospects. Shoot for 40-50% or higher.

• Click rates – Are prospects engaging with links and CTAs in your emails? 2-5% is a good click rate benchmark.

• Reply rates – What percentage of prospects are responding? 1-3% is common for cold email.

• Unsubscribe rates – If you notice your unsubscribe rate suddenly rising, make sure to reformat your emails to avoid triggering spam filters.

By carefully tracking your open, click, reply, and unsubscribe rates for cold email campaigns, you can figure out what’s working.

Based on your insights, you can even fine-tune your outreach strategy.

So, keep experimenting with different subject lines, email copy, call-to-actions, and sending times to boost your cold email performance.

Also, it’s a good idea to eliminate any consistently low-performing emails to enhance your results.

Step #9 — Optimize, Iterate, and Scale Your Outreach Strategy

Last but not least, remember that successful cold emailing is not a set-it-and-forget-it process. To continually improve results, you need to optimize, iterate, and scale your outreach efforts.

So, it’s crucial to continually expand your prospect list from new sources like websites, events, referrals, and LinkedIn outreach. With a bigger pool, you can scale your email outreach. While you’re at it, make sure to segment your prospects into niches for more relevance.

The key is to start tracking everything, then use the data to continually refine and optimize your cold email outreach to perform better over time.

How to Get Clients for SMMA via Social Media — Step-by-Step Process

If you’re not a big fan of sending cold emails and want to get clients more casually, using social media to attract potential clients can be a great strategy.

Here’s how you can get clients for your social media marketing agency on social media platforms.

• Step #1 — Optimize Your Agency’s Social Media Profiles
• Step #2 — Join Relevant Social Media Groups
• Step #3 — Post Valuable Content Regularly
• Step #4 — Actively Engage with Your Audience
• Step #5 — Collaborate with Influencers
• Step #6 — Offer Special Promotions and Discounts
• Step #7 — Run Targeted Social Media Ad Campaigns
• Step #8 — Monitor the Performance of Your Efforts
• Step #9 — Adjust Your Strategy Based on Data-Driven Insights

Step #1 — Optimize Your Agency’s Social Media Profiles

If you want to get new clients for your SMMA via social media, the first thing you should do is optimize your agency’s social profiles.

When someone visits your SMMA’s social media profile, you want to leave them with a good first impression.

Here are a couple of tips to properly optimize your agency’s social media profiles:

• Profile Photo — Use a high-quality, professional photo that represents your brand as well as your profile picture.

• Cover Image — Your cover image is valuable real estate. Use it to showcase your services with visually appealing graphics, team photos, or images related to your niche.

• Bio — Write a short but compelling paragraph summarizing your agency’s offerings and expertise. Include keywords clients may search for. Add a link to your website.

• Testimonials — Highlight praises and testimonials from your happy clients using the pinned post feature to establish your agency as a trustworthy brand.

Optimizing your social media profile is important because when you start your outreach, your prospects are highly likely to visit your agency’s social media page.

If you have optimized your agency’s social media profiles, it will give your prospects a good sense of your expertise when they visit your profiles.

Step #2 — Join Relevant Social Media Groups

After optimizing your agency’s social media profiles, start searching for and joining social media groups and communities where your prospects are likely to hang out.

But before joining, make sure to take some time to observe the conversations and dynamics of the group before actively participating. This will help you understand the etiquette and expectations of the community.

Then, start engaging in discussions by providing thoughtful comments and insights. You can share your knowledge and experience but avoid blatantly self-promoting.

Remember, the goal is to provide value to the community first and position yourself as a subject matter expert.

Though you can certainly reference your background and services wherever it’s appropriate, it’s best to focus primarily on educating the community with your expertise.

This will help you establish yourself as an expert and build relationships with potential clients.

Step #3 — Post Valuable Content Regularly

Now that you have identified your target audience and created a social media presence, it’s time to start posting valuable content regularly.

This is a crucial step in building your brand and attracting potential clients to your SMMA.

The key to success here is to post content that is relevant, engaging, and valuable to your target audience.

This could include:

• Industry news
• Tips and tricks
• Case studies
• Success stories
• Reels
• Videos
• Infographics

…and more.

Make sure to mix up your content to keep your audience interested and engaged.

One way to ensure that your content is valuable is to conduct research and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in your industry. This will help you create content that is both informative and relevant to your target audience.

Another important factor to consider is the frequency of your posts. While it’s important to post regularly, you don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too much content.

A good rule of thumb is to post at least once a day on each platform, but no more than three times a day.

Lastly, make sure to track your engagement metrics and adjust your content strategy accordingly. This will help you identify what types of content are resonating with your audience and what needs to be improved.

Step #4 — Actively Engage with Your Audience

One of the keys to success in social media marketing is to actively engage with your audience. This means responding to comments, messages and mentions in a timely and friendly manner.

By doing so, you can build relationships with your followers and establish trust with potential clients.

Here are some tips for engaging with your audience on social media:

• Respond promptly — Make sure to respond to comments, messages, and mentions as soon as possible. This shows your followers that you value their input and are interested in what they have to say.

• Be friendly and personable — When responding to comments, messages, and mentions, be sure to use a friendly and personable tone. This will help you build rapport with your followers and make them feel more comfortable engaging with you.

• Ask questions — Asking questions is a great way to encourage engagement from your followers. You can ask for their opinions on a particular topic or ask them to share their experiences related to your industry.

• Monitor your mentions — Make sure to monitor your mentions on social media so that you can respond to any comments or questions directed at you. This will help you stay on top of your social media presence and ensure that you don’t miss any important interactions with your followers.

Step #5 — Collaborate with Influencers

Collaborating with social media influencers can be a great way to get more exposure for your SMMA and attract new clients.

Influencers have a large following on social media, and their followers trust their recommendations. By partnering with an influencer, you can tap into their audience and promote your services to potential clients.

To collaborate with an influencer, you need to find someone who is a good fit for your brand and your target audience. Look for influencers who have a similar target audience as you and who are active on the social media platforms that you want to target.

Once you have identified potential influencers, reach out to them with a proposal for collaboration. You can offer to provide them with your services for free in exchange for them promoting your brand to their followers.

Alternatively, you can offer them a commission for any new clients that they refer to you.

When collaborating with an influencer, it’s important to be clear about your expectations and goals. Make sure that you both agree on the terms of the collaboration, including the type of content that will be created and the timeline for the promotion.

The goal is finding win-win ways to work together that help the influencer create content and build your brand’s exposure at the same time.

As long as the influencer discloses your sponsorship and follows FTC guidelines, this type of marketing collaboration allows you to ethically access their follower base.

Lastly, make sure to partner with influencers who authentically like your products and brand. Their followers will be able to tell if the recommendations seem forced or fake.

Step #6 — Offer Special Promotions and Discounts

Another way to attract new clients for your SMMA is by offering special promotions and discounts.

This strategy can help you stand out from your competitors and incentivize potential clients to choose your SMMA services over others.

Here are some ideas for special promotions and discounts that you can offer:

• Limited-time discounts — Offering a limited-time discount can create a sense of urgency and encourage potential clients to act quickly. You can offer a percentage off your services or a set dollar amount off the total price.

• Referral discounts — Encourage your current clients to refer new clients to your SMMA services by offering a referral discount. This can be a win-win situation for both parties, as your current clients can receive a discount on their next service and you can gain new clients.

• Bundle discounts — Offer discounts for clients who purchase multiple services from your SMMA agency. This can incentivize clients to take advantage of more of your services and can increase your revenue.

• Free trial periods — Offer a free trial period for your services to allow potential clients to experience what you have to offer. This can help build trust and confidence in your services.

Remember to be clear about the terms and conditions of your promotions and discounts, including expiration dates and any limitations or restrictions.

Be transparent about the value of your services and how your promotions and discounts can benefit potential clients.

Step #7 — Run Targeted Social Media Ad Campaigns

Social media advertising is a powerful tool for generating leads and acquiring new clients. When you run targeted social media ad campaigns, you can easily reach potential clients who may not have found you otherwise.

But before running your ad campaign, it’s crucial to define your target audience. This means identifying the demographics, interests, and behaviors of the people you want to reach.

With this information, you can create ads that speak directly to your target audience and increase the likelihood of conversion.

When creating your ad, make sure to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that directs the user to take the next step. This could be filling out a form, booking a call, or visiting your website.

The CTA should be prominent and easy to find, so users know exactly what action to take.

Most importantly, keep in mind that social media advertising can be costly, so it’s crucial to set a budget and monitor your spending closely. You don’t want to overspend and drain your resources without seeing a return on investment.

Start small and test different ad formats and targeting options to see what works best for your business.

Step #8 — Monitor the Performance of Your Efforts

If you’ve implemented the above social media strategy and successfully landed some new clients for your SMMA, congratulations!

However, your job doesn’t end here.

It’s essential to monitor the performance of your efforts to ensure that you’re achieving your goals and meeting your client’s expectations.

One way to track your performance is by using social media analytics tools. These tools can provide you with valuable insights into your social media accounts’ performance, such as engagement rates, reach, and follower growth.

Another way to monitor your performance is by setting up KPIs (key performance indicators).

KPIs are measurable goals that you set for your social media accounts, such as increasing your follower count by 10% or generating 50 leads per month.

It’s also essential to communicate regularly with your clients and provide them with progress reports. These reports should include the KPIs you’ve set, your progress towards achieving them, and any changes you’ve made to your strategy.

Step #9 — Adjust Your Strategy Based on Data-Driven Insights

Now that you have been implementing your social media marketing strategy for some time, it’s important to take a step back and analyze the data to see how your efforts are performing.

This will help you identify what’s working well and what’s not, and make adjustments to optimize your results.

One important metric to track is conversion rate, which measures how many of your social media followers are taking a desired action, such as filling out a contact form or making a purchase.

When you analyze this data, you can easily identify any barriers or friction points that may be preventing your audience from converting, and make adjustments to your strategy to address these issues.

In addition, it’s also important to keep an eye on the KPIs of your social media ads such as click-through rate and cost per click.

Based on these insights, you can make necessary adjustments to your ad targeting and messaging to improve your results.

How to Get Clients for SMMA via Business Partnerships — Step-by-Step Process

Partnering up with other businesses is a smart way to get more clients for your SMMA. It widens your reach and can help you boost your credibility, especially if you partner with a more established business.

When you team up with businesses that complement your services, you can share clients and even give each other referrals.

It can be a win-win strategy for both the businesses involved.

If you want to get new clients for your SMMA using the business partnership approach, here are the steps you can follow:

• Step #1 — Identify Your Ideal Business Partners
• Step #2 — Research Potential Partners
• Step #3 — Build Your Agency’s Credibility
• Step #4 — Create a Compelling Value Proposition
• Step #5 — Initiate Contact with Potential Partners
• Step #6 — Offer Exclusive Pricing to Your Partner’s Clients
• Step #7 — Measure Partnership Success
• Step #8 — Explore Partnership Expansion Opportunities
• Step #9 — Showcase Partnership Success to Inspire More Potential Partners

Step #1 — Identify Your Ideal Business Partners

The first step in building successful business partnerships is to identify your ideal partners.

Here are some potential partners for your SMMA:

• Web design and development agencies
• Local marketing agencies
• PR agencies
• SEO agencies

These types of agencies likely get clients needing help with social media marketing. They can refer those clients to your SMMA since social media complements their core services.

While these are just a few types of agencies we’ve added as examples, you can partner with other relevant types of businesses as well.

The key is to find relevant businesses to work with.

Step #2 — Research Potential Partners

Now that you have identified your ideal client and have a clear understanding of what they need, it’s time to research potential partners.

Your goal is to find businesses that complement your services and share your target audience.

Start by making a list of potential partners. You can use search engines, social media platforms, and business directories to find businesses in your niche.

Once you have a list of potential partners, analyze certain aspects to see if a business is the right fit for your agency.

For example, if the potential partner has strong relationships with your ideal target clients, is transparent and willing to collaborate, and has a good reputation with a solid client base, then you can certainly consider forming a partnership with them.

On the other hand, if a potential partner doesn’t share the same target clients as your agency, has a bad industry reputation, or unhappy clients, you should definitely avoid partnering with such businesses.

Remember, building partnerships takes time and effort.

Don’t expect to find the perfect partner overnight. Keep networking and building relationships, and eventually, you will find the right partner for your business.

Step #3 — Build Your Agency’s Credibility

One of the most important things when it comes to building profitable business partnerships is building credibility.

You want to showcase your agency’s expertise, success stories, and unique selling points (USPs) to potential business partners. This will help you establish trust and confidence in your services, which can lead to long-term partnerships.

Here are a few ways to build your agency’s credibility:

1. Highlight Your Unique Selling Points (USPs)

Your USPs are what sets your agency apart from the competition. It’s what makes you unique and valuable to potential business partners.

When building partnerships, it’s important to highlight your USPs to show why your agency is the best choice for their needs.

For example, if your agency specializes in social media marketing for e-commerce businesses, emphasize that you have extensive experience in this area and can help their clients grow their social media presence.

2. Showcase Your Agency’s Expertise and Success Stories

Another way to build credibility is by showcasing your agency’s expertise and success stories. Potential partners want to see that you have a proven track record of delivering results.

Consider creating case studies or testimonials from past clients to demonstrate your agency’s capabilities.

You can also highlight any industry awards or recognition your agency has received to further establish your credibility.

3. Create a Professional Portfolio of Past Work

Finally, creating a professional portfolio of your agency’s past work is crucial for building credibility.

It allows potential partners to see the quality of your work and the results you’ve achieved for past clients. While you’re at it, be sure to include a variety of projects that showcase your agency’s range of skills and expertise.

In addition, you can also use this portfolio to demonstrate your ability to work with businesses in a variety of industries.

Step #4 — Create a Compelling Value Proposition

Now that you have identified your potential partners, it’s time to create a compelling value proposition that will entice them to work with you.

A value proposition is a statement that explains what your agency can offer to potential partners and why they should choose to work with you.

To create a compelling value proposition, you need to highlight the benefits of a partnership for their business. Think about how your services can help them achieve their goals and solve their pain points.

It’s also important to create tailored proposals for each potential partner.

Take the time to research their business and understand their unique needs and challenges. This will help you create a proposal that is personalized and relevant to their specific situation.

When creating your value proposition, keep in mind that it should be clear, concise, and easy to understand.

Avoid using technical jargon or buzzwords that may confuse your potential partners. Instead, focus on the tangible benefits that your agency can offer and how it can help them achieve their business goals.

Step #5 — Initiate Contact with Potential Partners

Now, start making a list of potential partners that could benefit from your services and would be a good fit for your agency.

Search online directories, go to industry events, or drive around local areas to find potential partners. Look for companies that serve clients who might also need social media marketing services but don’t have an in-house team.

Once you’ve built your prospect list, do some research on each one before reaching out. Check out their existing social media pages and online presence to customize your pitch. Then, figure out who the decision maker is for marketing at each company.

Contact them directly through a cold email, LinkedIn message, or cold call, and quickly explain who you are and what your agency does.

Most importantly, make sure to emphasize how partnering with your SMMA can help them grow their client base.

Step #6 — Offer Exclusive Pricing to Your Partner’s Clients

Giving special offers to your business partner’s customers is a great way to attract joint clients.

This helps you and your partner expand each other’s reach by tapping into each other’s customer and contact bases to extend marketing and sales efforts to new audiences.

Plus, serving a client together allows partners to provide integrated solutions under one roof, delivering more value through bundled products/services. This can be very appealing to clients.

To do this, you need to create exclusive discounted pricing on your services for any client referred by your partner’s company. This gives their customers an incentive to also work with your agency.

You can also bundle your services together with your partner’s offerings to create a complete package deal.

For example, a web design agency could offer “Website Design + Social Media Marketing Setup” combo deals with your SMMA.

Promote these special deals and packages on your website, social media, and any joint marketing materials with your partner.

Make sure their customers know about the pricing benefits you’re offering them.

You can even consider offering the partner company a small commission for any of their referred clients who become ongoing customers. This gives your partner an added monetary incentive to send business your way.

Step #7 — Measure Partnership Success

When you’re in a business partnership, it’s important to measure the results of your business partnerships so you can see which ones are most worthwhile.

Track metrics like:

• Leads generated — Count how many potential new clients your partners refer to you. See which partners send you the most leads.

• Conversions — Out of the leads sent, monitor how many actually convert into paying clients for your SMMA. Calculate your overall conversion rate.

• Revenue — Add up the revenue you gain from clients acquired through your partners. See which partnerships bring in the highest revenue.

To do this, you can simply set up a spreadsheet to monitor partnerships over time. Update it each month with new leads, conversions, and revenue from each partner.

Step #8 — Explore Partnership Expansion Opportunities

Once you have some successful partnerships up and running, look for ways to expand them over time.

Ask your current partners if they have any other connections that could be good partners for your SMMA. Leverage their networks to find complementary companies you haven’t approached yet.

Check in with your partners periodically to see if they have new services, offerings, or target markets you could collaborate on together.

Additionally, you can also consider running promotions across multiple partner brands, bundled deals, or co-sponsored contests to deepen relationships and reach more potential clients.

In a nutshell, start with small wins first. Then, slowly layer on expansion opportunities to maximize your agency partnerships over time.

Step #9 — Showcase Partnership Success to Inspire More Potential Partners

Last but not least, you can also get new clients for your SMMA by showcasing the success of your existing partnerships.

When you have examples of successful partnerships, you can use them in your marketing to attract more potential partners.

Here are some ways to showcase your successful partnerships:

Create a dedicated partnerships page: You can showcase companies you work with now & highlight the key benefits each partner gets from collaborating with you on your partnerships page.

Showcase success stories on your social media channels: Tag and thank your partners in the posts when you’re sharing your partnership success stories.

Having concrete examples of win-win collaborations builds credibility and gives potential partners more confidence in working with you.

It shows you understand how to structure relationships that add value for both parties. When prospects see you already have thriving partnerships, they will be more eager to become one too.

Ready to Acquire New Clients for Your SMMA?

Acquiring new clients for your social media marketing agency consistently is key to keeping it profitable for years to come.

As you have just learned, there are several effective ways for a social media marketing agency to gain new clients.

The most successful approaches often involve directly reaching out to potential clients through cold email outreach and social media messaging.

Additionally, building partnerships with complementary businesses can also be a great way to get referrals and expand your client base.

Remember, the road to getting clients for your social media marketing agency may be challenging.

But if you use just these three channels effectively, you can rest assured that you will be able to acquire new clients for your SMMA and keep it profitable for years to come.

FAQs

1. Who are the clients for social media marketing?

There are several types of clients that need social media marketing services such as consumer brands, small and local businesses, digital marketing agencies, and even enterprise organizations.

2. How do I find social media marketing clients?

There are lots of different ways and channels to find social media marketing clients. The most effective ones include cold email outreach, social media, business partnerships, referral programs, SEO, content marketing, paid ads, and so on.

3. How to get social media marketing agency clients with no experience?

If you want to get SMMA clients with no experience, start by managing your own social media accounts or volunteer to manage others’ accounts. You can also reach out to small businesses that are new to social media or don’t have the time or resources to manage it themselves. Offer them free or discounted services so that you can gain experience and build a portfolio. Finally, you can use that portfolio to promote your services to other businesses.