7 Ways to Get More Clients and Explode Your Agency Growth

You’ve got a really successful marketing agency with a great client list. But growth has plateaued and you’re hungry for more. The lead generation playbook that got you here is running out of steam. Sounds familiar, right?

Many established agencies hit a wall with their existing lead gen strategies. The low-hanging fruit has been picked, the competition is fiercer, and clients are more discerning. What got you to this point won’t get you to the next level.

Expand your horizons, get laser-focused on your ideal clients, and employ advanced strategies to cut through the noise and build a predictable pipeline of your dream accounts.

Many agencies hit a plateau where their initial growth strategies lose steam. This article shows you how to fix this, get more clients, and grow your business.

Get ready to skyrocket your client acquisition.

1. Vertical Growth

Your agency has established a foothold in your primary niche. You’ve built case studies, earned referrals, and become the go-to expert. That’s a fantastic foundation. But it can also become a growth ceiling once you’ve tapped out that market.

The solution? Identify a new industry vertical to dominate. This is not about abandoning your niche — it’s about replicating your success in an adjacent space where your skills are highly transferable.

Identify Underserved Markets

Analyze industries with similar characteristics and challenges to your current niche. Look for sectors that are growing, have healthy margins, and are underserved by specialist agencies.

For example, if you specialize in driving ecommerce growth for DTC brands, consider targeting B2B companies that are pivoting to online sales. The core principles of ecommerce optimization remain the same, but you can now access a whole new pool of clients hungry for your expertise.

How to Brainstorm for Vertical Growth

Expanding into new verticals can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re uncertain where to start. The GROW framework provides a structured approach to help you identify the best opportunities and create a clear action plan.

This framework ensures your strategy is goal-oriented and actionable, helping you transition into new markets with clarity and focus.

Demonstrate Relevant Expertise

Develop a compelling narrative and body of work showcasing how your agency’s unique approach is a game-changer for this new vertical. This isn’t about starting from scratch – it’s about translating your proven frameworks to a new context.

Audit your existing content, case studies, and resources. Highlight the insights and results that are most relevant to your new target industry. Reframe your messaging to address their specific pain points and goals.

Most importantly, secure some early client wins in this new space. Use your network, partners, and outbound strategies to land a couple of lighthouse clients. Document the results obsessively. These case studies will form the cornerstone of your vertical growth marketing.

2. Account-Based Marketing

Clients come in all shapes and sizes. You likely have a bucket of dream accounts that could be transformative for your agency – industry leaders with big budgets, exciting projects, and marquee logos to build your brand around.

The problem is, your usual lead gen tactics probably aren’t tailored to engage these big fish. Casting a wide net with generic messaging won’t cut it. You need to deploy an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy.

Define Your Dream Accounts

This requires brutal honesty and laser focus. Defining your dream accounts isn’t just about size and revenue. It’s about identifying companies that are an ideal fit for your agency’s unique value proposition and service model.

Create an ultra-specific wishlist of 10-20 accounts that meet the following criteria:

• In an industry that aligns with your agency’s core expertises
• Have a burning need your services can solve
• Possess the budget and resources to invest significantly in your offerings
• Culturally aligned with your team’s working style and values

Resist the temptation to go too broad here. ABM works best when you can dedicate significant bandwidth to each account.

Research and Map Key Stakeholders

ABM is a team sport. For each dream account, you need to identify and engage all of the key decision-makers and influencers involved in the buying process.

This typically includes:

• The C-suite leader who owns the top-line goal your services support
• The VP or Director who owns the channel your services would sit within
• The practitioner or manager who would be using your deliverables day-to-day
• Any technical or financial gatekeepers who would need to sign off

Use LinkedIn, your CRM, and your extended network to map out the org chart and reporting lines. This will allow you to surround the account and orchestrate personalized touchpoints from all angles.

Orchestrate a Multi-touch Campaign with Surround-sound

With your account insights and stakeholder map, launch a meticulously coordinated ABM campaign to build awareness, engagement, and relationships from all angles.

This is a far cry from your typical spray-and-pray approach. Every touchpoint should be personalized to the account’s business priorities and each stakeholder’s specific role and pain points.

A well-executed campaign might include:

• Targeted digital ads promoting a custom ROI report for their industry
• Personalized emails and LinkedIn messages to each stakeholder referencing the report
• A direct mail campaign delivering the printed report to key decision-makers
• Invitations to an exclusive webinar unpacking the report insights
• A personalized one-pager mapping your services to their identified challenges

All of these touchpoints are advancing one unified narrative – how your agency’s unique expertise can drive transformational results for their specific business. Surround key accounts in this way to build the awareness, trust, and engagement needed to earn a seat at the table.

3. Partnership Ecosystem

Despite all the talk of “growth hacking”, sustainable client acquisition takes time and is built on authentic relationships. One of the most powerful ways to shortcut that trust-building process is by tapping into the established networks of partner companies.

Identify Strategic Partners

This isn’t about swapping business cards at networking events. It’s about strategically identifying partners who serve the same target clients as you, but with a complementary offering.

Think:

• Technology platforms that your services help implement
• Consultants who advise on strategy but don’t handle execution
• Freelancers or specialists who handle overflow work or fill skill gaps for your clients
• Industry associations or trade groups your clients belong to

The key criteria is that they have trusted, established relationships with companies that fit your dream client profile. Partnering with these entities allows you to earn warm introductions and social proof that accelerate your sales cycle.

Structure Win-Win Engagements

Effective partnerships are built on mutual value creation, not just lead swaps. Approach potential partners with a clear value proposition for how your agency’s services complement and enhance their own offering.

Perhaps you could host a joint webinar educating their audience on an emerging trend. Or develop a co-branded eBook that provides a comprehensive blueprint for solving a shared client pain point. The goal is to deliver upfront value to their network while showcasing your unique expertise.

When it comes to formalizing the partnership, align incentives with clear attribution and revenue-sharing agreements. This could be as simple as a referral fee for closed business or as involved as a joint venture with shared delivery and client success responsibilities.

Co-market for Mutual Exposure

Once you’ve established a trusting relationship and proven the value of your partnership, look for opportunities to expand your mutual reach and credibility with some co-marketing initiatives:

• Collaborate on a research report covering the state of your shared industry
• Jointly author a column in an industry publication
• Co-sponsor a VIP dinner or roundtable for dream clients at a major conference
• Host a partner showcase webinar series highlighting successful joint client engagements

When you align your brands and expertise in the market gives you access to a wider network of qualified opportunities while solidifying your position as an industry leader.

4. Optimize for Client Expansion & Reactivation

It’s a well-known truth that it’s far more cost-effective to grow existing client accounts than to close new ones. Many agencies get so caught up in the hunt for new logos that they neglect the untapped growth potential sitting right under their noses.

Your current and past client base is a goldmine of expansion and reactivation opportunities waiting for you to tap.

Here’s how to systematize that growth:

Map Your Service Ascension Ladder

Audit your current service offerings and map them to a clear ascension ladder. This should illustrate the journey a client can take from an initial quick-win project all the way through to an embedded, long-term partnership.

For example, maybe you offer a one-off SEO audit as a low-risk entry point. That leads naturally into a 3-month pilot project to implement technical recommendations. Then an ongoing monthly retainer to drive traffic and conversions. Ultimately it results in a comprehensive digital transformation engagement spanning SEO, CRO, content strategy, and analytics.

Mapping this out clearly for your team helps ensure every client engagement is building toward the next level of partnership.

Conduct Proactive Client Account Reviews

Don’t wait for clients to come to you asking what’s next. Schedule Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to showcase the results you’ve delivered, uncover emerging challenges, and pitch new growth opportunities.

These QBRs should feel like a strategic working session, not a transactional upsell.

Come prepared with:

• Clear reporting on the key metrics that matter to their business
• Examples of comparable clients who have achieved next-level results
• Specific recommendations tied to their current priorities and future aspirations
• A compelling ROI model for their incremental investment

Continually resell the relationship in this way to maximize the revenue and tenure you can drive from each hard-earned client.

Launch Win-Back Campaigns for Churned Accounts

No matter how good your retention strategy is, you’ll inevitably experience some natural client attrition over time. But a lost client doesn’t have to mean a lost cause. In fact, past clients are some of your best prospects for re-engagement.

Implement a systematic win-back campaign to reactivate dormant accounts:

1. Segment churned accounts by reason for leaving (budget, results, service, etc.)
2. Develop new case studies & offerings that directly address each reason
3. Launch a personalized nurture campaign to share relevant success stories
4. Use a direct “we want you back” offer to incentivize reactivation within 90 days

Reactivation is often easier than closing a new account because you’re starting with some established brand trust and familiarity. Don’t let those hard-earned relationships go to waste.

5. Test Unconventional Lead Gen Tactics

As digital marketing channels get noisier and more competitive, forward-thinking agencies are finding success with unconventional offline and experiential tactics. These approaches can be a powerful way to cut through the clutter and make a memorable first impression on your dream clients.

Here are a couple of bold plays to consider:

Send Hyper-personalized Lumpy Mail

With everyone suffering from inbox overload, old-fashioned direct mail offers a welcome change. Up the ante by avoiding generic postcards for a hyper-personalized “lumpy mail” experience.

For example, you could send your dream ecommerce clients a high-end, branded package containing:

• A custom 3D-printed miniature of their bestselling product
• A USB drive loaded with a personalized video breaking down your unique CRO process
• A handwritten note from your CEO with a clear next step for exploring a partnership

With this kind of thoughtful, dimensional, multi-sensory approach, you’ll earn their attention and pique their curiosity in a way that yet another generic email never could.

Host an Exclusive Roundtable Dinner

Experiential marketing doesn’t just have to target your client’s customers. You can apply those same principles of interaction, emotion, and exclusivity to engage your dream B2B accounts.

One impactful way to do this is by hosting an intimate, VIP dinner for C-suite leaders in your target industry. Think less “rubber chicken” banquet and more curated chef’s table.

Find a buzzy venue, secure an inspiring keynote speaker, and then personally invite a hand-selected guest list of 10-15 executives. Make the event invite-only, but allow attendees to request a +1 for a fellow leader in their network to expand your reach.

During the evening, focus on facilitating genuine discussion and relationship-building. This isn’t a hardcore sales pitch – it’s about earning trust, uncovering challenges, and offering your unique perspective. The real follow-ups and next steps will happen naturally in the weeks afterward.

6. Rev Your Referral Engine

We all know referrals are one of the most valuable and cost-effective sources of agency new business. Clients who come in via referral have a built-in level of trust, close faster, and tend to be more profitable. So why do most agencies treat referrals as a passive “nice-to-have” instead of a proactive growth channel?

Shift that mindset and put a system in place to rev your referral engine and drive consistent intros from your network. Here’s how:

Plant Referral Seeds Early & Often

From day one, you should be planting referral seeds with every new client. This means consistently reinforcing a few key messages:

1. You specialize in helping [target audience] achieve [desirable outcome]
2. You have unique expertise in [specific industry or channel]
3. You’re always excited to meet more leaders who are facing [common pain point]
4. Your primary source of growth is happy clients introducing you to their network

Sprinkle these seeds throughout your onboarding process, client communications, and even your email signatures. The goal is to make it crystal clear what kind of referrals you’re looking for and how much you value those introductions.

Celebrate & Reciprocate Referrals

Whenever a client or partner does send a referral your way, make a big deal out of it. Call out their generosity in your team meetings. Send them a personalized thank-you gift. Feature them in your newsletter or social shout-outs.

Positive reinforcement works wonders. The more you celebrate your referral sources, the more referrals you’ll earn.

To keep the momentum going, you should also be proactively seeking opportunities to make valuable introductions for your clients and partners in return. Be a giver, not just a taker, in your referral ecosystem.

Run Referral Accelerator Campaigns

In addition to your ongoing referral cultivation, it can be highly effective to run concentrated burst campaigns a few times per year solely focused on generating a spike in introductions.

For 1-2 weeks, make referrals your team’s top outreach priority. Call, email, and text every single client and partner with a specific referral request. Highlight a few of your top dream accounts by name. Offer a time-sensitive incentive or reward for successful intros.

For example, you could offer to host a free lunch-and-learn training for their team on a trending topic. Or raffle off tickets to an exclusive industry conference for any client who makes an intro in the next ten days.

Making referrals an intense, time-bound team focus creates a sense of urgency and excitement that spurs action. Then ride the resulting wave of warm intros in the weeks and months that follow.

7. Build a Revenue-focused Marketing Engine

It’s easy to fall into the trap of drinking our own Kool-aid. We spend so much time optimizing our clients’ marketing funnels for conversions and revenue, but often neglect applying that same rigor to our own agency’s lead generation efforts.

Practice what we preach and start treating our marketing as a true revenue driver rather than a creative side project.

Here’s what that looks like:

Implement Full-funnel Tracking & Reporting

To make data-driven decisions, you need a clear picture of how every marketing dollar and activity is translating into revenue. This requires end-to-end tracking of your full funnel.

With the right marketing automation and CRM in place, you should be able to clearly see:

• Which channels, campaigns, and content are driving the most raw leads
• Which of those leads are converting to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Accepted Leads (SALs)
• The average lead-to-opportunity and opportunity-to-close rates for each channel
• The average customer lifetime value (LTV) of clients from each source
• Your blended cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and return on ad spend (ROAS)

This level of insight allows you to double down on what’s working, cut what’s not, and forecast the true revenue impact of your marketing investments.

To gain a clear picture of your agency’s own marketing performance and make data-driven decisions, use a CRM like HubSpot to capture and manage your marketing data, and then rely on a automated reporting tool like Swydo to consolidate that information, track key metrics across your entire funnel, and identify areas for optimization.

Train Your Team on Pipeline Management

It’s not enough to just generate a high volume of raw leads. For marketing to be a predictable revenue engine, your entire team needs to be aligned on how to effectively work and manage that pipeline.

Implement a clear lead qualification framework like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) to make sure reps are focused on high-value opportunities. Establish service-level agreements (SLAs) between marketing and sales for lead follow-up and nurturing. Train your account managers on expansion and cross-sell techniques to maximize client LTV.

Here’s what a well-oiled pipeline management process might look like:

With each team member playing their part and tracking progress in your CRM, you’ll have a clear picture of your pipeline health and revenue forecast.

Commit to Continuous Experimentation

Even with all of these systems in place, sustainable growth requires a commitment to continuous experimentation and optimization. Your target clients’ needs and preferences are always evolving – your marketing approach should be, too.

Dedicate a portion of your program budget to testing new channels, tactics, and offers. The more you can approach your marketing as a laboratory for learning, the more breakthroughs you’ll find.

For example, maybe you’ve always targeted the C-suite with gated white papers. But a new test reveals that mid-level managers are more receptive to interactive tools and calculators. Lean into that insight to capture a new audience.

The key is to stay agile and let the data guide you. Not every experiment will be a winner, but each one will teach you something new about your ideal clients and how to reach them.

Key Takeaway

If personalized outreach is your strength, dive deep into Account-Based Marketing by identifying 10-20 dream clients and mapping out their key stakeholders. If your network is your superpower, prioritize building a strong Partnership Ecosystem by reaching out to complementary businesses with a clear win-win proposition.

Don’t wait – start brainstorming your ideal client profiles and potential partners today. Even taking the first small step will set you on the path to explosive growth. These strategies give you the power to attract high-value clients and take your agency to the next level.

The agencies that thrive in the years to come won’t be the biggest, but the boldest. Choose your strategy and lead the way.