4 Reasons Why You're Struggling to Find Clients For Your Agency

Robin Vander Heyden
Last Updated:
June 13, 2021

Here are 4 reasons why you may struggle to find clients for your agency:

  1. You don't have a strong enough value proposition
  2. You are selling to the wrong clients
  3. You have no marketing funnel
  4. Your agency website does not convert

Running an agency is difficult, and one of the hardest tasks is to find clients on a regular basis.

In this post we identified 4 reasons why you may be struggling to find clients for your agency and how to solve each of them

Let's get started!

1. You don't have a strong enough value proposition

One of the biggest problems agencies have is that they don't have a strong value proposition.

There are so many different agencies now that you need to need to find a way to stand out from the competition.

A good framework to follow is :

"I help [Niche] solve [Problem] by doing [Unique selling proposition]"

Let's take the example of Green-Pixel, an on-demand design service.

greenpixel valueproposition


Problem: Finding and interviewing designers is time consuming
Niche: Marketing teams and SMEs
Unique selling proposition: Flat rate design subscription, Unlimited revisions, money-back guarantee, cancel anytime.

As you can see, by niching down their services (Graphic design for small businesses) and having a unique selling proposition (flat rate), Green-Pixel is able to stand out from agencies that do it all.

If they approach a customer that has their exact problems, it will speak way more to them and they'll be more likely to close the sale.

How to solve this:

  • Pick a niche (example: Graphic design for marketing teams)
  • Narrow down your service offerings (example: Focus on a few services only)
  • Research your competitors (reading reviews is great way to see how you can do things better than them)

Once you come up with a clear value proposition, you'll also know where to target your marketing efforts.

2. You are selling to the wrong clients

Sometimes your service might be great fit for a small subset of customers, but not to everyone.

In other words: You are selling your services in the wrong market or to the wrong customer.

The best way to solve this: Understand who your ideal clients are.

You need clients who:

  • Have a need for your servies
  • Have the budget for your services
  • Are the right fit for your service
  • Are reachable (you know where to find them and market to them)

In addition, it's even better if the market you are selling to is growing.

Let's take an example: E-commerce.

A growing market means there will be more demand for services and products. As an agency owner, this is an opportunity to step in and meet that demand with your services.

How to solve this:

3. You have no marketing funnel in place

Another problem lots of agencies face is that they do not have a predictable way to generate sales.

The best way to solve this is to set up a marketing funnel.

The goal of your marketing funnel is to attract, capture, and convert those leads into paying clients.

Here is an example of marketing funnel:

Blog post / Ads / Social media --> Website visitor --> Schedule demo call --> Purchase service.

How to solve this:

  • Create content that helps your target clients
  • Add a lead magnet on your website to capture emails
  • Create a marketing sequence to nurture your leads into customers
  • Follow up with qualified leads via sales calls or personalized emails

4. Your website does not convert

Finally, you need to have a website that converts.

Your agency website has three goals:

  • Communicate what your agency does
  • Convey trust
  • Get visitors to take action

This means you must ensure your website has:

  • A clear tagline that reflects your value proposition
  • Social proof (Case studies)
  • Call to action (Book a call, Start a trial, ...)

How to solve this:

  • Improve copywriting
  • Create case studies (or make samples of work if you don't have clients yet)
  • Create a foot in the door offer to capture leads

Conclusion

Understanding deeply the pain points of your prospective clients is the starting point to "fix" sales.

Once you know the exact pain points of your clients you'll be able to have a better value proposition, a marketing website and copy that speaks to them, and will know where to direct your marketing efforts.