Does Your Agency Rely Too Much on Referrals?
Having grown agencies for 13 years now, one of the most common problems I see is that agencies rely too heavily on referrals and neglect other strategies to grow their agency.
Sure, referrals are great, and I’m not saying you should ditch them; rather, you should implement additional strategies to grow your agency.
With 2025 right around the corner and businesses choosing their agency partners for the upcoming year, now is a great time to test out new strategies to attract more business for your agency.
Why Referrals Aren’t Enough to Grow Your Agency
Referrals aren’t exactly predictable, and they make it so you have to rely on your existing clients to land new clients. At the end of the day, if you’re relying on referrals, the bottom line is that they’re not scalable.
Once you’ve pleased a client and gained their referrals, the well runs dry pretty quickly, as your clients only know so many people. This can greatly hurt your business.
If you want to keep your agency small, referrals may be enough. But if you want to expand and grow your agency, referrals aren’t going to cut it.
I’m definitely not saying to stop your referral efforts. Just to think outside the box. So, let’s explore some additional ways to grow your agency outside of referrals.
Things to Do in Addition to Referrals
Now that you realize that your agency shouldn’t rely on referrals too heavily let’s explore some growth strategies that will absolutely help you land more business.
I have been implementing these strategies for my clients here at The Campfire Circle for the past 13 years, and they have proven extremely effective.
Lead Magnets
You may have noticed that things like cold outreach and paid ads don’t work as well as they used to when it comes to landing new clients. A few years ago, I prioritized lead magnets as the primary way to generate leads for agencies.
A lead magnet is simply something of value that is gated with a lead capture form. This allows you to capture important information, especially email addresses, that you can then nurture and convert into clients.
For a lead magnet, think of things like eBooks, webinars, industry reports, templates, etc. that resonate with your target audience. If you’re strategic with the theme of your lead magnet, then the majority of people who fill out your lead capture form are potential clients.
To get value out of a lead magnet, you can’t just publish it and call it a day. You have to promote it to bring a bunch of traffic to your landing page. A few ways include features in large publications, email blasts, newsletter sponsorships, social media ads, etc.
You then need to be strategic in your lead nurturing efforts. A good rule of thumb is to send four thought leadership emails after someone downloads your lead magnet, and the fifth email should include a CTA to book a call with your agency.
Features in High-Profile Publications
When landing a feature in a large publication, make sure it’s editorial, meaning it’s not tagged as “paid” or “sponsored,” or it won’t feel authentic.
When you partner with the right publisher, they will have relationships with contributors who will make your feature editorial. You will have the choice to write the feature of your agency yourself in the third person or give a writer talking points so they can craft a compelling story about your agency.
Here at The Campfire Circle, featuring agencies in giant publications is one of our most popular services. For your reference, here is the list of the publications we publish on, and here is the link to contact us to feature your agency in the publication(s) of your choice.
When it comes to the actual articles featuring your agency, don’t let it sound like a sales pitch. Find a thought leadership angle, talk about your expertise, and include case studies and other valuable assets that support your agency’s expertise.
Earning and Leveraging Social Proof
Social proof gives your potential clients a third-party endorsement of your agency, making them trust it and convert into actual clients. You can read all about it here.
Social proof comes in many forms. Usually, it’s a social media shout-out, a case study, a testimonial, or an online review.
Social proof doesn’t often happen without a little bit of coaxing. So, to leverage social proof for your agency, I recommend making a list of your happy clients and segmenting them into an email list. You can then drip them emails asking for social proof and even offer incentives, as a little incentive goes a long way since social proof is so valuable.
Once you’ve earned social proof, you need to leverage it. Place it all over your website, use it in your email marketing, share it on social media, and utilize it in your marketing materials.
Enhance Your SEO
Spending some time and/or budget on SEO efforts is crucial. Your target audience is constantly searching for agencies like yours, so you need to rank high in search engines.
However, if you’ve talked to an SEO specialist, it’s an expensive strategy and a slow build. However, there are things you can do on your own to enhance your agency’s SEO value.
I vote that you have an SEO specialist audit your website and give you ways to optimize it. It’s worth the budget to optimize your website, and then you can take over your SEO strategy. A big part of ranking higher in search engines has to do with the number and quality of your backlinks.
To quickly gain a bunch of backlinks, I have two services that I use:
SiteRail NewsPass: Their platform allows you to publish up to 60 articles per month on different news sites that have a high domain authority, so that these backlinks are valuable. Their fees are very affordable. FYI, 60 articles per month is a lot, so I write the first article and then head to ChatGPT and enter the command “rewrite this article so that it passes a plagiarism check: (insert entire article).”
Pinion Newswire: Their platform allows you to submit a press release to over 450 news sites like Forbes and Business Insider, and 80% of these sites allow do-follow links so that they can enhance your SEO efforts.
Embrace LinkedIn
It’s no secret that LinkedIn is the best social platform for agencies to land business. But keeping up with making connections, sending messages, endorsing your target audience, etc., is extremely time-consuming.
Want to know a secret that has been a game changer for my agency and my clients’ agencies? There is a LinkedIn automation platform called Dripify that allows you to set your target audience criteria. The platform connects you with that audience, allows you to set up flows where you drip your connections messages, and so much more.
Once your LinkedIn efforts are automated, you can focus on the replies you get to your automated messages and post thought leadership posts.
Strategic Email Marketing Campaigns
Did you know that email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent? This makes it one of the most profitable strategies that you can implement for your agency. The key to achieving this ROI is approaching email marketing the right way.
If you already have an email list of leads, segment them so your emails can be as personalized as possible. Then, drip them a series of four thought leadership emails before sending the fifth email, which should be a CTA to book a call with your agency.
We all want our email databases to be larger, so it’s common to purchase a super-targeted list of email addresses from a service like Lake B2B. The key to purchasing cold emailing lists is to establish credibility before trying to sell your services. Leverage things like blog posts, feature articles, case studies, industry data, etc in a series of emails before trying to get them to book a meeting.
Final Thoughts: Agencies Need to Stop Relying on Referrals!
I hope this post helped you see why your agency can’t rely on JUST referrals to grow your business.
Keep your referral efforts going, but implement some of the other growth strategies outlined in this post.
However, here’s the thing. I know that agency owners spend a ton of time doing awesome client work and often don’t have the time to implement growth strategies. That whole conundrum is why I started The Campfire Circle, an agency that grows agencies.
If you would like to explore additional growth strategies for your agency in addition to referrals, you can contact us here to discuss growing your agency. We love working with up-and-coming agencies, so our prices are very reasonable!
Which growth strategy outside of referrals is the best to grow your own agency? We’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below!
