Although digital marketing has created opportunities for millions of young people, businesses and brands, it is still very difficult to get clients as a digital marketer if you’re a beginner, unless you find the right strategies.
This is the hard truth I learned after I first started as a digital marketing expert. It took me a while to land our first few clients. And even after I did, getting new ones after those ones was even more difficult.
It took a number of strategies, testing, trials and errors to evolve a framework that will eventually work as a system that can be used to create repeatable results.
Over the years, this system has been proven and shaped by innovations in digital technology to deliver cutting edge results as technology evolves. This system is what I’ll be sharing with you in this guide.
Get a Brand that Aligns
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If you want to get clients as a digital marketer, you need a brand. But you do not need just any brand. You need a brand that aligns with the needs of your target audience.
Lets say your core goal is to provide digital marketing for lawyers and is law firms for example. To appeal to this audience, you have to create a brand that aligns with their needs and proclivities.
This means you’re going to create a solid, visible and professional brand that is corporate leaning while mirroring the specific needs of legal brands. This is where you start.
If you’re targeting startups, churches, real estate firms etc. as a digital marketing firm, you also have to focus on positioning your brand to appeal to that audience segment, regardless of your own personal preferences as a business.
This brand alignment will have to reflect in terms of your content style, website design, search keywords and other aspects of digital marketing that will be most easily noticed by the target audience.
Build your website
Your website is one of the first places where clients will get in touch with you online before reaching you in person. You can’t afford to get new clients as a digital marketer without a website.
To create your website, you have to start with securing a domain name. the domain name should reflect your brand name and or the services you’re offering to clients.
After you’re done with getting a domain name, you’ll need a hosting company for your website. Focus on getting a reliable hosting that will keep your website active online with negligible down times.
When all of this has been put in place, you can now head over to build your website using your preferred framework. This framework can be a content management system either wholly or partially or you can write the code from scratch depending on what outcomes you want for the website.
Getting your own website will give your brand a home where you can display our services, create and share content and of course attract new customers but it is important you keep in mind to build a website that is mobile friendly, easy to navigate and useful to your audience.
Optimize for Visibility
As a digital marketing expert, I believe you already understand the role of search engine optimization in enhancing your visibility therefore it is very crucial you optimize your website with the right keywords if you’re planning to get new clients as a digital marketer.
This search optimization will start with getting the right keywords. So you want to sort out the keywords that best describe your digital marketing services and how your potential clients are searching for these services.
You can do this using the popular keyword research tools like Google keywords tool, Ubersuggest, Ahref Keywords tool etc. These tools gives you a more detailed insights into the best keywords that could work for you, based on competition and other factors.
After you’re able to sort out your keywords, you can then use these search phrases to optimize your website across all pages, starting with the home page.
Pay attention to use these key phrases on specific areas on your website like your Title tags, meta tags, meta description etc.
Additionally, use selected keywords to optimize each piece of content you create on your website if you want them to rank well on the search engine.
Create & Share Relevant Content
Content is still one of the biggest drivers of new clients. It is one of the most significant strategies that led to our first set of clients. And if we’re starting all over again today, I’d not miss out on creating and sharing relevant content.
As a new brand that’s just starting out, you need a decent digital footprint across the web. And one of the ways to get this is to create a good number of well optimized and relevant content across different platforms. This is very important.
And if you want to succeed in using content marketing to get new clients as a digital marketer then you have to create relevant content that meets the needs of your target audience.
Forget about creating content that merely meets the needs of your business. Use key metrics and research tools to find out what content aligns with the needs of your audience and the go ahead and create this.
Prioritize using your content to provide real solutions to your target audience. This will keep them coming back to your website at intervals and potentially converting as clients.
Avoid using auto generated content without perspective as this can hurt both your reputation and rankings in the long term.
Engage in Social Media Marketing
Social media has provided a unique way for brands and consumers to interact across digital spaces. You can leverage this to promote your brand and engage with your audience.
In fact, social media is a phenomenon. A lot of new brands are seeing improved visibility and getting clients right off these platforms, irrespective of industry.
It is also a great place to build credibility and expertise in a very shortwhile if you know what you’re doing.
I have always shared about how social media gave us our very first ever client. and we did not even have a large audience to start with but we had a reputation and people could also see our work.
You can use social media to get new clients as digital marketer but you have to be very strategic about it.
For instance, you have to show up consistently. Create and share content with your audience at intervals. Engage with them and keep the conversations going. In a nutshell, put in effort to build your social media platform and you’ll reap the rewards in terms of new clients.
Use Storytelling to Showcase Expertise
As a new digital marketing expert without much visibility, you need a lot of credibility and expertise if you want people to trust you with their hard-earned money.
And one of the best ways to get this is by leveraging the power of storytelling.
Storytelling is the strategic use of engaging narratives to tell create a powerful connection with a specific audience. It involves communicating a brand’s message, work, expertise etc. in a way to evoke loyalty, showcase credibility or build trust.
This is exactly one of the top strategies used by most new brands. Including even existing ones.
Now one of the important reasons why storytelling works for most brands is because beyond being relatable, it can create powerful emotions that could get your audience to take specific actions.
If you want to successfully use storytelling to get new clients as a digital marketer, you have to be very strategic.
For instance, you have to know your audience, what appeals to them and then create a powerful narrative that reflects on the needs of this target audience.
This means that if you’re trying to showcase your origin story, your brand purpose or even the results you’ve created for other clients, you have to tie this in to a narrative that aligns with the overall needs of your audience.
Advertise and Promote your Brand
If you’ve tried all of these and they are not working (which is nearly impossible) then you can use paid promotion to get clients as a digital marketer.
Wait! This strategy is mostly taken as a last resort. And sometimes, as a support for the other strategy but you don’t have to fail on the other strategies before you get to use this.
I mean, you can as well use this alongside the others especially in your early days. Also, keep in mind that this will need some upfront capital investment. And the results might be influenced by your overall budget.
Whatever be the case, digital advertising can give you a head start as a beginner but you have to be strategic about it.
There are many options you could use. This includes for example; Google PPC advertising, Social Media Advertising (Depending on the platform), third party advertising, sponsored posts, Banner ads etc.
Each of these have varying demands in terms of budget and ad expenses. You want to choose an advertising option that matches your budget and also one with the capacity to deliver a decent result for your brand.
Final Words
In spite of the competition, many new digital marketers have been able to gain visibility, attract new clients and create a niche for their brand and you can also achieve this; using these strategies.
But beyond what you just learned today, to get clients as a digital marketer consistently, build a system that creates repeatable results. That means beyond implementing these strategies, you’ll measure your outcomes at intervals.
As much as possible, you must remove the strategies that didn’t work for you, reimplement the ones that worked and then study your outcomes.
In addition to that, pay attention to where the market is going, track changes in your audiences’ needs, technology evolutions and reinvent your brand to stay on top of the industry.
Finally, gain the right training and mentorship that will equip you to not just get visibility but build a brand that is recognized globally by signing up for our digital marketing masterclass here.
Now, it’s your turn! What are your challenges when it comes to getting new clients as a digital marketer? Drop your comments below.
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