Agency new business: How to grow beyond referrals

For many marketing agencies, new business comes primarily through referrals, existing relationships and inbound enquiries. These channels often generate relevant opportunities because potential clients already have some familiarity with the agency's expertise. However, relying on them makes it difficult to control when new opportunities enter the pipeline.

This is challenging when agencies expand their teams, enter new markets or want to attract larger clients. A successful quarter may be followed by several months of limited new business activity, even when the agency continues to deliver excellent work. Building a more predictable agency new business pipeline requires a structured approach to identifying potential clients and initiating commercial conversations. Outbound sales provides an additional growth channel that allows agencies to engage relevant decision-makers before they actively search for a new partner.

In this article, we'll explore how marketing agencies can build new business beyond referrals, structure an effective outbound approach and turn their expertise into a more predictable flow of qualified opportunities.

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Why agency new business often depends on referrals

Referrals play an important role in the commercial development of marketing agencies. Recommendations from existing clients or professional networks create initial trust, making it easier to establish a relationship with a potential customer.

For smaller agencies, this approach can generate sufficient opportunities without requiring a dedicated sales function. Founders and senior consultants often manage commercial conversations alongside client delivery, using their networks to identify potential engagements.

As an agency grows, however, this model introduces several limitations:

• Limited predictability: Referral opportunities depend on external relationships and are difficult to forecast consistently.
• Restricted market coverage: Agencies primarily reach companies within their existing networks, potentially overlooking attractive customer segments.
• Reactive sales activity: Commercial conversations often begin when a prospect already recognises a need, limiting the agency's opportunity to influence the buying agenda.
• Founder dependency: New business generation frequently relies on senior leaders whose time is increasingly occupied by management and client responsibilities.

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How outbound sales supports agency new business growth

Outbound sales gives marketing agencies greater control over which companies they approach and when commercial conversations begin. Rather than depending exclusively on incoming enquiries, agencies can identify organisations that match their ideal customer profile and initiate discussions based on relevant business challenges. 

However, outbound requires a different approach when selling professional services. Marketing agencies typically offer expertise and capabilities that are difficult for prospects to evaluate before a working relationship begins. Buyers must develop confidence in the agency's understanding of their business and its ability to deliver meaningful commercial outcomes. Generic outreach rarely provides sufficient reason for senior decision-makers to engage. Effective outbound sales for agencies should therefore be built around relevant insights, clear positioning and an understanding of the prospect's commercial priorities.

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Moving from service-led to insight-led outreach

Many agencies introduce their capabilities when approaching prospective clients, often highlighting their experience with paid advertising, SEO or marketing automation before requesting a meeting. Although this communicates what the agency offers, it provides limited context for why the prospect should consider changing their current approach.

Insight-led outreach creates a more relevant starting point by connecting the agency's expertise to a specific commercial situation. This can be achieved through four approaches:

• Identify business challenges: Research the prospect's commercial priorities and highlight challenges that the agency has relevant experience addressing.
• Share industry insights: Introduce relevant market observations that help decision-makers reconsider their current marketing approach.
• Connect insights to commercial outcomes: Explain how the identified challenge influences pipeline generation, conversion rates or revenue growth.
• Create a relevant conversation: Use the insight to introduce a specific discussion rather than immediately presenting the agency's services.

For example, a B2B marketing agency targeting software companies expanding into the Nordics could discuss how regional differences in buying behaviour influence demand generation and lead conversion. This approach aligns with Challenger Sales principles, where salespeople create value by introducing perspectives that help buyers reconsider their current situation. For marketing agencies, demonstrating commercial understanding early in the conversation helps establish credibility before asking prospects to evaluate a potential partnership.

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Define the right target market before scaling outreach

A common challenge in agency new business development is defining which companies are commercially attractive. Marketing agencies frequently serve clients across several industries and company sizes. While this demonstrates flexibility, it can make outbound targeting unnecessarily broad. A structured approach begins with identifying where the agency has the greatest potential to deliver relevant business outcomes.

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Build an ideal customer profile based on commercial value

The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) should reflect more than the types of companies an agency has worked with previously. It should also consider which customers offer attractive long-term relationships and where the agency's expertise creates a meaningful competitive advantage.

Four considerations are particularly relevant:

• Industry expertise: Which sectors does the agency understand well enough to identify relevant commercial challenges and buying triggers?
• Company characteristics: What organisational size, geographical presence and commercial maturity typically indicate a suitable client?
• Growth potential: Which companies have strategic objectives that align with the agency's capabilities and service offering?
• Customer fit: Which client profiles historically produce productive relationships, successful delivery and opportunities for continued collaboration

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Identify relevant buying triggers

Once the target market is defined, agencies should identify situations that increase the likelihood of a company considering external marketing support. Relevant buying triggers include:

• International expansion: Companies entering new markets may require support with local positioning, demand generation and customer acquisition.
• Leadership changes: A new CMO or Marketing Director may introduce different commercial priorities and evaluate existing agency partnerships.
• Product launches: Companies introducing new products or services often need additional marketing capabilities to generate awareness and qualified pipeline.
• Sales team expansion: Businesses recruiting additional salespeople or investing in CRM infrastructure may need closer alignment between marketing activity and sales execution.

These triggers help agencies prioritise accounts where their expertise is commercially relevant and develop outreach based on identifiable business developments. By monitoring buying signals systematically, agencies can initiate conversations with potential clients before a formal supplier evaluation begins.

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How to structure outbound prospecting for marketing agencies

A successful agency new business approach requires consistent execution across prospecting, messaging and follow-up. Without an established process, outbound activity often becomes another responsibility that receives attention only when the existing pipeline is insufficient. This is particularly common in agencies where founders or senior consultants remain responsible for most commercial development.

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Create a repeatable prospecting process

A structured prospecting process should establish how target accounts are selected, which stakeholders are approached and how outreach activity is managed. For agencies selling complex services, the following activities are particularly relevant:

• Account research: Identify companies that match the ICP and investigate their current commercial priorities.
• Decision-maker mapping: Determine whether the relevant contact is a CMO, Marketing Director, CEO or another senior stakeholder responsible for the business challenge.
• Personalised outreach: Develop messaging around a relevant observation or opportunity rather than presenting a general service description.
• Structured follow-up: Maintain a consistent outreach cadence while adapting subsequent conversations to the prospect's responses.

The appropriate contact depends on the commercial problem being addressed. A performance marketing agency may primarily engage marketing leaders, while a consultancy specialising in commercial growth could find greater relevance with CEOs or Chief Commercial Officers. Understanding stakeholder priorities is essential because the same service can create different forms of value across an organisation.

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Use multiple channels to develop relationships

Outbound prospecting becomes more effective when agencies coordinate outreach across multiple channels rather than relying on isolated messages. Each channel serves a different purpose in developing relationships with potential clients:

• Phone outreach: Establish direct contact with decision-makers, explore commercial challenges and assess whether there is a relevant opportunity for further discussion.
• Email outreach: Share personalised insights and relevant industry observations that connect the agency's expertise to the prospect's business priorities.
• LinkedIn engagement: Build familiarity through relevant content, professional interactions and ongoing engagement with decision-makers at target accounts.
• Structured follow-up: Maintain contact across channels with messaging that builds on previous interactions and introduces additional commercial value.

For an agency targeting senior executives in professional services, LinkedIn engagement might create initial familiarity before a personalised email introduces a relevant commercial perspective. A subsequent phone conversation can then build on that context. The sequence should reflect the target audience's behaviour and the complexity of the services being sold, ensuring that each interaction contributes to a more relevant commercial conversation.

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Turn agency expertise into commercial conversations

Marketing agencies already produce valuable insights through client projects, market research and campaign analysis. However, much of this knowledge remains within delivery teams or appears primarily in marketing content. A more effective new business approach connects that expertise directly to outbound activity.

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Activate thought leadership through outreach

Agencies can use existing expertise to develop commercially relevant conversations with potential clients. By connecting industry knowledge to specific business challenges, thought leadership becomes a valuable part of outbound prospecting. Relevant approaches include:

• Industry insights: Share observations about market developments or changing buyer behaviour that could influence the prospect's marketing performance.
• Performance insights: Use experience from previous campaigns to highlight common challenges affecting lead generation, conversion rates or customer acquisition.
• Market expansion insights: Share relevant lessons from international campaigns to engage companies entering new geographical markets.
• Client experience: Use anonymised examples from previous projects to demonstrate how similar commercial challenges have been addressed.

For example, a digital agency that has identified changes in B2B search behaviour could use those observations to engage marketing leaders experiencing declining organic traffic. This connects content marketing with proactive sales activity and allows agencies to demonstrate their expertise through relevant commercial insights rather than relying primarily on credentials and previous project references.

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Use social selling to develop familiarity

Social selling is particularly relevant for agencies because their services depend heavily on trust and perceived expertise. Agency founders, commercial directors and senior specialists can use LinkedIn to share perspectives on challenges within their target industries. This activity can support outbound prospecting by making the agency more familiar to potential buyers before direct contact.

An effective social selling approach could include sharing relevant client insights, commenting on industry developments and engaging with decision-makers at priority accounts. For example, an agency targeting B2B SaaS companies could publish observations about common demand generation challenges during Nordic market expansion. 

These insights create opportunities for subsequent outreach that refers to a topic the prospect may already recognise. Social selling should be integrated into the wider commercial process so that relationship-building supports identifiable target accounts and potential opportunities.

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Build a new business process that extends beyond the founder

Many marketing agencies initially depend on founders to generate opportunities and close new clients. This approach can be effective because founders understand the agency's capabilities and can communicate its value with credibility. However, founder dependency can become a constraint as the business expands. The agency may struggle to maintain consistent commercial activity when senior leaders spend more time managing employees and delivering strategic client work.

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Measure the commercial impact of agency new business activities

As agencies invest in outbound sales, performance measurement becomes essential. Activity metrics provide visibility into execution, but commercial leaders also need to understand whether outreach generates relevant opportunities and contributes to revenue. A structured B2B lead generation process should connect prospecting activity with pipeline development.

Four metrics are particularly useful:

• Qualified opportunities generated: How many new commercial opportunities meet the agency's agreed qualification criteria?
• Meeting-to-opportunity conversion: What proportion of initial sales meetings develop into credible potential engagements?
• Pipeline value by source: How much qualified pipeline originates from outbound compared with referrals and inbound enquiries?
• Opportunity win rate: How effectively does the agency convert qualified opportunities into new client relationships?

Tracking these metrics helps agencies evaluate whether outbound is improving overall commercial performance. For example, an agency might generate more meetings through outbound while experiencing lower conversion rates than through referrals. This does not necessarily indicate that outbound is ineffective. It may reflect differences in buyer familiarity, the maturity of the opportunity or the qualification process.

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Building a more predictable agency new business pipeline

A clear target market, relevant commercial messaging and defined sales responsibilities help agencies create opportunities beyond their existing networks. The priority should be to develop an approach that matches the agency's expertise and commercial ambitions while maintaining the quality of client relationships.

Explore how VAEKST helps B2B companies develop their sales operations through structured outbound execution and sales enablement.

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