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By Harry Robinson•18th November 2024
Websites have become the primary gateway for businesses to reach their audiences. The demand for visually appealing and easily accessible websites was particularly encouraged after the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdown necessitated the importance of small and medium-scale businesses having an online presence too.
While this is great news for the web development industry, it has also ramped up competition among agencies and freelancers. To generate a steady stream of income, it’s essential that you adopt a comprehensive web development marketing strategy.
Web development businesses need to clearly market their products and services to their prospective clients. Adopting digital marketing strategies is the best way to stay ahead of the competition and have a constant revenue stream.
Wondering how to get clients as a web development agency? Read on, as we’ll be discussing a few of the top marketing strategies for web development agencies.
Digital marketing strategies for small businesses are endless, but they must be chosen wisely. Consider search engine optimisation to get your website to the top search results, cold-email to encourage more enquiries, or use targeted paid ads for a higher return on investment (ROI) from your marketing endeavours.
Depending on your budget and business objectives, you may favour one or several types of digital marketing strategy.
Here are some of the top marketing strategies for web development agencies:
How would you look for a web development agency? You’d Google it.
It’s essential that your website is amongst the top websites in the SERPs (search engine results pages), as the top-ranking page often has the highest click-through rate than those at the bottom.
SEO helps to generate organic traffic to your website, using specific keywords and phrases relevant to your business. Attracting high-quality traffic and compounding over time, this is a great investment for your business.
SEO is usually divided into three major categories:
On-page SEO: Creating blogs, new pages, or keyword-optimising existing content. This includes editing meta titles, meta descriptions, and adding in alt tags for images.
Off-page SEO: Generating relevant and authoritative backlinks from credible sources through guest posting and social media mentions.
Technical SEO: Optimising your website’s performance by fixing technical errors. Examples include page load speed, broken links and mobile responsiveness. These elements ensure your website is accessible to users and helps Google to crawl and index your website. A well performing website typically ranks better!
SEO (along with content marketing) is one of the top marketing strategies for web development agencies. It’s a cost effective long-term marketing strategy, often boasting a better ROI compared to paid marketing. The drawbacks of SEO is that it’s a slow burn and it often needs constant monitoring and tweaking.
Did you know that PPC has an ROI of 200%? This makes it a populardigital marketing strategy for small businesses in the web development industry. However, if you’re a newer company, you likely won’t generate traffic through organic channels straight away. To expedite the process of client acquisition, paid ads on Google and social media can be a great option.
Paid ads can be extremely targeted and help to reach a wider audience with better results. For instance, on Google, you can target audiences based on the keywords they’re using in their searches. On Meta platforms, potential clients can be targeted based on their interests and demographics.
Paid ads are data-driven, so performance monitoring is necessary to optimise for better results.
Email marketing can be a great way to reach new customers and stay relevant to your existing clientele. Cold emailing today is the equivalent of cold calling in the early 2000s. It’s an impactful and cost-effective marketing strategy.
A great email marketing approach is to send newsletters, updates, exclusive offers, and discounts as part of your email marketing strategy. This can persuade your potential and existing clients to use your services.
The most important strategy for executing a successful cold email campaign is to know when to stop sending emails. Begin the campaign with an introductory email and follow it up with a reminder. Send a maximum of two to three reminder emails and finish the campaign with a reminder and proposal email. Spamming a prospective client is never a good idea!
Some of the best B2B email marketing strategies that a website development agency can adopt are:
Sending emails tailored to the target persona
Segmenting email list based on where the client is in the sales cycle, e.g top of the funnel, has shown interest but not closed the deal, existing customer
Running A/B test to ensure better open rate
Using data and analytics to improve the campaign
Social media has become the number one marketing tool even for B2B businesses. Your social media profile can act as your digital portfolio, and by utilising it properly, you can maximise your reach and user engagement.
Social media marketing is always top of the list of digital marketing strategies for most marketers.
You can use your social platforms to showcase past projects, introduce team members, and share expertise, or keep your potential and current clients updated about your latest projects, certifications, and services. Some popular platforms that can be effectively used by B2B businesses are LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube.
Social media also allows you to share user-generated content, such as client testimonials, product demos, and reviews, helping establish your credibility.
Influencer marketing is a popular web development marketing strategy. Consider collaborating with an influencer who’s popular in the tech and IT space, whose followers are likely very similar to your target audience. Creative campaigns and recommendations from influencers can go a long way in getting your name in front of the right audiences.
If you’ve wondered how to get clients for your web development agency, the simple answer is to ask your existing clients for referrals. Word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals are an excellent strategy to get new clients while retaining current ones.
Usually, you should only ask for a referral once the client has finished working with you and is satisfied with your work. You can thank your clients by offering them a discount on future services or similar reward.
You can also encourage your clients to leave you positive reviews on Google and other social media platforms.
To execute a successful referral marketing campaign, it goes without saying that you’ll need to provide quality products and exemplary service. It’s also important that you incorporate all client feedback and offer a great product within the deadline. This can be made possible by using a website feedback and task management tool like QualityHive.
That’s a wrap on the five top marketing strategies for web development agencies. Depending on your business objectives, you may choose to use either one or all of these strategies to get more clients.
The success of a website development company depends on their product and work ethic. A company that delays feedback implementation, follows poor quality assurance practices, and can’t stick to a predetermined deadline will often end up with a bad reputation.
As a development agency, if you’re struggling with your workload and keeping on top of feedback from clients and other stakeholders, then QualityHive is the right option for you.
Our tool includes features such as video recording, automatic access to device details, and integration of your SDLC to an intuitive and interactive Kanban board, designed to make collaboration seamless. To learn more about our features and pricing plans, contact us today.