Agency sales: The ultimate playbook for winning business

Agency sales illustration with avatars and a handshake symbol.

Forbes recently coined the phrase “Agency Apocalypse”. Describing the effects of increased competition, the rise of AI, and macroeconomic shifts, they explained what we all know: agency life is hard, and getting harder. 

Hyperbole’s never been our thing, though. We believe re-evaluating processes and finding the best path through is far more effective. With plenty of agency challenges, there’s plenty of opportunity for innovation and new beginnings. 

One of the best ways to succeed during an economic downturn is by evaluating your sales strategies, and how they help you bring in and retain business. 

So in this guide about agency sales, we’ve spoken with experts in the field to pack in tips all about agency sales strategies, methodologies, and processes. They’ll help you counter dry pipelines and clunky lead gen machines, and ultimately make sure your agency survives (and thrives) in today’s economy. 

Here’s who’s on the roster:

“Sales” can mean different things to different agencies, depending on team size and structure, the agency growth strategy, and their sales channels and processes.

We’ve tailored this article to folks who work in sales at agencies specifically. But, a lot of what we cover will still be helpful and relevant to a wider agency team who may be directly or indirectly involved in securing sales for the business. 

Agency sales meaning

To start, let’s tackle some definitions and lay the groundwork for understanding the nuances of this topic. 

What is agency sales

This refers to the work of identifying and prospecting potential clients, generating leads, nurturing relationships, and ultimately bringing in new business that drives more revenue.

While strategic agency sales can refer to the process of another business acquiring an agency, that’s not what we’ll be discussing in this article. 

Why is agency sales so important?

Using agency sales to get more business through the door and empower growth can seem like a no-brainer, but there’s quite a bit of depth to its importance. 

Sure, extra money on the balance sheet is great but, with a bit of analysis, the impact a solid sales approach makes on an agency gets even more compelling. 

We’ve outlined six broad areas where it affects an agency’s success. 

1. New client acquisition 

New clients are essential for an agency’s success. Over time, clients may naturally transition to other agencies, move work in-house, or close up shop altogether. 

As such, at the most basic level, agencies need to continue to bring in new business consistently to maintain a feasible amount of income to keep the lights on.

Strong sales teams help identify and recruit the clients that power this. Plus, they pursue strategic business opportunities that expand the agency’s portfolio over time. More on that next.

2. Long-term growth from strategic agency-client partnerships

Agencies that forge strong, lasting relationships with their clients set themselves up for long-term growth instead of short-term gains. This is only possible when the agency’s sales process is cohesive and consistent. 

From the client’s perspective, a quality sales process makes them feel valued, understood, and on the right path to get the results they need from your agency. If every step in that process is enjoyable, and fit for purpose, they’re more likely to stick around, instead of going to an alternate provider. 

For the agency, this helps stop the stress of being in survival mode. Instead of constantly trying to make ends meet, a predictable flow of revenue from long-term clients means your business has more predictability. However, this is only achievable with a sales process that puts the client first.

3. Reinvestment potential

Winning additional business gives you the wiggle room you need in your budget to spend on improvements and reinvest in your agency, your employees, and your clients.  

Whether that means incentivizing your staff with bonuses or salary increases, or purchasing new technology and equipment, they’re all upsides that stem from money made via solid agency sales.

4. Less pressure on client retention

Earlier, we mentioned the positive predictability of long-term clients. However, a healthy agency needs a mix of established clients and a good flow of new ones coming through the door. 

If you’re only relying on retaining existing clients, you will put your business in a vulnerable position—especially if a high amount of revenue comes from a small number of big accounts.

By keeping your sales pipeline healthy, you’re ensuring a steady flow of new opportunities, and reducing your reliance on existing client accounts. 

5. Increased market share and competitiveness 

As your portfolio of clients grows in number, it will help you to grow it in size versus competitors. 

Each new client you bring in through agency sales is another opportunity to gain experience, case studies, testimonials, and logos that boost your credibility, and referral-based clients.

It’s especially useful for gaining expertise in a particular industry or service area, as this can help win future new business pitches and can help increase your client base exponentially. 

6. All roads lead to revenue

Everything we’ve covered above directly or indirectly leads to revenue growth.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any agency. And all businesses, for that matter. Without a strong agency sales strategy, your agency will struggle to secure clients and projects, making it difficult to maintain operations or develop your business. 

Revenue can also drive growth. Whether your goal is to grow headcount or headquarters, an effective sales plan that is increasing revenue will help keep your agency growth goals on track. 

Further reading: Interested in a deep-dive on even more ways to increase agency revenue? Explore how effective resource planning can make a huge impact on your bottom line in our free eBook:

A rectangle shaped banner in purple featuring a 3D book cover with a prompt to download an eBook about resource planning for agencies.

Agency sales process: An overview of the 7 internal steps to success

What is an agency sales process?

This is a structured series of steps an agency sales team can follow to convert prospects into clients. It typically includes multiple, well-defined stages that help track and guide the potential client’s journey with the agency.

Next, we’ll dive into some key parts of the process. 

1. Formulate the foundations for your agency sales strategy

An effective agency sales strategy requires a deep understanding of your agency’s capacity, offerings, internal capabilities, target market, and the greater competitive landscape. Start with some foundations: 

  • A clear and distinct value proposition
    • What sets your agency apart from competitors? This can be anything from specialized expertise to innovative approaches, or unique services
  • An ideal customer profile (ICP)
    • Define your ideal clients based on industry, company size, budget, geographic location, and pain points
    • Create detailed client personas to ensure alignment between your services and their needs
  • Select methodologies and models
    • Decide which sales methodology and model will help you meet your goals
    • We’ve covered agency sales methodologies and models in more depth here
  • An effective sales funnel
    • Map out your agency’s sales funnel, from the point where the potential client becomes aware of your business, to when they become a paying customer
    • More on agency sales funnels here
  • A defined set of tactics
    • Determine the balance between inbound marketing (e.g. content, SEO, social media) and outbound sales tactics (e.g. cold emailing, LinkedIn outreach, networking)
    • This may be based on your target clients and the roles and responsibilities within your agency team
  • Build your agency sales strategy around your agency type 
  • Choose a pricing model 

2. Identify your agency sales resources

Next, it’s time to think about the resources you’ll need to help execute your strategy. Here’s a simple breakdown of what’s required:

Agency sales collateral
This may include agency overview decks, case studies, portfolio, testimonials, client references.

Networking and outreach resources

Resources needed for industry events, partnerships, alliances, networking meetups.

Your team 

Well-trained sales teams, account managers, and support teams to handle client onboarding and client relationship management

Know you need a powerful sales team, but struggling to create or retain it? Take Sinead’s equitable take on sales team commission into account.

“I still get surprised by how many agency sales staff get paid a salary and a bonus instead of calculated commission. This is my opinion, but I feel the fairest and best structure involves on-target earnings. 

Commission can be calculated in a number of different ways, but at a high level, agency owners can map out their revenue goals and reverse-engineer targets around that. 

Depending on whether a sales team member is responsible for procuring new business, recurring revenue or up- and cross-sell opportunities, take the total revenue you want from each of those efforts. 

Then, determine what percentage each contributor is responsible for. From there, if they hit that number, tie their OTE to it. It’s a great incentive for better performance.”

If you want to know more about the people power you need to bring in new business and keep it, check out our article on the ideal agency team structure

Other internal agency sales enablement and process docs

Such as sales training, templates, processes, agency SOPs, objection handling guides, KPIs & metrics dashboards. These will help guide the sales process, build credibility, stay on-brand, create alignment and consistency, and ultimately close deals.

Agency sales tools and software

A solid agency tech stack may include CRM tools, lead prospecting platforms, email automation systems, and a LinkedIn premium account. These are all needed to support your sales processes.

3. Carry out resource management 

Once you’ve identified which resources and team members are required, you’ll need to schedule them. 

That requires specific agency resource planning and management to help you:

  1. Identify who is available for your sales and pitching team, and then work out how each specific sales task will be resourced
  2. Find relevant individuals outside of the sales org who may need to pitch in during the sales process (such as for ideation sessions, technical input, or deck designing)
  3. Understand which people have the right skills, experience, or location to handle each stage of your agency sales process (in addition to availability)
  4. Update proposals to suggest account/project teams that would be required to execute the work effectively, and to inform proposed project costs and timings
  5. Prepare for winning the business, by assigning and organizing teams to handle the services to be delivered to new clients. This can help you to find the right talent to fulfill the project needs, while ensuring a smooth transition during onboarding

To do all this, you will also need agency resource scheduling software. This will streamline how you approach your resource management processes. 

Resource Guru can help with this:

  • Scheduling that respects people’s time
    • The Resource Guru Schedule gives you a flexible way to manage your team’s workload and a clear view of who’s got space for new deals
    • A unique approach to clash management makes it clear when someone’s not got enough availability to meet project demands. This stops someone who is already fully booked being assigned to a new business pitch and burning out. That’s how to prevent the all-nighters for you and your team
  • Find the right people at the right time
    • You can group the Schedule by project or client on Resource Guru. This lets you isolate exactly who you need—and the tasks that take priority—when making bookings
    • You can also use custom fields to find the right people for the task at hand, including those with specific skills, in specific locales, or with specific experience
  • Project teams that keep everyone aligned
    • You can also create and plan for specific sets of people on Resource Guru using project teams
    • You can either set them up from scratch for new agency projects, or work with a team that’s automatically generated based on their bookings. You can then organize their responsibilities with clear visibility over who’s responsible for what

You can learn about these capabilities and more, hands-on, with a 30-day, free trial:

The #1 scheduling tool trusted by thousands of project teams

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4. Build your lead generation pipeline

Now, the fun part. Building your lead generation engine starts with careful prospecting. This is where you identify potential clients through a mix of inbound and outbound tactics, qualify them based on specific criteria, and ensure that they fit your ideal customer profile.

By leveraging the right agency sales tools, intentionally targeting prospects, and measuring key agency metrics, agencies can build a healthy pipeline of leads that are more likely to convert into long-term clients.

Barry shares Lane Media’s unique 10-point opportunity scoring system.

For each new business prospect, we calculate a unique opportunity quality score, based on 10 data points—including, but not limited to these five:

  1. Our relevant sector experience
  2. Whether we know the client decision maker
  3. The budget for the campaign/opportunity
  4. Will it take us forward as an agency?
  5. Culture fit—will our team enjoy working with the client?

In a year, we have won more than 20 clients utilizing this approach to help decipher which new business opportunities to focus on.  These new clients all sit within our identified ‘sectors of strength’—technology, food, e-commerce and charity.

We utilize a visual funnel to track prospects from Lead > Qualified Lead > Pitch/Proposal > Onboarding.

Our New Business Director, Paul Borthwick, leads on all new business and stays close to all newly onboarded clients for an interim period. In addition, each client is allocated a Board member as an “anchor” to continuously monitor client satisfaction.

5. Coming to a close

The closing stage is critical. This is when you officially convert leads into clients and secure new or repeat business for your agency.

It requires careful negotiation, clear communication, and a professional contract process. By handling objections, aligning on terms, and ensuring both parties are happy with the agreement, the closing stage is what will set you up for a fruitful long-term relationship.

Plus, a seamless transition to onboarding ensures that the momentum from the sales process carries through to the execution phase, increasing client satisfaction and retention.

Sinead’s advice for agencies struggling to close deals. 

To win more business, you need to understand where you’re losing business. Explore your ‘closed lost’ opportunities from last year. Do a bit of analysis. Try and understand why the deals didn’t progress. 

Of course, some deals don’t close because of changes on the client side (changes in the business, budget restraints, etc.) but that’s not always the case.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself:

  • Did we run a structured sales process, clearly defining next steps and expectations at each stage? 
  • When did the decision makers get involved? Was it too late? 
  • Did we go deep enough in discovery to understand the prospect’s challenges, limitations, etc?
  • At what stage did we discuss pricing? If the objection was around budget, could we have explored that earlier? 
  • Did we deliver our solution presentation well enough? Is it clear and digestible enough for new prospects?

6. Establish trust during client onboarding

Client onboarding begins immediately after a new client agrees to work with your agency. You’ll want to give this stage some extra love and care. Because it’s what sets the foundation for a successful and lasting partnership by ensuring a smooth transition from the sales process to the service delivery phase.

Effective onboarding not only helps manage client expectations, but also fosters trust and alignment between your agency and the client, in the end, resulting in more revenue in the long run.

7. Review, recycle, redo

Reviewing your agency sales process is essential to ensure that it remains effective and aligned with both your business goals as well as market conditions.

Pay extra attention to:

  • Your metrics: A decline in conversion rates, lead generation, or revenue
  • The market: A significant change in the market, such as new competitors, changes in customer behavior, or economic shifts
  • Your goals: A change in the above might mean it’s time to revisit your agency goals

If your review reveals that your processes are ripe for an overhaul, don’t hesitate to change things up. Keeping processes in place that no longer serve you will eventually have a detrimental impact on your bottom line. So even though it seems like a lot of work to make changes—it will pay off.

Agency sales models

What is an agency sales model? 

An agency sales model is a business’s specific approach to selling. 

You can think of an agency sales model as the overarching strategy an agency uses to sell its products or services. It encompasses the approach to the market, target customer segments, and channels used for distribution. 

Examples of agency sales models

  • Direct sales model (selling directly to consumers) 
  • Indirect sales model (utilizing intermediaries or partners) 
  • Outbound sales model (where the agency makes initial outreach to the desired client)
  • Inbound sales model (where the client reaches out to the agency, having discovered them first, usually via marketing)

Think of an agency sales model as the “what” and “where” compared with an agency sales methodology which is the“how”. We’ll cover methodologies in more detail next.

Agency sales methodologies

What is an agency sales methodology?

This refers to the specific techniques and tactics used to engage prospects, nurture them, and close deals. It provides a set of approaches salespeople can use when interacting with potential customers, including communication styles, questioning techniques, and value propositions. 

5 options for agency sales methodologies:

There are many established (and lucrative) sales methodologies out there. Here are five of the most popular ones: 

1. MEDDIC

MEDDIC focuses on macro factors and stakeholders that impact the decision making process.

MEDDIC is shorthand for the steps within the process: 

  • Metrics: What quantifiable results the buyer needs
    • Example question: “What KPIs do you want to achieve this year?”
  • Economic buyer: Identify who makes the financial decisions
    • Example question: “Who is responsible for budget approval on this project?”
  • Decision criteria: Understand the criteria used to evaluate solutions
    • Example question: “What factors are most important in selecting a vendor?”
  • Decision process: Learn the steps and timeline of the buying process
    • Example question: “Can you walk me through your decision-making process?”
  • Identify pain: Pinpoint the core problem the buyer wants to solve
    • Example question: “What challenges have caused you to explore new solutions?”
  • Champion: Find an internal advocate to push the deal forward
    • Example question: “Who is most invested in solving this issue within your team?”

MEDDIC puts a heavy focus on finding the correct people to sell to, and their specific purchase flow, as well as their buying needs. 

Best for: Agencies who target enterprise clients with large numbers of decision makers, and large budgets. 

2. Challenger Sales

Challenger sales focuses on educating the prospect throughout the buying process, and “challenging” their perspective. 

We can break this methodology down into three steps

  1. Teach
  2. Tailor
  3. Take control

Prospective clients who don’t initially understand the value of the services you’re selling can benefit greatly from the Challenger Sales methodology. 

At each stage, the agency selling their services should use insights to educate buyers, position solutions tailored to the prospect’s exact scenario, and take control of the conversation as experts on the solution.

Best for: Agencies who find it difficult to prove the exact ROI of their services (e.g. offline advertisers, PR specialists).

3. The Sandler Selling System

The namesake of this sales methodology, David Sandler, built an entire business around it. In fact, it’s spanned to 220 global training centers on the subject, such is its continued success. 

The crux of the Sandler System is early objection handling and developing a deep understanding of—and relationship with—the prospect. These are the 3 core principles of the methodology: 

  1. Agree on the process and expectations early
  2. Build trust and rapport
  3. Use “reverse questioning” to understand the buyer’s mindset

With this mixture of clear expectation-setting, relationship building, and detailed understanding of the prospect, Sandler Selling helps set you up for a long partnership with clients you successfully close deals with.

Best for: Agencies trying to establish retainer contracts. 

4. BANT

Standing for “budget, authority, need, and timeline”, BANT is a basic selling system. But, that doesn’t make it any less effective. 

This sales methodology revolves around getting an in-depth understanding of the variables that make a sale likely to go ahead. The first letter of each of these variables makes up the name of the methodology:

  • Budget: How much the prospect can spend on solutions
  • Authority: How well positioned the prospect is to make the purchase decision
  • Need: How acutely the prospect requires the solution
  • Timeline: When the prospect needs to implement the solution

BANT revolves around the idea of the prospect having a need for a solution, and the means to get it immediately. 

If you’re reaching out to potential clients before they’re in the right place to sign on with your agency, this process isn’t the best fit. 

Best for: Agencies working with inbound sales leads. 

5. SNAP selling

Just as agencies are busy places, clients have a lot to deal with too. Understanding this is the core of SNAP selling.

SNAP stands for:

  • Simple: Keep the process easy and intuitive
  • iNvaluable: Offer high-value solutions
  • Align: Ensure alignment with the buyer’s goals
  • Priority: Focus on what matters most to the buyer

This methodology aims to make the buying process as simple for the prospect to follow as possible. It’s a lower-touch methodology than the others we’ve listed, and places an emphasis on prioritizing what you can achieve for the buyer in a very specific way.

Imagine you’re a marketing agency selling your services to an e-commerce organization in the run up to Black Friday. 

You can be simple by promising to increase conversions by 20% for the two weeks before the event. 

You can be invaluable by positioning your approach to A/B testing, and how it protects ad spend. 

You can align with the prospect by tying your services back to their problem—e.g. “We’ll account for every dollar spent during this high-competition period so you can see exact ROI.” 

And, finally, you can show priority by making sure your campaigns are set up ahead of the timeframe in which you said you’d get results.  

Best for: Potential clients with decision makers on tight timelines. 

If your target clients work in any of the following industries or business types, that could also make SNAP your best bet: 

  • E-commerce (where profit generation has peak seasons, requiring immediate implementation of solutions)
  • Entertainment (where time-bound projects make client needs urgent)
  • Startups (where growth targets are aggressive, and decision makers need to pivot quickly to meet them)

A quick disclaimer

It’s important to consider how you use these methodologies, not just which one you want to use. Luke had this to say on the subject: 

Sales methodologies are best thought of as frameworks for selling, rather than box-ticking exercises. 

The main thing to consider is that the framework you choose fits the services you sell.

While these methodologies can be useful, the risk of following them to the letter is that the prospect can feel like you’re squeezing them through distinct criteria rather than being human, curious, and dealing with their needs with common sense.

Those are the real factors that build solid agency-client relationships.

Whichever sales methodology you choose to adopt at your agency, there’s a key component that can help you keep it on track. That’s the agency sales funnel, which we’ll cover next. 

Unpacking the agency sales funnel

What is an agency sales funnel?

An agency sales funnel visualizes the journey that a potential client (a.k.a. a prospect) goes through—from initial awareness of the agency, to becoming a paying client. It represents the stages of engagement, with the goal of converting prospects into clients. 

This is typically visualized as a funnel because a lot of prospects may reach the first stage at the top of the funnel, but only a smaller number make it to the final stage, converting into a paying client.

You may have heard the sales funnel referred to as more distinct phases (such as prospecting, qualification, proposal, closed won or closed lost). These stages focus on direct, sales-specific interactions. This may apply to agencies which have dedicated sales employees that will be across all stages of the funnel (from the top of the funnel nurturing them all the way through to the bottom). 

But, for the purposes of this post, we’ve gone a little broader. This is because we acknowledge that for other agencies, different funnel stages can involve multiple agency departments working in tandem to power the sales process (and in some cases, the dedicated sales team may only step in closer to conversion).

So, we’ll cover some sales tactics that make up each stage of a traditional customer funnel, but clearly mark what could be owned by different departments.

Bear in mind that tactics and owners can obviously change between agencies.

Sinead shares the difference between a good sales funnel, and a great one. 

Of course, the fuller the funnel (i.e. the more leads/customers you have at each stage) the better. But, make sure to have de-qualification criteria early on. For the sake of efficiency, it’s so important that you don’t spend time on prospects who aren’t a good fit. 

Know what industries you want to work with, and which ones you can can solve business challenges for.” 

The agency sales funnel, step by step

Diagram of the agency sales funnel showing the 6 stages: awareness, interest, consideration, decision, conversion, and retention.

1. Awareness (Top of the Funnel – TOFU)

Description: At the top of the agency sales funnel sits “awareness”. This is where potential clients first come into contact with the agency.

Goal: The focus of this stage is to attract potential clients, make them aware of your agency, build brand recognition, and start to educate them about potential solutions to their pain points.

Example tactics:

  • [Marketing]: Organic marketing (e.g. content marketing and blogging, SEO, organic social)
  • [Marketing]: Earned media (e.g. PR campaigns)
  • [Marketing]: Paid media (e.g. PPC, social ads, display ads)
  • [Sales]: Cold outreach, prospecting, and qualifying (e.g. LinkedIn/email)
  • [Sales]: Networking and word-of-mouth

2. Interest (Middle of the Funnel – MOFU)

Description: So, you’ve got the attention of potential new clients. At this stage, prospects are starting to show interest and are looking to learn more about the agency and potential solutions.

Goal: Now it’s time to deepen the engagement and nurture their interest. You can do this by demonstrating expertise, trust, credibility, and value. Educate them further and about your agency’s offerings  and show them how your services align with their needs.

Example tactics:

  • [Marketing]: Email marketing (e.g. lead nurturing campaigns, newsletters)
  • [Marketing & Sales]: Events, webinars, and workshops
  • [Marketing]: Free resources (e.g. guides, templates, whitepapers) 

“You might offer content as a service, but when’s the last time you did a content audit for your agency? Take time to understand the types of content you have for different stages of your funnel. How are they currently performing? Identify gaps to build better-performing conversion paths. 

Try to be consistent with your content, and make sure it addresses topics relevant to your ideal persona or industries.

My agency partners have seen super success with webinars. Together, we really try to understand topics that matter to clients and host co-branded webinars. Take a look at your clients, business partners and peers to see if you have similar opportunities.” 

– Sinead Goggin

3. Consideration (Middle of the Funnel – MOFU)

Description: Here, prospects are seriously evaluating the agency and comparing it to competitors. The time has come to highlight the agency’s competitive advantage, address any questions, concerns, or objections, and offer a clear, compelling proposal that highlights why your agency is the best fit to meet their needs.

Goal: Position your agency as a viable solution to the prospect’s needs, and showcase how you are better than the competition.

Example tactics:

  • [Sales]: Completing RFPs
  • [Sales]: Personalized email follow-ups, meetings, and phonecalls
  • [Sales]: Pitching decks and meetings
  • [Sales]: Detailed proposals or service offerings
  • [Sales]: Product or service demonstrations and consultations
  • [Marketing & Sales]: Client success stories,  ROI-based case studies, testimonials
  • [Marketing & Sales]: Product pages (e.g. product feature pages, pricing pages, industry pages)
  • [Sales]: Offering free audits or strategy sessions

4. Decision (Bottom of the Funnel – BOFU)

Description: We’ve nearly reached the bottom of the agency sales funnel. Your proposal is on the table and this is the critical stage where the potential client will make their decision.

Goal: Push the sale over the line and convince the prospect to choose your agency and commit to working together.

Example tactics:

  • [Sales]: Customized contracts and SOWs
  • [Sales]: Negotiations around pricing, timelines, or deliverables
  • [Sales]: Product or service trials, where applicable
  • [Sales]: Follow-up meetings or calls to address last-minute concerns
  • [Sales]: Clear and persuasive closing arguments

5. Conversion (Bottom of the Funnel – BOFU)

Description: At this stage, the agency finalizes all legal and financial details. Once the ink is dry on the dotted line, this marks the formal start of the client-agency relationship. The prospect becomes a paying client and the agency begins delivering services. Congratulations, you have a new client! 

Goal: Complete the conversion by asking the client to sign a contract. The goal at this point is also to make the transition smooth, solidify trust, and set expectations for ongoing collaboration. 

Example tactics:

  • [Sales]: Contract signing
  • [Sales, Account Managers & Project Managers]: Initial handoffs, onboarding, and team introductions 
  • [Account Managers & Project Managers]: Project kick-offs

6. Retention

Description: Post-sale activities are critical for client retention, ensuring the client remains satisfied with the agency’s work and opens the door to future projects, upselling, and potential referrals.

Goal: Build long-term relationships and encourage repeat business, identify upselling and expansion opportunities. 

Example tactics:

  • [Account Managers & Project Managers]: Regular check-ins and reporting
  • [Account Managers & Project Managers]: Performance reviews and adjustments to strategy
  • [Account Managers]: Client satisfaction surveys
  • [Sales & Account Managers]: Offering additional services or upselling
  • [Sales & Account managers]: Referral and loyalty programs

Agency sales strategies for different agency types

Naturally, you’ll have to tailor your strategy to the type of agency you’re running. While all the above are best practices regardless of the kind of agency you work at, there are some more nuanced considerations to take into account. 

Sinead tells us it’s best not to overcomplicate by creating different funnel types for different services. For example, the digital agency sales process should look slightly different than an advertising agency sales strategy, but not radically. 

Instead, she insists on customizing your tactics to clients, rather than trying new ones altogether: “Keep it simple. Understand what your client is trying to achieve, understand why, understand how they’re trying to achieve it, and you’ll understand how you can help, and what your marketing and sales plans should look like.”

By following this advice, you can leverage the intel you gain to deliver the most persuasive assets and advice at the right stage of the agency sales funnel.

Digital/marketing agency sales 

Overview of digital/marketing agencies

To better understand the nuances involved in a digital/marketing agency sales process, let’s first think about the nature of the work they deliver. 

Digital/marketing agencies offer services that are best delivered on a continual basis, like SEO or social media management. They also often measure performance using agency KPIs like increased ROI. In a nutshell, they typically target clients who need to improve their presence and achieve measurable results.

Recommended sales methodology for digital/marketing agencies: MEDDIC

  • Digital/marketing agencies rely on data-driven strategies, and MEDDIC helps qualify leads by focusing on metrics, decision-making processes, and identifying pain points
  • Since these agencies often sell based on ROI (e.g. lead generation, conversion rates), MEDDIC ensures they engage the right buyers with measurable value propositions

The digital/marketing agency sales funnel:

  • Awareness stage sales tactics
    • Blog posts and social media posts
    • SEO & PPC campaigns
    • Webinars
  • Interest stage sales tactics
    • Email campaigns
    • Case studies and success stories
    • Retargeting campaigns
  • Consideration stage sales tactics
    • Free consultations or audits
    • Proposals with results from previous campaigns
    • ROI projections
  • Conversion stage sales tactics
    • Contract negotiation
    • Retainer agreement setup
    • Onboarding process documentation

Digital/marketing agency sales pitch specifics:

To mirror the focus on long-term results that the above sales models and sales assets emphasize, digital/marketing agency sales pitches should focus on showcasing data-driven results and ROI. 

They should include measurable outcomes (think traffic and conversions secured for previous clients) and detailed analytics. You can also further tailor pitches with insights on the client’s specific market and target audience.

Creative/ad agency sales

Overview of creative/advertising agencies:

While their campaigns are often the most inventive, creative/ad agencies are equally data-driven, and their clients have grown to expect that. 

These agencies often target larger clients with high advertising budgets (think Pepsi, McDonald’s and so on). They sell big creative ideas that involve mass media exposure, brand awareness, and market penetration.

Recommended sales methodology for creative/advertising agencies: Challenger

  • The Challenger methodology is ideal for these agencies because it emphasizes teaching clients new perspectives, challenging their assumptions, and leading the conversation. 
  • Since creative/ad agencies often pitch bold, unconventional ideas, this approach helps them justify risks and convince clients to embrace innovative campaigns.

The creative/advertising agency sales funnel:

  • Awareness stage sales tactics
    • High-impact creative samples (video ads, OOH, etc.)
    • Networking and industry events
    • Awards and recognitions
  • Interest stage sales tactics
    • Portfolio showcases
    • Free workshops 
    • Customized ad sample packets
  • Consideration stage sales tactics
    • Strategy sessions
    • Creative pitches
    • Performance metrics and forecasting samples
  • Conversion stage sales tactics
    • Campaign contracts
    • Media buying agreements
    • Launch strategy plans

Advertising/creative agency sales pitch specifics:

As you can tell from the above, results sell. But, at the end of the day, creativity and emotional impact are what clients seek from these kinds of agencies, so that has to shine through any pitches your team makes. 

Highlight innovative concepts, showcase bold visuals, and present memorable storytelling. Use mockups or storyboards to illustrate ideas and convey a strong brand message.

Design/web agency sales

Overview of design/web agencies:

Design and web agencies operate at the intersection of creativity and technical expertise, delivering measurable results through digital channels.

Recommended sales models for design/web agencies: Sandler

  • Sandler’s consultative sales approach works well for design/web agencies, where clients may not fully understand their needs.
  • By qualifying prospects early and leading discussions with probing questions, agencies can establish trust, uncover true client needs, and avoid scope creep by setting clear expectations upfront.

The design/web agency sales funnel:

  • Awareness stage sales tactics
    • Portfolio (website showcases)
    • Social media (think visual channels like Instagram)
    • Online directories and reviews
  • Interest stage sales tactics
    • Free consultations
    • Wireframes or mockups
    • Testimonials and case studies
    • Cutting edge technology, including AI
  • Consideration stage sales tactics
    • Detailed project proposals
    • Project timelines with milestones
    • Cost analysis documents
  • Conversion stage tactics
    • Project agreement documents
    • Milestone payment documentation
    • Project kickoff agendas

Design/web design agency sales pitch specifics:

In essence, the sales funnel for web/design agency clients should include a lot more visual elements than the other types of agencies we’ve covered. 

As we said about other types of agency sales pitches, a good pitch reflects the desired outcome the client is looking for. For design/web design agencies, user experience and visual appeal are key.

Present sleek designs, prototypes, and user journey maps. Emphasize the seamless integration of aesthetics with functionality, and provide tangible examples of previous design solutions tailored to the client’s industry.

The evolution of your approach to agency sales

As your agency grows and matures, so must your sales processes. For example, what worked in the early stages—when agility (and perhaps improvisation) was key—will need to evolve into a more structured, scalable system to support agency growth at scale.

Eventually, your sales strategy should become more data-driven, your lead qualification more refined, and your client relationships more strategically managed.

So stay close to your agency sales process, adjust to market trends, and make sure to bring in the tools that can effectively support your agency’s growth—and maximize its revenue potential.

Eager to make even more impact, beyond the sales process? Dive into our in-depth eBook to learn the how well-structured resource planning can transform your revenue, with insights from some of the world’s leading agencies: 

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