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Getting more clients is rarely a mystery for marketing agencies. Most agency owners already know the basic ingredients: identify good prospects, reach out, start conversations, demonstrate value, and close the deal.
The harder part is turning those ingredients into a repeatable system.
In this Mastermind Speaker Series session, Scott O’Brien of PPC Ad Lab breaks down a practical approach for agencies that want to learn how to get local marketing clients more consistently. His core argument is simple: better prospecting isn’t about blasting more messages. It’s about identifying better opportunities, reaching the right decision-makers with relevant information, and using real market data to make the sales conversation more compelling.
Prefer to see the process in action? Watch the full session below. Otherwise, here are the lessons agency owners can apply to their own client acquisition strategy.
How to Get Local Marketing Clients Without Relying on Volume
Cold outreach has earned a bad reputation, and not without reason.
Agency owners are constantly on the receiving end of generic emails that show little understanding of their business. The sender often doesn’t know what services the agency provides, who makes purchasing decisions, or whether the pitch is relevant.
Scott’s approach challenges the idea that successful outbound marketing requires sending thousands of emails every day.
Instead, he advocates for sending a much smaller number of highly targeted messages.
That distinction matters.
The goal isn’t to send as many emails as possible. It’s to create a system where each step increases the likelihood that the right prospect sees a relevant message and has a reason to respond.
That system begins with five fundamental ideas:
- Identify the right prospects.
- Protect email deliverability and reach decision-makers.
- Personalize outreach using meaningful data.
- Follow up across multiple channels.
- Use data to make the sales conversation more persuasive.
There is also an important final component: turning those conversations into clients.
Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Local Prospects
Before worrying about subject lines, automation, or follow-up sequences, agencies need to answer a more fundamental question:
Who should you actually contact?
Scott recommends thinking about prospecting through three variables:
Niche + Location + Problem
Rather than building a giant list of every plumber, attorney, roofer, or home services company in a region, look for businesses displaying a specific marketing opportunity you understand.
For example, an agency specializing in PPC might look for local businesses that:
- Advertise for valuable keywords but disappear during important hours.
- Rank below competitors consistently in paid search.
- Have competitors using stronger offers or ad copy.
- Spend money on search terms that appear poorly aligned with their services.
- Aren’t visible for high-intent searches that matter to their customers.
An SEO agency might take a different approach.
Scott shares an example of an agency targeting smaller markets, identifying businesses already spending money on PPC, and finding opportunities where SEO could become another viable acquisition channel.
The lesson isn’t that every agency should use the same prospecting tactic.
It’s that your prospect list should reflect the problem you are qualified to solve.
Start With the Clients You’ve Already Won
One of Scott’s most practical recommendations is also one of the easiest to overlook.
Think about your most recent successful deals.
Why did those clients hire you?
It probably wasn’t simply because you “do SEO” or “manage PPC.” Plenty of other agencies offer those services.
There was likely a more specific reason: a problem you understood, an opportunity you uncovered, a relationship you established, or a level of expertise that made the client confident you could help.
Identify that reason.
Then look for more businesses with the same problem.
That gives your agency a much stronger starting point than building a massive list and hoping someone happens to need what you’re selling.
Step 2: Make Deliverability Part of Your Sales Strategy
Even a brilliant message is useless if the prospect never sees it.
That’s why Scott treats email deliverability as part of the client acquisition process rather than a technical afterthought.
His preferred approach is deliberately conservative: use multiple properly prepared email accounts and keep sending volumes relatively low instead of trying to push thousands of messages through a small number of inboxes.
During the session, Scott demonstrates an example where an account is limited to around 25 emails per day.
The principle is more important than the exact number.
Protect the sending infrastructure while prioritizing quality over raw volume.
Email warming, domain health monitoring, and dedicated tracking infrastructure can all support that objective.
But deliverability is only half the battle.
You also need to reach the person who can actually make a decision.
Step 3: Reach Decision-Makers With Relevant Information
An email delivered perfectly to an unattended info@ inbox isn’t much of a victory.
For local marketing prospecting, Scott recommends identifying the actual person responsible for making or influencing the marketing decision.
Depending on the organization, that could be the:
- Founder or owner
- Marketing director
- Business manager
- Sales manager
- Another relevant decision-maker
The larger lesson for agencies is straightforward: prospecting quality depends on contact quality.
Knowing who you’re talking to also improves personalization.
A message to a founder may focus on growth, competition, and revenue opportunities. A marketing manager may be more interested in campaign performance, gaps in coverage, or competitive insights.
Better data lets you have a better conversation.
Step 4: Personalize Outreach Around a Real Problem
Adding someone’s first name to an email isn’t meaningful personalization anymore.
Scott recommends using information about the prospect’s actual market and advertising activity to create the reason for reaching out.
Instead of:
“Hey John, we help plumbers generate more leads. Would you like to schedule a call?”
the conversation can begin with something concrete:
Your agency noticed that the company isn’t appearing during certain high-value search periods.
A competitor is consistently outranking them.
Their advertising appears for an unusual or potentially inefficient search term.
Their competitors are promoting offers they aren’t.
Now the message has context.
You’re no longer simply announcing that your agency provides marketing services. You’re giving the prospect a reason to pay attention.
Use Data to Create Curiosity
One of the strongest themes throughout Scott’s presentation is using data to open conversations rather than immediately pitching services.
For example, an agency could tell a prospect that it recently analyzed advertisers in their market and noticed an interesting difference between their campaign and the market leader.
Then ask whether they’d like to see the findings.
That is a very different sales experience from receiving another generic agency pitch.
It demonstrates that you’ve done some work before asking the prospect for their time.
Step 5: Follow Up Without Sending the Same Pitch Forever
A prospect not opening an email doesn’t necessarily mean they’re uninterested.
They may simply have missed it.
Scott’s approach uses multiple subject lines and continued follow-up so prospects encounter the intended message before moving farther into the sequence.
The broader principle is useful even without a particular outreach platform:
Design follow-up as a journey rather than a pile of unrelated emails.
Each message should have a purpose.
If the prospect hasn’t seen the first idea, moving immediately to an entirely different argument can make the sequence disjointed. Once they’ve engaged, however, you can move the conversation forward.
Scott also recommends connecting outreach to other channels.
Add an Omnichannel Layer to Your Outreach
Your prospects don’t spend their entire day inside their email inboxes.
A contractor may spend most of the day on job sites. An executive may bounce between meetings. Another prospect may spend far more time on LinkedIn.
That’s why Scott recommends an omnichannel approach combining relevant touchpoints such as:
- Phone calls
- Voicemail
- Video
- Text messaging, when appropriate
This doesn’t mean chasing prospects everywhere at once.
It means using engagement signals to determine the next logical touchpoint.
For example, a prospect opens an email, then receives a LinkedIn connection request. Later in the sequence, the salesperson may make a call after telling the prospect to expect one.
The individual activities aren’t revolutionary.
The coordination is what makes the system stronger.
Use Market Data to Become an Authority
The same information used for outbound prospecting can become valuable far beyond cold email.
Scott encourages agencies to use market data to build authority within the niches they serve.
An agency could turn competitive information into:
- Market reports
- Podcast topics
- Sales resources
- Client updates
- Industry presentations
- Partnership opportunities
Scott gives the example of partnering with suppliers that serve the same audience as the agency.
Imagine an agency specializing in roofing companies.
A roofing supplier benefits when its contractors generate more business because those contractors ultimately purchase more supplies. Providing useful marketing insights to the supplier’s customers can therefore benefit everyone involved.
That creates an opportunity for the agency to become a valuable resource rather than another vendor asking for attention.
This is where prospecting begins to overlap with positioning.
The agency isn’t just saying, “We know marketing.”
It’s demonstrating, “We understand what’s happening in your market.”
Close Local Marketing Clients With Data, Not Just Promises
Getting the appointment is only part of the job.
Scott’s final major lesson is to bring the same data-driven approach into the sales call.
Traditional agency sales processes can involve preparing detailed audits before knowing whether the prospect is serious. Those audits can consume hours—or even days—of team resources.
Scott suggests flipping that process.
Instead of completing a massive audit before the sales conversation, bring useful market data into the meeting and explore it with the prospect.
Start with their goals.
Then look at their competitive landscape together.
Who are their biggest competitors?
Where do those competitors appear?
When are they advertising?
What messages or offers are they using?
Where does the prospect sit relative to the rest of the market?
This turns the presentation into a conversation.
And something interesting happens when prospects see competitors they recognize.
They lean in.
Suddenly the presentation isn’t an abstract conversation about PPC management or SEO packages. It’s about businesses they compete with every day.
Don’t Do All the Work Before the Prospect Is Committed
Scott shares an example of an SEO agency spending two or three days creating extensive audit documents for prospects.
His recommendation is refreshingly practical: save the heavy work until the prospect has demonstrated commitment.
That doesn’t mean arriving unprepared.
It means bringing enough insight to diagnose the opportunity and demonstrate expertise without turning every sales call into an unpaid consulting project.
Turn Client Acquisition Data Into New Revenue Opportunities
One particularly useful part of the session is Scott’s discussion of how agencies can use competitive data beyond acquiring brand-new clients.
For existing clients, the same intelligence can uncover opportunities for additional services.
For example, agencies can monitor:
Brand competition. Competitors may bid on a client’s branded search terms, potentially creating an opportunity for PPC protection or monitoring.
Competitive advertising. Tracking competitor messaging can help clients understand changes in offers and positioning.
Franchise territories. Location-based monitoring can help identify advertising that crosses designated service territories.
Expansion opportunities. Businesses entering new markets can use competitive intelligence to understand the advertising landscape before committing resources.
For agencies, this is an important mindset shift.
Prospecting tools and processes don’t necessarily have to live exclusively inside the sales department. The same information can support retention, upsells, strategy, and client conversations.
Consistency Is What Makes the System Work
Tools don’t solve inconsistent execution.
Scott closes with an important reminder about follow-up and consistency. A client acquisition system only produces results when the agency actually uses it over time.
That means repeatedly:
- Identifying qualified prospects.
- Researching meaningful problems.
- Reaching the correct decision-makers.
- Personalizing the conversation.
- Following up thoughtfully.
- Using data to demonstrate value and move the deal forward.
The technology can make those activities faster.
It can’t replace them.
Key Takeaways for Agency Owners
The biggest lesson from Scott O’Brien’s five-step system isn’t that agencies need to send more cold emails.
It’s almost the opposite.
If you’re trying to figure out how to get local marketing clients, start by improving the quality of every stage of the process.
Build prospect lists around real problems instead of broad demographics. Protect deliverability rather than maximizing volume. Find decision-makers instead of generic inboxes. Personalize messages with meaningful market information. Coordinate follow-up across channels. And when you finally get the prospect on a call, use real data to help them understand the opportunity.
That creates a more relevant sales experience for the prospect and a more repeatable acquisition process for the agency.
There’s another advantage: your team doesn’t have to carry every piece of fulfillment and client communication alone.
For agencies looking to grow without adding the full operational burden of servicing every new account internally, a white label digital marketing partner can provide another path to scale. At That! Company, we can support agencies during the sales process and communicate directly with clients under the agency’s brand—giving agency owners more room to work on the business rather than spending all their time working in it.
Better prospecting gets opportunities through the door.
The right systems and partnerships help you keep growing after they arrive.
