I know it's a very open ended question, but I thought some of you who have created businesses in the digital space that have hit this mark might be able to shed some light on what to focus on and what to avoid.
You've got goals and that is the right first step. I have successfully run and now market and sell services in the digital marketing and web development industry. Our companies growth last year doubled the year previously and this year already is looking to do the same. So I've been where you are with a startup that's looking to hit it big in this niche.
There are a few things to consider when driving sales to a design/marketing agency:
#1 - Understand your universal metric. In most agencies it is billable hours. If this is the case know your costs (labor, overhead, fees, etc.) and understand your profit margin. Using a universal metric like billable hours helps you to easily and successfully make strong financial growth plans. Success and progress can be measured from this single metric.
#2 - Create a conversion funnel that helps you track your progress. If I knew that I needed 4,000 billable hours per year to hit my goal of $200k in revenue then I know that every month I need to complete 334 hours of billable work. That number not only helps me manage my sales but also my labor, resourcing, etc.
I would use the conversion funnel focused on the following stages: prospects > progressing > proposal delivered > closing. Then I would break down goals for each of these stages based on previous conversion rates (percentage of leads going from one stage to the next).
If I know I can land 50% of all of the proposals I deliver than I need to figure out how many progressing leads I need to get to that point. You essentially work backwards here.
#3 - You have your universal metric and you know your individual stage goals and conversion rates between stages (which you can work on improving). Now you need to find the top locations your prospective customers are congregating online and offline (don't forget this part). Then you use a targeted message to connect with your prospective client opportunities to help them understand how you solve their problems.
There are lots of ways to find, market and sell to clients in the web design and digital marketing niche. I've got lots of successful experience doing it.
Let's talk through how you can do this for your own business and dive into the specifics. Hope this helps!
