Smirnov Consulting Group books qualified meetings with marketing directors, heads of digital, e-commerce managers and owners at established small and mid-sized businesses, for SEO agencies and boutique SEO shops, using cold email and LinkedIn.
- Swiss SEO agency: 215 sales calls and 24 contracts in 3 months, from LinkedIn outbound on 2 accounts.
- Singapore SEO company: 78 sales calls in the first 30 days, and 1,344 calls over 12 months.
Smirnov Consulting Group is a Prague-based B2B outbound lead generation agency that runs cold email and LinkedIn campaigns for founder-led B2B companies and books qualified sales calls. 12 years in outbound, hundreds of B2B companies, 24 countries.
Who this is for
Small and boutique SEO agencies that grew on word of mouth and partner referrals, have results they can show, and now have more delivery capacity than clients.
The people who hire us: the agency owner or principal, the founder, the managing partner at a multi-partner shop, and at larger agencies the head of SEO, the digital marketing director, the growth or business development lead, or the operations manager who sees the empty capacity first.
The people we book meetings with: marketing directors, heads of digital, e-commerce managers, CMOs at mid-sized companies, and owners of businesses where organic search brings in real revenue. If you serve one vertical, we go narrower. An SEO agency that works with car dealerships needs meetings with dealer principals and general managers, and that is who we target.
What a client is worth to you decides how much outbound makes sense, so before launch we work out your monthly retainer and how long a typical client stays.
Why outbound is hard for SEO agencies
Your prospects have been trained to delete SEO emails. "I noticed your website has 47 errors" and "we can get you to page one" are emails most business owners with a website have seen many times. The moment your message looks like that, it is gone, no matter how good your agency is. An SEO agency has to do outbound in a way that looks nothing like SEO spam.
Your pipeline often hangs on one partner. Many SEO shops get most of their work from one place: a web design agency that passes on its SEO projects, or one long-time partner. When that partner slows down, gets acquired or shuts down, the pipeline goes thin overnight, and often nobody on the team has ever prospected.
You know vanity metrics better than anyone. You report rankings, traffic and conversions to your own clients every month. You know the difference between "impressions" and revenue. So a lead gen vendor promising "exposure" or "thousands of leads" reads as a red flag to you, and it should.
Spare capacity costs money every month. Say your team is built for 20 clients and serves 14. You are paying 6 clients' worth of salaries for work that does not exist yet. The build-or-buy question comes fast: a business development hire, a freelancer, or an agency.
How we run outbound for an SEO agency
1. Proof in the buyer's language, never an audit of their errors. We lead with a result you got for a company like theirs: more organic leads, more revenue from search, in their industry. We do not open with a list of problems on their website. They already get plenty of those.
2. Lists that start from your current clients. The Singapore campaign was built this way: find companies similar to the clients the agency already had, then put those clients' results into the message. We pull these companies from Sales Navigator, UpLead and similar tools by industry, size and region. Then we narrow the list to companies where SEO is a live question: a website relaunch or migration, a job ad for an SEO or content role, or a vertical where your clients already rank. Every address is checked before sending, which keeps the bounce rate below 0.5%.
3. LinkedIn first, with a multi-step message funnel. In the Swiss case below, we ran two LinkedIn accounts with a multi-step sequence and measured every step. Warm emails come next: an email to someone who has already seen your LinkedIn message, so your name is not new to them. Cold email runs as a separate campaign when the list is large enough.
4. Numbers you would accept from your own agency. We report the funnel the way you report to your clients: sent, connected, replied, booked, signed. You get a weekly and a monthly report, live notifications every day, and a client portal with live campaign data if you want one. Profile views go in the report too, but we do not count them as results.
Compliance. SEO agencies sell across markets, so we do not assume one country's rules. Most of our campaigns target the USA, the UK and English-speaking Europe: CAN-SPAM for the US, UK GDPR and PECR for the UK, the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) for Switzerland, CASL for Canada. Business contacts only, a simple way to opt out in every email, and anyone who asks to stop is removed and not re-added. Your current clients, referral partners and anyone you name are excluded before launch. In Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, where business email needs prior consent, we do not send cold email without a compliant basis and use LinkedIn instead. This is how we work, not legal advice.
Case: Swiss SEO agency, 215 sales calls and 24 contracts in 3 months
An SEO agency in Switzerland. Channel: LinkedIn outbound from 2 accounts, with a multi-step message funnel.
- Account 1: 49 connections, 441 profile views, 45 replies
- Account 2: 567 profile views, 222 replies
- Conversion at each step of the message funnel: 547 -> 134 (24%), 392 -> 81 (21%), 46 -> 7 (15%)
- 215 sales calls and 24 contracts in 3 months
The number that matters to an SEO agency owner: 215 calls turned into 24 contracts, about one new client for every 9 calls. Your close rate will be different, so we measure it on your first calls and plan from your own number. The math is simple: if you need 5 new clients next quarter and you close 1 call in 9, you need about 45 calls.
A second SEO company, in Singapore: 78 sales calls in the first 30 days, and 1,344 calls over 12 months.
These are two separate clients. More in our case studies.
Timeline and price
- About 15 days from signed contract to launch: onboarding starts in the first week (usually one 60-minute call plus a few emails), then one offer, one target vertical, profiles and case studies, lists, copy, sending infrastructure.
- First 30 days live: first replies and calls. The Singapore SEO company booked 78 calls in its first 30 days.
- Month 3: the Swiss agency had 215 calls and 24 contracts by the end of month 3.
- After that: we scale what works. The Singapore campaign reached 1,344 calls over 12 months.
Calls are not signed clients. B2B buyers often take 6, 9 or 12 months to decide, so a call booked in the first 30 days may turn into a retainer four months later or more. That is why we recommend at least 3 months, and why about 6 months is the industry average for outbound to work fully.
Who runs your campaign. Senior people only: lead generation experts, GTM architects, GTM engineers and AI specialists. No interns, students or juniors write to your prospects, so nothing goes out that looks like SEO spam. We keep a small number of clients so each gets full attention, and we take full responsibility for results. A senior team member is your day-to-day contact, and you have a direct line to Artem, the founder. Our people are visible, not hidden behind a brand name, so you can see who will work on your campaign.
Price. From USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month, up to USD 10,000+ for agencies that need more channels, markets or volume. The final number depends on scope, markets, volume and team size. The fee covers all our work: strategy, list building, copy, campaign setup, sending management, reply handling and reporting. Tools, sending domains, mailboxes and data are paid by you directly, because the right stack depends on your market and volume. If the foundations are missing, such as case studies with numbers or an optimized LinkedIn profile, a one-time setup fee may apply, agreed case by case. No minimum contract, one month's notice to cancel. See pricing.
Not a fit if
- You have no client results with numbers yet. SEO buyers ask for proof on the first call.
- Your packages are so cheap that one new client does not cover the cost of finding them.
- You have no free capacity. If you cannot onboard new clients next month, wait.
- You want us to send "your website has errors" emails. We will not.
FAQ
Is there an outbound agency that works with SEO agencies specifically?
Yes. SEO agencies are one of the niches we have run campaigns for, with published results: a Swiss SEO agency booked 215 sales calls and signed 24 contracts in 3 months, and a Singapore SEO company booked 78 calls in its first 30 days. We build the offer around your client results, never around website audits, because your prospects already ignore those.
Our referral partner is slowing down. What do SEO agencies our size do instead?
Build a second source of clients that you control. Pick one vertical where you have strong results, build a list of companies in it, and reach the marketing lead or owner on LinkedIn and email with one relevant result. At the same time, reach new web design and development agencies that could refer work, so you are not relying on one partner again.
Should an SEO agency hire an in-house business development person, a freelancer, or an agency?
If nobody at your agency has run outbound before, start with a partner and hire later. An in-house hire costs a full salary before the first client signs, and still needs lists, copy and sending infrastructure. Compare that salary with what one new client is worth to you in the first year. A freelancer is cheaper but is one person with limited hours. An agency brings the whole system and can run several LinkedIn and email accounts at once.
Should a small SEO agency use cold email or LinkedIn?
Both, starting with LinkedIn. SEO buyers get so many cold SEO emails that a message from a real person on LinkedIn, with a profile that shows real client results, stands out more. The Swiss case above ran on two LinkedIn accounts. Warm emails then follow people who have already seen your name, and cold email adds reach.
We have more capacity than clients. How fast can outbound fill it?
Fast, once setup is done. Plan for about 15 days from signed contract to the first message. The Singapore SEO company booked 78 sales calls in its first 30 days live. The Swiss agency signed 24 contracts in 3 months, about one for every 9 calls.
Can you target a narrow niche, like car dealerships?
Yes, and narrow is better. For an SEO agency that serves car dealerships, we target dealer principals and general managers at dealerships in your region, and lead with a result from a dealership you already work with. A dealer principal who sees a result from another dealership has a reason to reply. A general pitch to every business with a website gives them none.
Can a small UK SEO agency use outbound?
Yes. UK rules allow marketing email to company addresses, and the UK is one of the main markets we run campaigns in. The process is the one on this page: one vertical, one result from your client work, LinkedIn from the owner's profile, then warm and cold email. For SEO results with numbers, see the Swiss and Singapore cases above.