How to Start Your Digital Marketing Agency

It’s safe to say that the digital marketing landscape has changed a lot in the past years, and it’s become easier to start a digital marketing agency today than, say, 20 years ago where the digital landscape wasn’t fully developed yet.

Digital marketing is one of the most sought-after services these days. The demand especially went up at the beginning of the pandemic when businesses focused on improving their online presence to remain competitive.

With the industry booming, you might also be looking to enter the industry by starting your agency. The good news is, it’s easier than you think. We’ve laid out the steps in starting your own digital marketing agency below to help you get started on this lucrative venture.

Determine What Kind of Digital Marketing Services to Offer

It’s worth noting that digital marketing is composed of different strategies. Established digital marketing agencies typically offer the following services:

At the beginning of your business, it might be difficult to offer all of these to your clients. That being said, it might be better for your firm to start offering services that match your skills and abilities. Or, if you have a partner, you can combine both your skills and offer more.

For instance, you might start offering three digital marketing services – web development and design, content marketing, and search engine optimization – at the early stages of your business. As you get more clients, you can eventually expand your knowledge and offer more services.

Define your audience

As a marketer, you probably know how important it is to define your target audience. After all, your marketing strategies will revolve around them. Your target audience could be millennial or gen Z entrepreneurs, athletes, HVAC business owners, and others.

Once you’ve identified who they are, the next step is to gather as much information about them. You have to study their likes, dislikes, habits, and goals. You can also conduct a survey and ask them what they’re struggling with when it comes to getting the word out about their business. From there, you can determine how your marketing agency will fit into the puzzle.

The best way to define your target audience is to create at least three or more buyer personas. Buyer personas are a semi-fictional representation of your target audience. This will help you better understand your audience so that you can create effective marketing strategies.

Conduct a Competitor Analysis

Competition can be fierce in the digital marketing industry. As more and more firms open up each day, you’ll want to know exactly what you need to do to outrank them. That is why you shouldn’t skip competitor analysis when starting a digital marketing agency.

Competitor analysis involves you studying your competition. In that way, you’ll know who you’ll be up against. You can determine their strategies, methods, and how they’re mo. You can then use these to your advantage and create strategies that will help you surpass their position.

Your competitor analysis strategy could include studying what keywords they rank for, how they structure their blog posts, their most popular topics, and what type of content they publish. Aside from that, consider how they communicate with their audience as well. Chances are, if it’s doing the job for them, it will also be helpful for your company.

Decide on a Business Model

If you’re doing all these services, how do you plan on getting paid? Defining your business model is crucial in starting a digital marketing agency or any business in general.

There are several ways in which you can bill your clients. If the project is relatively short-term, you can bill them by the hour (e.g., website creation and design). However, this isn’t going to be an ideal pricing strategy if your business starts scaling up.

Another way of billing your clients is on a by-project basis. But if you’re going with this pricing strategy, you have to make sure that your estimation (i.e., timetable, costs) for the project are correct. Otherwise, you’ll end up making a loss.

You can use the flat retainer pricing model. In this case, you’ll charge your client a flat rate per month for specific marketing strategies. For instance, if your services include website creation, design, SEO, and content creation, you could set a fixed monthly fee. You can also add more to that bundle according to the client’s request – for an additional fee, of course.

Determine Your Startup Costs and Secure Funding

You need sufficient capital to start and sustain your business for the first few months. But before securing the capital, it’s essential to know how investment you’ll need first.

With that, start listing down the costs of setting up your business, such as:

Once you’ve identified your costs, the next step is knowing where you’ll get the money to kickstart your agency. Fortunately, there are several options available for you.

Bootstrapping. Bootstrapping involves using your personal savings or asking friends or family for help to raise capital. While this may work during the first few months, you’ll eventually need to seek other funding options to sustain your business, which brings us to the next options.

Crowdfunding. This method involves you convincing the public to invest in your business. For more chances of success, you can sign up in crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, where you can interact with small-time (or even big-time) investors and convince them to invest in your agency. Of course, since it’s an investment, they’ll most likely ask for a portion of the company’s profit as the business scales.

Business Loans. While it can be challenging to qualify for a long-term loan from the banks as a startup, many alternative lenders specialize in high-risk borrowing and may be willing to work with you. However, lenders might charge a higher interest rate and fees to mitigate the risk. Your best options as a startup include business lines of credit, credit cards, and invoice financing.

Get Clients and Start Offering Your Services to the Public

To do business, you need clients. Once your firm is up and running, the next step is to land your first few clients. So, how do you do it?

Start with family or friends. If you have a brother, sister, cousin, friend, or acquaintance who runs a small business, chances are, they may need your help them build their company’s online presence. Reach out to them and talk to them about your newly opened digital marketing business. Take a look at their website (if they already have one) and tell them what improvements are needed to boost their performance. If they don’t have a website yet, take this chance and offer to create one for them.

Another option is to get your services up online. You can create a social media account for your business and advertise your business on Facebook, Instagram, and others. Over a billion people are on social media these days, and it’s highly possible to get at least a few clients out of that billion. Use your social media profile to showcase your experience and expertise. You can also create an ad on an online job board detailing your services.

In the process of acquiring clients, be sure to answer all the questions potential clients may raise. Be professional and courteous. Also, reply fast. Some clients may prefer those that reply within an hour or two after reaching out, and the job usually gets assigned to the first person who responded.

Over to You

At this point, you’re one step closer towards starting your dream digital marketing firm. Keep the items mentioned above in mind when starting your digital marketing agency. It can be daunting, and you’ll face a lot of challenges along the way, but with determination, commitment, and a clear strategy in place, you’ll eventually find yourself running a successful digital marketing agency.

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