How to start a Digital Marketing Agency
In this article, we will be looking at how to start a digital marketing agency. These days a lot of business owners and organizations are looking for digital marketing agencies that will help them manage their digital presence.
In today’s world, leveraging digital marketing strategy is the new currency. As efficient as digital marketing can be, if you are not doing it the right way, you might not get the desired result. That is why organizations are looking for competent digital marketing agencies to generate that desired result.
At the moment, there is a high demand for digital marketing services. The number of businesses that move their operation online is increasing day by day and so does the competition. More competition means more demand for digital marketing services.
According to research, digital marketing agencies in the US make about $63,752 to $132,500 annually.
That is why I have decided to share this information on how to start a digital marketing agency.
Table of Contents
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is also called online marketing. It is a type of marketing that is internet-based. That is you do the marketing using the internet and other forms of digital communications. It could be through the use of Social media, Email, text, and multimedia messages.
Digital marketing is carried out through the use of computers, mobile phones, or other devices. It could be in form of online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads, and social media posts.
It is also a multifaceted strategy aimed to target, reach out to, and build relationships with customers online, across a broad range of channels, ultimately getting them to make a purchase and more purchases in the future.
The results of digital marketing are dramatic. Blogging alone can help brands bring in 67% more leads compared to those that never post. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) also boasts a conversion rate of 14.6% which is dramatically higher than the 1.7% conversion rate that the traditional outbound method delivers.
With the aid of Digital marketing, brands are able to reach a wider audience range and get to potential customers faster.
What is A Digital Marketing Agency?
A digital marketing agency is a firm that deals exclusively in marketing to consumers through digital channels and platforms. They create and launder campaigns for corporate clients through social media, pay-per-click advertising videos, and websites among others.
Digital marketing agency reaches customers online through omnichannel marketing, multi-channel marketing, or single-channel marketing. With multi-channel and single-channel marketing, agencies interact with customers in one or multiple channels that provide a seamless customer experience across channels and devices throughout their life cycle.
Companies and businesses work with digital marketing agencies because of their expertise in online marketing. Agencies know the latest trends, best practices, best tools, and strategies that are needed for digital marketing success.
By working with a digital marketing agency, your website will get better visibility from Keyword research; a buyer’s personal development done through an agency. If one employs a digital marketing agency to undertake social media marketing, one’s brand will also gain an additional online presence on various social media platforms.
What do you need to start a digital marketing agency?
Now that you know how relevant a digital marketing agency is, how can you get started
Build your digital marketing skills and self-confidence
If you want to start a digital marketing agency you need to build your digital marketing skills. You need to know how the algorithm works, and how to run campaigns for increasing your client’s traffic and sales, using one or more digital marketing channels.
No organization wants to work with an agency that is not competent. That is why you see most organizations starting with a few months of probation to be sure that you can deliver as promised.
As your agency grows, you can begin to build your digital marketing team and hire experts to assist in some tasks. However, if you are just starting out, you might need to know how to execute most of the tasks yourself except for some key roles that you really need helping hands. The best way to learn a skill is to learn the theory and best practices from established experts and do a lot of practice. If it will require that you apply for a few months’ internships in a reputable agency, by all means, do.
Apart from the fact that you will hone those skills, you will also be learning the business part of it.
Decide what kind of services to offer:
The next step is to decide what kind of digital marketing services to offer to your potential clients. A full services digital marketing agency offers the following
- Web design and development
- PPC services ( Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, etc)
- Content marketing services (content writing included)
- Social media marketing services.
- Conversion optimization services
There are some other services that can be included. However, be certain of the services your digital marketing agency offer. Most importantly, spell it out to your client. Avoid assumptions.
Decide how you plan to operate your business
One of the advantages of starting your digital marketing agency is that you can operate your business from home with remote employees. A lot of online and SaaS companies follow this model and it’s the future of business.
As you grow your digital marketing portfolio, you may consider hiring local employees who can also work from their home offices. With that, there will be no need to pay for rent and other office expenses.
All you need do is find a place in your home and set up your home office. This can be a separate room or an area in your house that you’ll use to work. You also need to ensure that you have the best internet connection possible since you will be working online.
Register your business
This is the time to go official and legal. To get this done you should;
- Decide the name of your business
- Register with your domain name.
- Design your logo
- Register your business legal entity with relevant authorities
- Get a toll-free number
- Find an accountant and auditor
- Find a lawyer
- Create business cards
It is necessary to do all this now and put all pieces together even if you won’t use all of them from the beginning.
One of the reasons why you need to register your business from its inception is this. Let’s assume you continue to operate without registering your business and the name becomes popular. All your clients know you by that brand name. Then when you are ready to register the name, you realize that someone else has registered the business with the name. It simply means you have to change the name.
You might have a hard time with the new name. As a matter of fact, you might lose some clients to the business that decided to use your name.
That is why you should register your business name from the get-go.
Establish your web presence
After registering your name, the next thing is to establish your online presence. Start by having a website for your business. If you promise to build websites for your client’s brand, you also should have one.
Having a website gives your brand a professional outlook. Your website should contain all the necessary information about your brand. From your website, a potential client can decide whether to hire you or not. Therefore, you need to pay attention to it.
Your web presence also includes a social media presence. Set up your social media platforms and share quality content there.
Establishing a web presence can help you;
- Showcase your experience and expertise.
- Choose the right tools
- Define your business model
- Get your first client
- Start a digital marketing blog
- Build your portfolio
- Create your processes
- Build your digital marketing team
Tips and secrets needed to be successful as a digital marketing agency
Highlighted below are a few tips to keep you on track as a digital marketing agency:
Keep reaching out to prospects:
As much as you share content on social media to generate inbound leads, you can also reach out to prospects for outbound leads.
In the beginning, it might not look like what you expected. However, keep at it. Send direct and cold emails to potential clients.
We have different prospecting strategies that you can use to project your digital marketing agency. It is very important to keep trying as many as you can till you land on the most suitable of all strategies for yourself.
Entice the prospect with a great offer that they wouldn’t refuse
Don’t forget that the prospects also have other marketers targeting them. It is not just enough to establish a relationship with the prospects and bring juicy offers to the table.
It could be discounts, free ads, bonus packages, and a lot more you can think of. Everyone wants value for whatever amount they are paying. Before deciding on the offer you will offer, check out the prospect and understand what type of offer will be too juicy to refuse for him.
When you’re able to meet their expectations, they’ll likely hire you for long-term projects
Focus on the delivery instead of over-promising:
Every agency wants to sell itself to its prospect, but over-promising what you cannot or might not be able to do is not a good way to protect your agency. Instead, it sets you up for failure.
You should beat their expectations than for their expectations to be far from your results. When you are focused on the delivery and you give your results when it is least expected, your client will be impressed and happily remain on board with your digital marketing agency.
In all, don’t under-promise because you also want to push out a great deal that will attract clients. Therefore, I will say you should Promise and over-deliver.
Always pay attention to what the clients tell you
Remember their choices first. Most of our today’s clients understand that they need digital marketing, but the thing is, they don’t know how to go about it or even understand a thing about it. The majority of them know what they need to achieve their own goals.
They are most likely to respond to you positively if you show understanding of their situation and explain to them in their own words that you can make their goals happen.
Therefore, do not assume that you understand your client’s business more than him. You will have a clearer picture of what he wants you to do from there. Even if you have a better understanding, carefully present your idea.
Start by fully mastering your Niche
Not all targets have the same niche but as you are starting your agency, you should master one niche fully.
When you speak the language of the niche and show your interest in it, the client will be more inclined to choose your agency. This will help to get the nitty-gritty details of the client’s struggle in the market and you’ll be able to deliver solutions.
Offer different marketing skills
In digital marketing, several different skills are required. As you start your agency, it is not necessary to offer all the skills. Some are more important than others, so whichever type of client you come across determines the relevance of the particular skill you are to use.
By the time you keep diversifying the use of different skills before you know it, you will be a master of all and you get to detect what skills to use anytime without much stress.
Maintain long-term relationships with clients
Customer relationship is very important. That is one of the strengths of your business.
Be readily available to attend to their questions and needs. One of the ways to build your customer retention is to send regular emails.
It might not be too easy combining the activities of getting new clients and keeping up with interacting with them. You could leverage digital marketing tools such as Gohighlevel
Making do with electronic payments
As a digital marketing agency, you shouldn’t be asking for cheques or cash from your clients. Rather you should go digital, demand for transfer payments where you can make auto-pay options. They are usually effortless and without stress.
Payment in cheques and cash reduces the worth of your agency even without knowing it. Electronic payments also reduce the chances of getting robbed and are more beneficial for your digital marketing agency.
In all, make provision for different payment gateways. Asides from the direct transfer, you could use Stripe, Payoneer, etc.
How to choose a Niche for your Digital Marketing Agency
The Niche you choose will contribute largely to the success of your digital marketing agency. That is why you want to carefully select the right one.
Consider if they clump together
Base your efforts on a smaller niche that your clients can self-identify with. This will allow you to attract more clients with confidence. To get this, your niche will need to be relatively specific.
For instance, if you make your niche “nursing or health”, every nursing home will know that you specifically provide the marketing services that they need to grow their practice.
Do not start for a bigger or broader niche because your clients will not feel confident working with a broader niched marketing agency as they would with an agency that targets their specific type of practice
Find out if they have the propensity to invest
Don’t just target any business, target the ones that tend to invest in digital marketing. If the business in the industry spends about $2-$6 on marketing services, you know that they might not meet up with the willingness to spend on your niche-focused marketing efforts. But if otherwise and they spend between $2000-$6000, then you know you are with the sure plug.
Businesses invest in marketing more than each other depending on if their location-based is virtual or mobile. Choose businesses where their marketing money is flowing and show them how to spend their marketing budget more wisely through your services.
Find out if there are enough of them
Choosing an industry with enough businesses makes your agency’s efforts worthwhile. Select a niche with at least a few thousand businesses that make good yearly revenue.
There are websites that you can use to discover how many businesses are in a particular niche and then sort your results. Selling your services to businesses that are just starting is not advisable because these businesses might not have enough budget to invest in your services long-term or even remain profitable for more than a few years.
Have a background and affinity in the niche
Having a background experience in a specific industry will enable you to be able to use their knowledge to tailor your digital marketing agency, and your marketing strategies and grow your agency faster. You may also have a few contacts that you can use to break into the industry.
Affinity with the specific industry is quite important for example, maybe you like calculating features, data you can make affinity with an accounting firm that you can enjoy and can make your job easier.
Digital Marketing Agency Platforms
Now that we have talked about how to start a Digital Marketing Agency, let’s consider some of the top platforms we have.
- Size
- Badrostechies
- 003 Digital
- TG Tech
- Wild fusion
- Cybertron ads
- Yokel local
- Brandwatch (Formerly Falcon.io)
- Loomly
- Refersion
- Sendible
- Referral Factory
- Campaigner
- Brand24
- Sendinblue
- Iconosquare
- Omnisend
- Audience
- MailChimp
FAQs about how to start a Digital Marketing Agency
- Would my business benefit from digital marketing?
Definitely. Although, companies in many business categories continue to approach digital marketing denies your business access to the majority of consumers.
- What’s the biggest mistake digital marketers make?
Blowing their own horn. Yes, of course, the primary goal of marketing is to create leads but a brand-centric, approach deflects interest in your company. Make your marketing customer-centric.
- How often should I update my website?
Websites that go for long periods with no update on the website and no new content are unlikely to perform well or support any useful digital marketing objectives. Though a static website qualifies as a website, technically, it is bound to be more than a digital brochure that produces little or no leads.
- What are the typical roles of a digital marketing agency?
This depends on the size of your agency and what you specialize in. The following includes the common roles found in digital marketing agencies;
- Managing director/founder
- Account manager
- Designer
- UI designer
- Web developer
- Copywriter
- Social media marketer
- What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a term that was invented by HUBSPOT. The term states that “inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.
Final thoughts on How to start a Digital Marketing Agency
We have been able to discuss how you can start a digital marketing agency. Starting a digital marketing agency is the way to go with the increased demand for digital marketing activities.
The most important thing about starting a digital agency is to ensure are skilled at what you do. That also includes those you are bringing on board. That is because once you successfully do a good job for one, he/she might refer you and you know how powerful referral marketing can be.