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How To Start A Digital Marketing Agency

by Lily Morgen
670 views 13 minutes read
Digital Marketing Agency

Digital marketing agencies are growing in popularity and demand. Many businesses are in need of assistance with their digital marketing campaigns, but don’t have the internal resources to handle it all themselves. This is where a digital marketing agency can step in and help.

There are many benefits to starting a digital marketing agency.

  • In-demand service that businesses are increasingly willing to pay for.
  • Flexible and scalable business – you can start small and grow at your own pace.
  • Use your creative and marketing skills to build a successful business.

If you’re thinking of starting a digital marketing agency, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

1. What Are Your Digital Marketing Skills?

The first step is to assess your own skills and see if you have what it takes to run a successful digital marketing agency. Do you have experience with:

  • SEO: keywords research, content production, content marketing, link building, website speed, and so on.
  • Youtube Marketing: Videos making, optimizing videos for ranking, and creating video ads.
  • Facebook Advertising: Creating ad copy, targeting your audience, choosing the right ad format, and measuring results.
  • Google Ads (PPC): Setting up campaigns, choosing keywords, setting budgets, and tracking results.
  • Conversion Rate Optimization: A/B testing, landing page optimization, and user experience testing.
  • Email Marketing: Newsletter design, lead nurturing campaigns, email automation.
  • Social media: creating and managing social media accounts, running social media ads
  • Web design and development: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
  • Paid advertising: running Google Ads or other paid campaigns

If you have experience in some or all of these areas, then you have the skills necessary to start a digital marketing agency.

2. Define Your Services

Then you need to determine what services you will offer. There are many different aspects of digital marketing, so you’ll need to decide which ones you want to focus on. Do you want to provide SEO services? Social media marketing? PPC advertising? Once you’ve determined your services, you can start to build out your team and processes.

Some agencies only provide one type of service, such as link building, website design, content production, or graphic design. Others provide an all-in-one solution for their clients. It’s up to you to decide what services you want to offer and how you want to structure your agency.

3. Know Who Are Your Target Customers

You’ll need to decide who your target customers are and what types of businesses you want to work with. Do you want to work with B2B Companies or B2C companies? As their marketing strategies differ, it’s important to know who you’re targeting so you can adjust your services and processes accordingly.

Most B2B Companies and B2C companies want to rank their product or service keywords in Google, so they appear on the first page of Google when people search for those keywords. Some businesses want to generate more website traffic by SEO while others want to increase sales leads only by PPC.

Some companies are willing to spend a lot of money on digital marketing agencies, while others have smaller budgets. It’s important to know your target customer so you can adjust your prices and services accordingly.

4. Do Competitor Research

You’ll need to research your competitors before you start your digital marketing agency. See what services they’re offering, how they’re structured, and what their prices are. This will give you a good idea of the landscape and help you determine what makes your agency unique.

The digital marketing landscape is crowded. There are many agencies out there vying for the same clients. So, what makes you different from your competitors?

  • Do you have a specialty or focus on a certain type of marketing?
  • Do you have a unique approach or process?
  • Do you have a team of experts in different areas of digital marketing?

Your differentiation will be one of the key factors in winning new clients. Be sure to highlight your unique selling points in your marketing materials and website.

5. Focus on the Results to Make You Differentiate from Your Competitors

When you’re starting a digital marketing agency, it’s important to focus on results. That’s what clients care about most. They want to see a return on their investment (ROI).

To differentiate yourself from your competitors, you need to focus on results and show clients that you can deliver. That means setting up systems and processes to track results and report them to clients regularly.

In the beginning, as you know it’s hard to get customers, but you can promise customers that they pay you some money in advance, and don’t need to pay the rest until they see the result. 

This price model is a challenge for you because you need to make sure that you deliver the results, but it’s a great way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

6. Start with Yourself

As you’re thinking to start your own digital business, it seems you already have the necessary skills. To reduce costs at your start, it is recommended to start a digital marketing agency from yourself only at home.

You do the most important and valuable work and outsource other part-time digital marketing experts as you need them. You will have more control over the work and the quality of it when you do it yourself.

Meanwhile, this will help you avoid the common mistakes made when starting a digital marketing agency, such as hiring too many people too soon or not having enough work to keep everyone busy.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money on overhead costs such as office space, employees, or expensive equipment. You can run your business from your home and gradually grow it as you start to win clients.

7. Create a Website and Portfolio

Your website is one of your most important marketing tools. It’s the first impression potential clients will have of your agency, so it’s important to make a good one. Your website needs to have good content related to the topics of your service field. For example, if your main service is SEO, and your target customers are B2B companies.

You can write in-depth content about “How to Rank Keywords for B2B Companies”, “Most Common Mistakes B2B Companies Make in SEO”, “What Kinds of Keywords B2B Companies Should Rank to Get Leads” and so on.

Be sure to include an About page that tells visitors who you are, what you do, and why you’re the best at it. Include a portfolio of your past work so potential clients can see the results you’ve been able to achieve for other businesses.

8. Pricing Your Service

Pricing is always a delicate issue. You don’t want to charge too much and lose potential clients, but you also don’t want to charge too little and not be able to cover your costs.

The pricing model you choose will depend on a number of factors, including your experience level, the services you offer, the type of work you’ll be doing, and the results you are able to achieve.

When determining your prices, you can choose hourly rates, project rates, retainer fees, or commission/performance-based fees. Many digital marketing agencies charge a monthly retainer fee that allows the client to have a certain number of hours of work each month.

Hourly Rates

Hourly rates are one of the most common types of pricing for digital marketing agencies for one-time customers. You can charge by the hour for specific services such as website design, copywriting, or SEO work.

To determine your hourly rate, you’ll need to consider your experience level, the going rates in your area, and the type of work you’ll be doing.

Project Rates

Project rates are best for one-time projects such as website design or a social media campaign. You can provide a quote for the entire project upfront so the client knows what to expect.

To determine a project rate, you’ll need to consider the scope of work, the time it will take to complete, and your own experience level.

Retainer Fees

Retainer fees are typically charged on a monthly basis and can be paid in advance or at the end of the month. Be sure to specify what services are included in the retainer fee so there are no surprises.

Commission/Performance-Based Fees

Some digital marketing agencies charge commission or performance-based fees. This type of pricing is based on the results you are able to achieve for the client.

For example, you may agree to a commission-based fee if you are able to increase the client’s website traffic by a certain percentage. Or you may charge a performance-based fee if you are able to increase the client’s sales leads by a certain amount.

9. Develop Your Marketing Strategy to Find Your Clients

Now that you know how to start a digital marketing agency, it’s time to develop your marketing strategy to market yourself.

SEO and Google Ads

As you know, a customer can find you is the very first step he will work with you. Therefore, you need to figure out how a customer search for digital marketing service. Do they use Google to search for a digital marketing agency?

After finding out how the customers will reach you, start to work with the SEO of your website.

For example, many customers use specific keywords such as “Digital company in their location” or “SEO company in their location” to find your service. If you optimize your website for the these keywords, you can appear as a top result when potential clients are searching for someone like you.

You can also use Google Ads to ensure that your website appears as a top result when potential clients search for digital marketing services related keywords.

In this way, you’ll be able to reach your target market and attract potential clients.

Cold Call

When you see some websites are designed with poor quality and bad SEO results, you can contact them as a potential customer and introduce your services. You can also find the contact information of the decision-makers of these companies on LinkedIn and start to cold call them.

The best marketing strategy is one that is tailored to your specific business. Be sure to consider your budget, your target market, and your unique selling points when developing your marketing strategy.

With a well-developed marketing plan and a strong commitment to quality, you’ll be well on your way to success as a digital marketing agency.

10. Ask Previous Clients to Write Reviews

Clients prefer to work with digital companies that have successful cases. If you’re just starting out, you may not have any case studies or client testimonials. In this case, you can ask your previous clients to write reviews about your work. These reviews will show potential clients that you’re an expert in digital marketing and that you deliver results.

11. Decide How You Want to Scale Your Business

As your digital marketing agency grows, you’ll need to decide how you want to scale your business. You can do this by adding more services, hiring more employees, or outsourcing work to freelancers.

Adding more services is a great way to increase your revenue without having to find new clients. You can offer additional services such as PPC or email marketing to your existing clients. This will help you upsell and cross-sell your services.

Hiring more employees is another way to scale your business. As you add more employees, you’ll be able to take on more work and increase your revenue. Just be sure that you have enough work to keep your employees busy.

Outsourcing freelancers can also scale your business without increasing your overhead costs. You can find freelancers online or through word-of-mouth. Be sure to vet them carefully before giving them any work.

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