SO WHAT IS A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY???
Before I give you a checklist, I’m sure some people are wondering, what is an online marketing agency?
There are a lot of names for this kind of business - internet marketing company, digital marketing agency, online marketing business, and more. They’re all the same thing.
In a nutshell, it’s a service-based business that manages the online marketing activities for companies of any size that are in need of growing their presence online – which btw IS ALL OF THEM.
This includes services like SEO, Social Media Management, Reputation Management, Website Design, and more.
You can choose to focus in on just one branch of online marketing (like website design or SEO) or you can choose to do it all.
As the business owner, you’re responsible for creating the services that your clients will choose from. Then you will need to recruit a team of people to do the actual work. You can even hire salespeople or a sales company later on and scale it infinitely.
There’s no shortage of businesses that need help with their online marketing so the sky’s the limit. There’s also no shortage of people who can do the actual work and you can contract them relatively inexpensively.
*NOTE: Building an online marketing agency might not be your passion.
It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that it offers you a way to sell a valuable service to real people who pay real money. You can quickly build this business, scale it up, and then do whatever the heck you want!
QUICK BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY
The benefits primarily include:
You can get started for less than $300
Extremely low overhead
Large profit margin - you literally set the prices
Huge potential - an extra $50K/year or $500K/year - it’s up to you
Work online
Flexible schedule
THE 5 S’s OF YOUR ONLINE MARKETING AGENCY
Starting and running a digital marketing agency breaks down into what I call the 5 S’s.
Setup
Sales
Systems
Staffing
Scaling-Up
I’m going to break down the checklist into those 5 groups.
The rest of this post is literally made up of the steps you can follow to start your own digital marketing agency. If you have any questions, obviously I’ll be paying attention to this thread. I won’t hold anything back.
Just ask.
SETUP:
This portion is to help you get started by establishing your business services, messaging & branding, website, and so forth. The goal is to move quickly to hurry and get to making sales.
Start thinking about your business brand including your business name. Think about what kind “feel” you want your business to have. Write out at least 10 possible names.
Look up “online marketing company” and check out the first few sites – the goal is to get a feel for what they do and what you’ll be doing.
Consider taking a class or two on Udemy.com 4 or Lynda.com 7 to get an overview of the online marketing world.
Think about an industry you might like to serve (i.e. – chiropractors) and then look up “online marketing for chiropractors” or similar terms and study what comes up.
Write out (or type out) your motivation. Why are you interested in starting this business? Answer this with something more specific than “to have more money”. Get as specific as you can. Don’t skip the mental work!
List out the amount of money you would like to make in your first month, the second month, following months. Include your first year’s goal.
Go online and look up other online marketing companies (again) – jot down everything that you like and that you would like to emulate.
Start thinking about what sets you apart. Ideally, it can be summed up in one sentence. i.e. – “We provide SEO services for dental professionals”. This is your USP (unique selling proposition)
Come up with your 3 packages. List out the services that each package entails. Yours may be just offering social media or just website design or whatever. Be sure to be detailed - list out everything.
Come up with your package pricing. Decide what you think is valuable for all parties involved and use this as a starting point (you’ll most likely adjust this as you get more experience). Use this pattern: $499/$599/$999 OR $999/$1199/$1699 and so on.
Identify and write out your USP.
Write what your ideal client looks like – the more details the better.
Decide right now you will stay true to your niche and not take on anyone and everyone who needs help “online”. It’s better to focus on a core audience to avoid wasting time and money. Don’t be afraid to say no.
Come up with your business name. Come up with your business tagline (if you need one).
Pick your colours. These can literally be your favourite colours. Don’t stress on this one.
Get a logo done (use 99designs.com 3, Upwork.com 1, or Fiverr.com) – don’t do it yourself unless you’re a graphic designer.
Write up your business plan. Print it out. Change as necessary. Just answer the following questions:
o What is your company name?
o What is your company tagline?
o What services do you provide? What problem do you solve?
o Who is your target audience or what does your ideal client look like?
o What is your USP?
o How much do you charge?
o What is your monthly revenue goal?
o How many new or repeat clients do you need to achieve this goal?
o How do you get new clients?
o How will you fulfil your services? Who makes up your production team?
o Who are the other key players in your team? List their names and titles.
Set up your corporation (use LegalZoom – for now, just get a DBA and then incorporate once you’ve brought on a few clients and know this is going to work for you)
Set up your business checking & savings account. Set up your PayPal (or Stripe) business account.
Buy your domain name (use a registrar like GoDaddy.com). Buy your hosting (use a reliable & affordable host like SiteGround.com 1. Set up your website (use WordPress – it’s super easy & all you need). Your host should have a 1-click WordPress install.
Create a home page, about page, services page, & contact page to start. This is the minimum. Set up your social media platforms (Facebook business page, Twitter, Google+/YouTube, LinkedIn all a must. Pinterest, Instagram, etc are a bonus).
Buy your business cards (and nothing else) Use VistaPrint.com because they’re super cheap. Only order 250 for your first cards. You may change some info later.
SALES:
This portion is to help you start making sales - the lifeblood of your business. If you’re not making sales, you don’t have a business.
Get your first sale (work your own personal network to get started – make a list of 10 business owners you know or your friends/family might know and approach them offering them a discount or added value to get started).
Complete the work of your first sale and be sure to get results! If you don’t know how to do any of it, go to UpWork.com and hire someone immediately – see next section.
Document all of your work – you’ll need this to scale & build a team.
Get your next 3 clients quickly. Go to networking meetings in your area. Consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce and possibly a BNI group or other networking group.
Use online directories like Manta.com 15 to find more businesses in your chosen niche. When you find their contact info, reach out to them leading with value - do a mock-up website with their info, list out specific tips to drive more business, or share exactly how they could tweak their online presence for increased traffic and conversion, etc. Think value!
Reach out to associations in your chosen niche and offer to give free webinars.
Optimize your company website to reach your target niche and drive traffic to it – have specific pages on your website that you get to rank in Google for organic traffic (i.e. – a page on “Search Engine Optimization Services for Chiropractors”). Then get it ranking and collect leads.
Continue to look up the Chambers of Commerce in your area and other mixers and networking opportunities. Look to set up 1-on-1’s with potential clients but only ones in your niche. Don’t waste time with anyone else!
Set up speaking and teaching gigs to get in front of a lot of people at once. Be as helpful as possible. Give your best stuff away for free - be incredibly detailed.
SYSTEMS:
Once you have some sales coming in, you need to make sure you document everything and create systems in order for others to do the work for you. This also includes establishing what tools you use in your business. It’s simple but incredibly important.
Create a sales manual and a production manual. Be detailed and use bullet points.
Set up your work email (use Google apps or even just Gmail to make it easy and route your Name@company.com email through it)
Set up your account in Asana / Trello or Notion – it’s free and it will be your project management tool. Name each new project after your client name. Each project is a client & list out in the project all of the work you said you would do in the list of services.
Set your file storage using DropBox or Google Drive.
Set up your bookkeeping with Quickbooks or Zohobooks or anything you’re comfortable with.
STAFFING:
Getting a team in place to do the work for you is key to your growth. You need to hire, train, and lead your team members. As soon as possible, you’ll hire more team members to make sure all work is being done effectively.
Create a company org chart with you as owner. Create a general manager position with manager positions also in sales, production/operations, & finance.
List out the work for your first job (base this off of your services in your game plan). Then go to Upwork.com 1 or OnlineJobs.ph and post your job.
Interview your top 3 candidates. Hire 1 but keep the other two on a short-list for when you need them in the future. Start them off on a part-time basis with the expectation of them doing more soon.
Hire your first employee or contractor – generally, this is a production staff member first (you should not be doing the actual production beyond your first client).
Take time to train your first team member. Refine your systems and make sure they can operate independently of you as soon as possible. Use Asana (or Basecamp or Trello) to manage everything. If you’re concerned about tracking everything, consider using HubStaff.com 6.
As soon as revenue and need justify it, hire another contractor. And then another. And another.
SCALING-UP:
Once you have sales coming in and a team and systems in place, it’s time to scale-up. This section is all about refining your processes so that you can handle 5 or 500 clients while the work to you remains the same. In other words, this is how you make more money while working less.
Refine your services – productize them! When mapping out your services, make sure your offer is the same to everyone. If you choose a service like SEO for example, then it’s relatively the same regardless of the industry your client is in. Don’t match a service to the client. Match the client to one of your preexisting services.
Refine your clients - it’s OK & very necessary to the growth of your business to be choosy. Stay away from any “high maintenance” clients. Choose early on how you will handle communication with your clients. Most are just fine with email.
Refine your systems. Look for ways to save money, increase productivity, and so forth. When possible, swap out human effort with software and automated work.
Refine your sales. Spend money if necessary on advertising, always targeting your ideal niche/industry.
As soon as you have at least 90-day’s worth of savings in the bank, have made at least 3 sales (with a lot more in the pipeline), consider going full-time with your business. If you have a significant other, be sure to be on the same page.
Over-deliver with your clients. If the relationship is there, try asking for a referral but only if you’ve already done a great job.
That’s it! Just sell. There’s plenty of businesses out there. I don’t mean to downplay it at all but really, I’m nobody special, I’m a pretty average dude that managed to create a sweet business.
You can do the same. Just follow the checklist above.
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