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How to start Digital Marketing Agency and make money

    How to start a digital marketing agency and make money if you are curious to find out I will explain in this post.

    What is a digital marketing agency?

    A digital agency is a business that helps other businesses to grow by offering marketing services such as content marketing/Social media marketing, paid advertising, and email marketing.

    How digital marketing agency work?

    A digital marketing agency works by finding businesses that are willing to invest in marketing in order to grow.

    Offering the service that can be:

    • Paid advertising
    • Search engine optimization
    • Email marketing.

    This service is meant to reach more people, get more leads, make more sales, sell more products and have overall improved results.

    Goal is to make your customer more money than they spend on marketing.

    Provide service, get results to the client, and get paid.

    How to start a digital media agency?

    You may find information online that claims that this is a beginner-friendly method and anyone can do this.

    I don’t think so.

    Who can start a digital media agency? Can anyone do it?

    You will need to have experience and skills in how to do things like SEO, Email marketing, social media content creation, advertising, and so on.

    You have to know what you are getting yourself into and how things are done even if you will outsource all the work.

    A digital media agency is a result-driven service-based business, you want to be sure that you or your team are able to bring in results for your client.

    You will be paid for the result you bring in.

    That is how you will be promoting your agency and building a good reputation if you can deliver what you promise.

    In my opinion, you have to have confidence in yourself, your skills, and your ability to communicate and reach other people.

    If you have that, it is very possible for you to start a digital media agency.

    Before you start make sure that it is very clear to you who you are going to help and what service you will provide for them.

    Make sure that the business you choose to help has money to invest in marketing.

    This means that you want to find local businesses, that are profitable like dentists, law firms, etc.

    • Find possible clients.
    • Find possible contractors.
    • Negotiate with both, and make sure that there will be profit left for you after the job is complete.

    After getting your first client you will have a case study, you will be able to use later to attract new clients that is why it is very important to choose exactly who you are going to serve dentists, law firms, and eCommerce stores owners.

    Your job will be to improve your systems, so everything will work smoothly from start to finish.

    Is a digital marketing agency a beginner-friendly way to make money?

    I don’t think that a digital marketing agency is a beginner-friendly method to make money online.

    I think it is beginner-friendly in the sense that you already have skills in marketing or networking and the know-how to hire, fire people, and how negotiate with clients and contractors.

    That is the bare minimum.

    What I think people mean by a beginner-friendly method is once you find a high-paying client you can have this client for months and bill a lot per month.

    This is why it is called a beginner-friendly method, once you acquire customers you can earn well especially when you outsource the work to others.

    Can you start a digital marketing agency with no money?

    With a Digital marketing agency, you can start basically with no money and make loads of it with very small effort (managing contractors and their work) when compared to some other money-making methods that may take months or even years to take off.

    Some people start with business email and reach out to businesses while others build websites, and buy addresses and phone numbers to run their agency.

    Start small and work your way up. If you are able to get clients without a website that is good too.

    Should you start a digital marketing agency business without money?

    It doesn’t mean that you should start with no money or quit your day job.

    Remember always to cover your own b*tt first.

    Make sure that before you start you have basic needs covered, some money saved, and have the mental and physical energy to start a business.

    There is too much glam online about starting a business, it is easier for those who have the resources to do so and much harder for those who start from scratch with no money, no support, no network, and no skills.

    Don’t fall into the glamor you may end up even worse than now.

    Starting an agency is a real business and you will need to know what you are doing.

    In the beginning, maybe you are the only one doing the work, to be able to do the work and have less stress you need to have security(basic needs covered+savings) and you must ask for proper compensation for your work which should not be less than $500/mo/client. Be also very clear on what you do.

    You will need to invest in tools. You can’t run a business with all free tools and email.

    How much could you charge your digital marketing agency clients?

    I live in Finland and I saw an ad that offered 10 Social media images with captures etc/500€/mo.

    I am still scratching my head, but creating content does take time, finding quality images takes time, and being able to write engaging captures and post them on time takes..discipline.

    The benefit of running a digital marketing agency is that once you acquired a customer if you are able to deliver what you promise, they will stick with you and keep paying you month-to-month.

    If you keep them happy they may even refer your business to others.

    Can you start a digital marketing agency without experience?

    Sure, you can start a digital marketing agency with no experience. How do you think it is going to work out?

    You can have to start a digital marketing agency as a bigger goal and start working towards it by acquiring the skills required.

    First-year is going to be crucial for your future success.

    Your first year should be set up for educating yourself and this way building the foundation for your long-game success in business.

    If you throw yourself in cold water then you will need to improve the following skills listed below.

    In order to become better, and faster you can take online courses and learn from someone who already is a master in the field.

    Learn and Earn with SkillShare

    Gain skills you need to reach your goals!

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    As an alternative, you could work as a freelancer or as an intern for other companies to improve your skills and gain an understanding of how things work.

    Working with others you will find out what skills and strategies you will need to improve your business.

    Skills to learn and improve during the first year

    In your first year in business, you will need to focus on multiple things,

    • Marketing
    • Getting clients
    • Negotiation with clients / Being able to pitch them the right package with a right price point
    • Performing your services

    Build systems to improve things every time.

    Try Skillshare for free – Learn new skills!

    Skills to focus on the first year

    Service

    Start by acquiring from one to a few clients first. Work with them, learn ins and outs, provide the best service you can and slowly add up more clients.

    Don’t take more clients than what you/your agency can handle without cutting corners.

    If you manage to do well, you will get referrals and your services will be recommended by others and you will keep your satisfied clients.

    That way you will get momentum and get your business snowball rolling.

    Skills

    Focus on your existing skill that compliments who you are, what you can do, and how you can help others.

    Improve that skill even more and position yourself as the market leader in that area.

    Here are some examples of skills, choose one to focus on

    • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
    • Social media/Content marketing
    • Email marketing
    • Paid advertising
    • Social Media
    • Facebook ads
    • Google ads (+Youtube ads)

    Don’t try to master all of these services or sell all of them to the client.

    Networking

    Meet like-minded people, learn from each other and make connections.

    Later you will be able to help each other out and get clients referred by your contacts.

    Build your network online and offline.

    Outsourcing

    Find high-quality contractors who will work for you. You will be able to serve more clients and make more money.

    You will be able to serve more clients and make more money.

    Outsource things that must be done, but not by you.

    For example admin tasks or that social media.

    Making money

    Your time is valuable, focus on profit-generating tasks such as acquiring new customers and staying in touch with clients.

    Client communication

    Give your clients a good experience working with you by staying in touch. Keep in touch with your clients and they will keep you in mind.

    Try Skillshare for free – Learn new skills!

    How digital marketing agency makes money?

    A digital marketing agency makes money by connecting business and service.

    Provides value to the business, that has a big return on investment.

    This means that what Business pays you for your work is less than what you make them.

    This is why is very important to be able to bring them clients and sales. When you do so, you will have your business running.

    You may get paid by the hour, which is a bad option. Or by month which is a much better option.

    How to get the first client to your business

    The first client can be someone you know who needs help with what you have to offer. You can offer a small discount on your service.

    How to bill your first client

    This video is very good in explaining how to do invoicing.

    How to find clients for your digital marketing agency?

    The best way to find clients is to look around.

    Look for local businesses close to you, that are making a profit, but always need new customers and are able to pay you.

    How to reach out to potential clients?

    There are many different ways to reach out, but also to be found.

    You can use cold emails and cold phone calls. You can even hire someone to do that for you!

    You can make yourself findable online with a website and social media presence both active and engaging.

    How much money can you make?

    People make a lot of money and people make very little money.

    How much you can make depends on your attractiveness, your skills and how good you are at bringing new clients in, and how well you are able to reach or extend their expectations.

    To not have stress and to be able to get the job done your number one concern should be profitability.

    This is something that should be obvious, but for some of us, it is not. If you are the too nice person this may be the case sometimes that you let things slide and cover costs yourself and end up operating on a loss.

    Do not do that.

    Set up your business, your services, and your clients to be profitable.

    Know your expenses

    Watch this video and have a better understanding of business expenses and profitability.

    Learn what not to do and what to do instead.

    The most important is to know your expenses:

    • Cost of goods sold
    • Salaries
      • Contractors
      • Employees
      • Own salary
      • Administrative staff
    • Overhead
      • Rent
      • Internet
      • Cellphone
      • Equipment
      • Tools
    • Taxes
    • Profit

    Wrap up

    There are many moving parts in starting a business and running a business. Being as educated as possible and as prepared as possible is important for minimizing mistakes and loss.

    Even though both mistakes and losses are part of life and business.

    As long as you are able to learn and integrate that into your business, you are good.

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    Thank you!

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