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Starting a one-man digital marketing agency

Marketing, social media, advertising

Danny01

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Hi everyone, I'm Daniel. I'm skilled at SEO, WordPress website creation and Design and Basic HTML/CSS and technical web related stuff.

I discovered a real need in my locality for digital marketing. Nearly 90% of SMEs in my area does not have an online presence of any kind. I've decided to help them setup websites and also give them social media presence.

I intend to get clients by reaching out to these business owners one-on-one and offer my service to them at a reasonable rate. For now, I've decided to limit my clientele to NGOs and Corporate Organizations including schools.

Currently, I can actually offer Website Creation and Design to these organizations and it is a one-time sale. I can proceed further by charging them monthly for website maintenance and update.

I want to learn how to market these businesses through Facebook Advertising , AdWords and Local SEO (still studying how it works). With this, I can help businesses get more sales at the same time increase the value of my offer.

I'm going out to meet a few organizations tomorrow to present my offer. Let me see how it goes. Would love to hear suggestions.
 
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Youss

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For now, I've decided to limit my clientele to NGOs and Corporate Organizations including schools.
I can proceed further by charging them monthly for website maintenance and update.
With this, I can help businesses get more sales at the same time increase the value of my offer.
Hi Daniel. First, kudos to you for starting your own thing.
Don't take what I'm about to say as a showstopper but as I read your post, I immediately felt that something was wrong with the 3 statements I quoted in bold.
Basically the maths don't compute for me. You're targeting organizations with presumably low to almost zero budget with a long haul offer that has no easy to demonstrate ROI. I can see 3 options:

1. You really want to help those orgs and you're ready to do it for free.
2. You're ready to help them for free as this will allow you to build your book and then move on to $ paying customers. Beware though of the translation barrier: You might end with a nice portfolio of NGOs/Schools beautiful websites that doesn't convince your local car dealer or industrial SME because they just can't relate.
3. You actually need or want to make $ out of this and then you should probably target customers who can pay if they're convinced you're bringing value to their business. As @Andy Black says in many of his posts first "find someone to help" and then get some rewards.

Hope I'm not demeaning you or your energy.
 

Andy Black

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Welcome and we’ll done creating a progress thread after only two days in the forum.

Get out there and let everyone know what you’re doing.

This thread might help:

I know @eliquid avoids charities etc. So far I’ve dealt with one and they’ve been grand.

Good luck Daniel.
 

Danny01

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Welcome and we’ll done creating a progress thread after only two days in the forum.

Get out there and let everyone know what you’re doing.

This thread might help:

I know @eliquid avoids charities etc. So far I’ve dealt with one and they’ve been grand.

Good luck Daniel.
That thread was indeed helpful. Thanks @Andy Black
 
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Danny01

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Closed two sales today.

I've finally sealed the deal. Got paid to create a website and get some content into it. Completed in 2 days and got paid today.

Another client was referred to me by a friend for a similar job which I'm working on but I've been paid fully upfront still today.

The journey has just begun. Freelancing is an interesting way to make money quickly with something that I can do so easily.
 

The Abundant Man

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Closed two sales today.

I've finally sealed the deal. Got paid to create a website and get some content into it. Completed in 2 days and got paid today.

Another client was referred to me by a friend for a similar job which I'm working on but I've been paid fully upfront still today.

The journey has just begun. Freelancing is an interesting way to make money quickly with something that I can do so easily.
Congratulations! Keep it up. We're all gonna make it.
 
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Real Deal Denver

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Closed two sales today.

I've finally sealed the deal. Got paid to create a website and get some content into it. Completed in 2 days and got paid today.

Another client was referred to me by a friend for a similar job which I'm working on but I've been paid fully upfront still today.

The journey has just begun. Freelancing is an interesting way to make money quickly with something that I can do so easily.

How big of projects were they? What did they pay you? One time sales, or ongoing support included? How did you find these customers?
 

Danny01

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How big of projects were they? What did they pay you? One time sales, or ongoing support included? How did you find these customers?
How big of Projects were they?
Simple Website Creation + Content Generation for both clients with low budget. I'm building up from there.

What did they pay you?
Guess I'll omit this one because the amount of money is reasonable in my currency but may not have much value in US dollars.

One-time sales or Ongoing support included?
One-time sales but there are high chances of repeat business.

How did you find these customers?
Word-of-Mouth. I try as much as possible to exceed my client expectations by delivering more value than the amount paid for. It drives repeat business and also brings me referrals.

I make friends with the people I meet and make sure they know what I do. They might need my services someday or might get me a referral.
 

Danny01

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I've got a repeat business.

One of my previous client I did a job for some days ago needs my services again.

I've learnt that delivering beyond clients expectations will always bring more business and referrals.

Its fun making money with freelancing.
 
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Danny01

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I've literally doubled my monthly income target from freelancing and I still have more sales ahead. Made another quick buck today creating and configuring WordPress websites for two clients.

I strive to satisfy my clients expectation by delivering much value than was expected of me. It gets me referrals and repeat business.
 

Danny01

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What's the best format for creating a landing page that coverts? I need a good resource.
 

Andy Black

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Danny01

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Update:
I met with a potential client who owns a solar sales/installation company. He showed full interest in generating leads online. After some minutes of discussion with him, I discovered he has an online store which is neither optimized nor updated for his keywords. I never talked to him about SEO but I just told him I want to help him get leads online.

I intend to run Paid Ads on Google. But I don't know much about setting it up and optimizing it. So I'll outsource the job to fiverr. For the landing page which I'll outsource as well, I want to it to be simple as much as possible with the "Call Now" button being in a prominent position.

I'm not sure if to integrate a store to the landing page will convert better. I want the page to include some product samples from the store without an online purchase option but a phone number to call or a form to fill which I'll then give the details to the client (store owner).

I think its much better because I intend to sell leads information and not selling solar panels. I'd love to hear suggestions.
 
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Andy Black

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1) Start simple.

2) I’m nervous hearing Fiverr. What’s the risk of someone doing a bad job of the Google Ads campaigns for your fledgling business. Can you not just create some ads yourself?

3) I see you’ve asked about landing pages in a couple of threads. Here’s my logic:
 

Danny01

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I’m nervous hearing Fiverr. What’s the risk of someone doing a bad job of the Google Ads campaigns for your fledgling business. Can you not just create some ads yourself?
I've decided against outsourcing the ad campaign to Fiverr. I'll learn it and do it myself. Thanks for the encouragement

If you're a local service business, typically you want people to ring you. You want to get on the phone to them because that's how you're going to sell to them best and also the people who are willing to speak to you on the phone are the ones most likely to convert.
For a product based business like the Solar Panel sales/installation business I mentioned, is it good if I create a simple mobile landing page with a "Call Now" button and a "request a call back" form and maybe a little further down the page I add testimonials, I do all this without listing some products with images which I believe buyers might want to see to make choice.

I'm thinking of postponing the deal and going for serviced based business rather than products based business to make things much easier for me.
 

JG17

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Are you outsourcing out of necessity or because you can/want to? In my opinion, you're doing really well and it's probably worthwhile for you to invest in learning the nuances of your business that you don't currently know. If you don't know anything about landing pages you'll struggle to measure the quality of any outsourced landing page work in future. There's a right time for everything, for me, this seems too soon.
 
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Andy Black

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I've decided against outsourcing the ad campaign to Fiverr. I'll learn it and do it myself. Thanks for the encouragement


For a product based business like the Solar Panel sales/installation business I mentioned, is it good if I create a simple mobile landing page with a "Call Now" button and a "request a call back" form and maybe a little further down the page I add testimonials, I do all this without listing some products with images which I believe buyers might want to see to make choice.

I'm thinking of postponing the deal and going for serviced based business rather than products based business to make things much easier for me.
It’s likely some searchers will be product-seekers, others service-provider-seekers, and others info-seekers.

Start the page simple and learn what the market wants?
 

Danny01

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January 2019 was a very profitable month for me. I made so much money freelancing than I had made the entire 2018. WordPress website creation and Design, Content Writing, Solving Technical Web issues for clients. It was simply adventurous.

For the month of February, I decided to double my hustle by flipping digital assets like websites and the likes. Buy low, Sell High. So far its been working (I've sold two websites already). Its pretty easy making money this way as I have lots of people (from a Facebook group of website owners) to buy from at a cheap rate and sell at a high price to those who need them.

Flipping will be my main focus this month while I see how to outsource some of my freelancing gigs to my tech savvy friend.

My only struggle at the moment is how to save more out of the money I'm making. I've tried to deposit cash in the bank and forget about it but I seem to always find a way to spend it. Hope to improve on my saving this month
 
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Layton

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January 2019 was a very profitable month for me. I made so much money freelancing than I had made the entire 2018. WordPress website creation and Design, Content Writing, Solving Technical Web issues for clients. It was simply adventurous.

For the month of February, I decided to double my hustle by flipping digital assets like websites and the likes. Buy low, Sell High. So far its been working (I've sold two websites already). Its pretty easy making money this way as I have lots of people (from a Facebook group of website owners) to buy from at a cheap rate and sell at a high price to those who need them.

Flipping will be my main focus this month while I see how to outsource some of my freelancing gigs to my tech savvy friend.

My only struggle at the moment is how to save more out of the money I'm making. I've tried to deposit cash in the bank and forget about it but I seem to always find a way to spend it. Hope to improve on my saving this month

Amazing progress so far man !
Just a question.. Are you actively looking for freelance gigs, or all the work comes from referral/past clients?
 
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Danny01

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Amazing progress so far man !
Just a question.. Are you actively looking for freelance gigs, or all the work comes from referral/past clients?

Most of it is past clients and their referrals. Its better that way for me because the upsell their referrals about my services before I get to meet them. By so doing, new referrals tend to trust me and bring out cash without much persuasion.
 

vitoralbsport

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Hello Danny, I was looking for marketing agency here in the forum and found your topic, I also develop wordpress and I'm starting to venture into dropshipping, but I'm researching other areas to get other forms of extra income ... Hence the doubt arose how is your project doing today? Did it continue? Did you get to climb?
 

Ceamce

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I love this thread because this is my initial idea, I am from Argentina and I would like to start a marketing agency.

What courses do you recommend to learn? I start with wordpress?
 
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