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I want to start a Digital Marketing Agency

Marketing, social media, advertising

bracknelson

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These Are the Steps I Think You Need to Follow to Start Your Digital Agency

Educate Yourself
Find Your Niche
Do Competitor Research
Launch Your Website
Build a Portfolio
Set a Business Model
Have a Social Media Presence
Generate Leads
 

Andy Black

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These Are the Steps I Think You Need to Follow to Start Your Digital Agency

Educate Yourself
Find Your Niche
Do Competitor Research
Launch Your Website
Build a Portfolio
Set a Business Model
Have a Social Media Presence
Generate Leads
May I humbly suggest just finding someone who needs help with digital marketing and then figuring it out from there?
 

Envious

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As someone who has recently been exposed to 'Agency' life, I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of the stuff that's been said and if anyone thinks that this is an easy path to high and stable income, think again.

For all the pros, there are just as many cons.

There is a reason there is so much burnout in this industry and with agency owners, it's because you can never really take your foot off the gas.

You're either:
  • doing the work constantly trying to squeeze out every ounce of performance.
  • Dealing with frustrating, demanding and stupid clients.
  • Chasing leads and writing proposals for free.
  • Justifying every action and result to the client in reports.
  • Trying to juggle projects, client expectations, freelancers and staff while simultaneously trying to grow the business.
And then the cycle repeats..

As @Andy Black said earlier, I think it's far less stressful to have customers instead of clients.
If you like marketing, market your own products where the upside is potentially unlimited, don't market other peoples businesses for a monthly retainer.
 
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Paul David

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Another thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that you can use digital marketing "clients" to grow your own brand rather than theirs.

Example:

@Andy Black talks about this regularly and it's so true you wouldn't believe. It's all about providing value and helping people.

And one of my new favourite quotes I seen from Zig Ziglar: "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want"

Digital marketing has changed quite a lot in the 5 years this thread was started and it would be nice to hear from the OP and a couple of others in the Agency space who posted in 2015 to see how they've got on since.

It's 2020 now and I've been able to make use of certain software developments to be able to do this:

I created my own service based brand in a niche. (for example purposes let's say its Pest Control - it's not but we can pretend).

I created a professional website and facebook page for this brand. I got some cheap facebook likes for social proof and posted content going back 12 months on the Facebook page. (helps creating pages in advance for this).

OK, so I haven't got a clue how to actually perform the pest control service but I now have a website and facebook page.

So now using my digital marketing knowledge I run Facebook ads looking for pest control experts to take on some work in their area on my behalf. They can use their own normal prices, pay me nothing up front and all they need to do is check a phone app (which I provide) to see if any new jobs appear and then attend the job and take payment.

I then run ads to attract the jobs in the area that they cover, pass them onto the pest control expert and either take a flat monthly fee or a % of the jobs. I can do it either way since I'm controlling the whole process. All the ads are run on my page, my team follows up leads and books jobs and the pest control expert is now essentially a sub contractor of mine.

Duplicate this across the UK and USA and you can sign up 30 areas in 2 days. How do I know? Because I did it. The key part is ensuring that you're booking enough jobs to cover the ad spend and obviously make profit.

Which now begs the question, do I run a Digital Marketing Agency or do I run a Pest Control Company and employ sub contractors as employees?
 

Andy Black

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Another thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that you can use digital marketing "clients" to grow your own brand rather than theirs.

Example:

@Andy Black talks about this regularly and it's so true you wouldn't believe. It's all about providing value and helping people.

And one of my new favourite quotes I seen from Zig Ziglar: "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want"

Digital marketing has changed quite a lot in the 5 years this thread was started and it would be nice to hear from the OP and a couple of others in the Agency space who posted in 2015 to see how they've got on since.

It's 2020 now and I've been able to make use of certain software developments to be able to do this:

I created my own service based brand in a niche. (for example purposes let's say its Pest Control - it's not but we can pretend).

I created a professional website and facebook page for this brand. I got some cheap facebook likes for social proof and posted content going back 12 months on the Facebook page. (helps creating pages in advance for this).

OK, so I haven't got a clue how to actually perform the pest control service but I now have a website and facebook page.

So now using my digital marketing knowledge I run Facebook ads looking for pest control experts to take on some work in their area on my behalf. They can use their own normal prices, pay me nothing up front and all they need to do is check a phone app (which I provide) to see if any new jobs appear and then attend the job and take payment.

I then run ads to attract the jobs in the area that they cover, pass them onto the pest control expert and either take a flat monthly fee or a % of the jobs. I can do it either way since I'm controlling the whole process. All the ads are run on my page, my team follows up leads and books jobs and the pest control expert is now essentially a sub contractor of mine.

Duplicate this across the UK and USA and you can sign up 30 areas in 2 days. How do I know? Because I did it. The key part is ensuring that you're booking enough jobs to cover the ad spend and obviously make profit.

Which now begs the question, do I run a Digital Marketing Agency or do I run a Pest Control Company and employ sub contractors as employees?
Very nice. Sounds like MJ's Limos(.)com, or a digital marketing agency serving hotels vs booking(.)com

I'm reminded that business skills beats technical skills.
 

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