Is starting a Digital Marketing Company still a Go-To in 2023?

[Samuel Lcr]

Is it worth it to start a digital marketing company in 2023?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ZackerySprague]

Is it worth it to start a digital marketing company in 2023?

There's a lot of them out there, it can be done by putting in 10,000 hours and finding value skews that make you different such as Niching down.

A good go to resource is a guy called Josh Nelson who created an agency that made the INC 5000 list four years in a row. Best way to find out what the market wants is to poke it and see what feedback they give you for problems that you are solving for them.

 

[RicardoGrande]

I didn't believe it going in, long before I got into FWS. Violates rules C, E, N, and T of CENTS (and maybe S for most people). It's probably one of the first things relatively un or low-skilled people run to (along with copywriting) on the freelancing journey.

What changed my mind was encountering the total amount of local business that actually needed some service, either a website, some optimization, or some ads.
Need a plumber? Hey there's one locally with GREAT reviews but the number on his listing is Out of Service.
Need someone to handle your fence? There's 3 local contractors, two with bad reviews, but the third one's site doesn't have ANY pictures of their work.
Go to a business networking meetup and listen to the owners, almost everyone has a prospecting or secure source of leads problem, and a digital marketing company can solve that when executed well.

NOW, literally any jackass can reach out and close a "marketing deal" which plainly violates E in CENTS. What's also interesting is for the thousands of jackasses that try to do that, most get absolutely nowhere- and resign themselves back to their jobs.

You can be different, but would you be ready to differentiate yourself by putting in the (often painful) work of calling or walking into businesses to prospect, to spend countless hours learning the skills from the ground up, building and testing with your own and portfolio sites- and then risking it all in your first few high dollar deals (you'll have to learn sales btw) and praying all your work results in good outcomes and ROS for the client so you can get future work? It's not easy, but you'll get a crash course in a boatload of different business skills most product based entrepreneurs or even newly-started blue collar ones won't really face until they're well-established.

Either way you want to cut it, good luck. Surprisingly open but also surprisingly difficult- but once you get through the "hustle" and past the "hump"... well I hear it's like dream land, and even if you don't, you'll have met hundreds of business owners along the way.

 

[Stargazer]

Digital Advertising spend goes up each year by the $tens of billions.

I just Googled some numbers.

2021: $520 billion
2022: $600 billion
2023: Predicted $680 billion going up to a projected $875 billion by 2026

Whether you have the ability to get a tiny slither of that directed your way is up to you.

Dan

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Oso]

There are a billion "digital marketing agencies," that's true. That said, most of them are shit.

I started mine based on market need; the area I opened in had 2 options for digital marketing, at the time:

Company A: Quality work, but they charge 10k+ for a landing page (in an area that's mostly smaller, family owned businesses)

Company B: Barely charges you shit, but is scummy. They'll double charge you, claim they're running PPC/SEO/etc. but they aren't.

I entered the marketplace at a solid price point, with quality results and reports. Finding clients was easy: I printed business cards and flyers (Vistaprint) and simply mailed 1 of each to 500 local businesses. Again though, this worked so well because I knew the market I was entering.

My copy was initially shit, but it worked regardless, especially upon offering a (small) discount on the first quarter of their hosting for "new clients." They don't need to know they're all new.

TL;DR: it's worth it if you put the work in.