Business

How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency

Do you love working in digital marketing but want to be your own boss? Are you planning to launch your very own company to capitalize on your experience and ambitions? Let's look at the strategies and steps necessary to independently start a digital marketing agency.

Starting a digital marketing agency of your very own is an aspiration for many – and if you’re already working as a professional digital marketer and have a solid portfolio of work, you’ll be in a fantastic position to start advertising your capabilities and attracting clients.

However, if you’re relatively new to digital marketing, you’ll need a great deal of business acumen and confidence and require a significant amount of networking to attract skilled marketers, content creators, strategists, and freelancers to provide the day-to-day work you expect to produce for your clients.

The right business plan and model may differ, but the ideal is to work through the process of creating and launching an agency methodically, giving yourself plenty of time to conduct thorough research, position your agency in a high-demand segment, and ensure you have the resources and capabilities your target clients are looking for.

Let’s get started – and before long, you could be featured alongside other sector-leading digital marketing agencies in our comprehensive Digital Marketing Agency Directory!

The Pros and Cons of Launching a Digital Marketing Agency

One of the toughest aspects of launching your own agency is deciding where to get started. It’s a little like the chicken and the egg scenario, where you’ll need at least one or two clients to start trading – but equally can’t recruit clients until you have the services and personnel in place to meet their expectations.

As we’ve indicated, there isn’t one uniform business model that will be appropriate for every agency. You could choose between hundreds of service areas and specialisms or work within a niche or sector that you already know inside out.

For the purposes of this guide, we’ve put together the steps we expect most digital marketing agencies to follow on the assumption that you have at least a baseline level of professional expertise and intend to launch your agency on a small initial basis before scaling up to bigger things.

Most agencies are founded by accomplished, successful, and ambitious digital marketers who want the flexibility to choose the clients or projects they work on and who have a strong track record that can work well as part of their marketing to attract new clients, with the confidence the founding owner has the right talents to deliver the required services.

Otherwise, it’s best to gain ample experience in real-world digital marketing roles or to partner with a digital marketing expert who can handle the practical client liaison aspect of the work while you deal with financing, project management, and administration.

Choosing the Format of Your Digital Marketing Agency

You may already have a firm idea about the types of services you’d like to offer, but this is a great first consideration since it may inform the rest of the process.

As an agency owner, you can pick and choose whether you’re a full-service agency, focus only on specific types of services or clients, or want to provide an expert digital marketing service related to particular kinds of advertising or campaigns.

In summary, digital marketing agencies fall broadly into these categories:

  • Full-service agencies deliver an end-to-end service, often with creative input and designers, developers, data analysts, and content creators working cohesively to develop, deploy, and monitor campaign success. Most full-service agencies also provide social media account management, paid advertising, and SEO services.
  • Channel-specific agencies work with businesses to provide management or campaign development for one or two platforms or channels, such as an agency that creates video marketing campaigns for YouTube.
  • Multi-channel digital marketing firms provide a balance of the two, with a varied number of services that can be used to design and implement cross-channel campaigns, typically outsourcing other service requirements.

If you’re unsure, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at demand, the nature of the competition, and your abilities and expertise.

For instance, if you have an excellent reputation for creating organic search results through content creation or providing social media campaigns that generate results far beyond average, it makes sense to focus your efforts here.

Hiring external specialists and freelancers is an option if you’d like to provide a broader range of services, but you’ll need financing to cover these costs and the certainty that your agency will generate revenues very quickly.

Therefore, the standard is to begin with a smaller niche agency that capitalizes on your knowledge, bringing in new services or colleagues as and when the agency starts to scale sustainably.

When Starting Your Own Digital Marketing Agency Isn’t for You

Now, if you’d love the independence and ownership that having your own agency offers, it’s a brilliant aspiration to work towards. However, there is no doubt that launching an independent business takes significant time and commitment. Sometimes, if the timing isn’t right, it’s better to wait until you have the resources to succeed.

As a word to the wise, running a digital marketing agency commonly means:

  • Working flexible hours and being available to chat with clients or market your services with non-standard working days.
  • Making all decisions autonomously and having the confidence that the choices you make are right for you and your agency.
  • Focusing on building stable foundations before having the opportunity to grow and expand, working in a phased way rather than trying to get too big, too fast.
  • Being able to delegate and trust colleagues or freelancers to provide services outside your skill set.

Great agency owners are comfortable taking on all jobs and tasks that come their way, providing client relationship services and practical digital marketing, and putting in the extra work and effort necessary to get an agency up and running.

If you’re unsure of your commitment, time availability, resilience, confidence, or skills, it could be beneficial to spend time working on these professional and personal characteristics to ensure you’re in the best possible place to make your agency a success.

Creating a Digital Marketing Agency: Step by Step

Now, we’d reiterate the caveat that there isn’t one business model or way to launch a new agency, and if you’ve already begun putting the legwork in or want to start your agency in a less conventional manner, there’s nothing stopping you!

However, we’ve listed the usual steps an agency founder might take to give you a realistic idea about the initial preparation that needs to happen before you’re prepared to fling open your doors.

Step 1: Cement Your Abilities and Skill Set

Beginning by auditing your experience, skills, and accomplishments is valuable. A strong portfolio, track record, previous client list, and evidence of the campaigns and results you have achieved elsewhere may be key to attracting new clients—especially if they’re moving from another agency and taking a chance on you.

Agency founders need bags of confidence and will often spend time brushing up on any gaps in their knowledge or finding partners who can plug those gaps to ensure there aren’t any elements of the service they plan to offer where they could fall short.

Depending on the agency type and any specialism or sectors you plan to focus on, that could mean adding business management abilities to your resume, refreshing your know-how in the latest digital marketing techniques and technical applications, or collaborating with an expert web designer to get a professional, slick website off the ground.

While you don’t necessarily need to be a specialist in all of the vast number of digital marketing components out there, you do need to be at the top of your game in at least one or two – whether that is social media, content, email, SEO or another type of digital marketing.

The more areas you can manage yourself, the less you’ll spend outsourcing, and the more security you’ll have over your cash flow. Therefore, if you need a few weeks or months to complete a refresher course or gain practical experience in areas where your knowledge is a little weaker, that may be time well spent.

Step 2: Conduct In-Depth Market Research

As a marketer, you’re likely already pretty competent at conducting research on markets, keywords, competitors, and sectors, and before you’re ready to launch a new agency, you’ll need to deploy these abilities for yourself.

Deciding the services to offer or the sectors to specialize in can be straightforward if you have a wealth of experience, but it’s also vital you know there is sufficient demand and interest there to save competing in a crowded market against larger, more established agencies.

By researching competitors in your local region or state, polling companies or tapping into data from your nearest chamber of commerce, asking professional contacts about their core concerns or requirements, and networking with local businesses, you’ll have a better idea about the right positioning that will differentiate your agency from anybody else.

Step 3: Formulate Your Initial Business Plan

New digital marketing agencies can operate as one-person standalone businesses where you could work from home, in a rented office space, or an office-sharing setting. You could also choose to set up shop as a conventional business with an office address and either employers or freelancers working for you.

There aren’t any perfect answers, and your budget might dictate much of this decision-making. Your location could also be influential, as having a city center office could be ideal for networking, whereas you’ll require a fairly decent budget to rent, furnish, and decorate a space.

More and more digital marketing agencies work with clients remotely, which can make it much easier to start from a home office with minimal overheads and reduced costs.

However, you’ll also need to consider aspects such as your computing systems and ensure you have the resources, such as a device with a commercial-capacity graphics card, to carry out your work.

Step 4: Register or Formalize Your Business

Regardless of your location, you’ll need to have some form of official documentation to verify the authenticity of your agency. Businesses will normally conduct background checks before contracting a new agency, even if they’ve worked with you personally before, so you’ll usually need the following:

  • A professional agency name and logo.
  • A consistent domain name, website, and email address.
  • A commercial contact number.
  • A business accountant.
  • Commercial stationery, email footers, and business cards.

If you opt to incorporate a business and are obligated to file corporation taxes, you’ll need to add your registration numbers to your official stationery.

Otherwise, if you intend to be a sole proprietor or self-employed professional, you must advise the tax authorities of your change in status to ensure everything is above board and that any prospective client checking the background of your company will be satisfied that you are a credible and legitimate business.

Step 5: Design Your Digital Marketing Agency Website

Of course, you’ll need a professional, attractive, and compelling website that provides clients with a great first impression. Starting work in advance to build a presence and establish your website on the search engine rankings is key since many clients will expect to find you highly ranked to showcase your abilities.

Website design can be as complex or simple as you like, but this is also the space to establish your branding and tone, which will be influenced by the focus and specialisms you plan to provide. If you have the know-how to create an amazing website yourself, that’s great, but otherwise, you’ll need to hire an accomplished web designer.

The same principles apply, and you’ll be used to using them in your own client-focused digital marketing work, including:

  • Searching for relevant keywords and polishing your SEO to ensure your website is visible.
  • Promoting the benefits and value you provide for clients considering hiring you.
  • Keeping a consistent tone, style, and persona throughout all web pages and content.
  • Adding social media or networking accounts that support that same brand theme.
  • Registering with relevant directories and websites to maximize exposure.
  • Adding personalized content that ranks well with the latest algorithmic updates, including testimonials, accreditations, and introductions about you, your certifications and qualifications, previous clients, and success stories.
  • Creating backlinks and internal links to strengthen your domain authority.

Networking is often critical for new digital marketing agencies, so be prepared to spend time attending forums and groups to ensure as many potential clients know about you – and will be able to quickly and easily discover more information about the services you offer.

Step 6: Invest in Essential Software and Tools

Digital marketing agencies utilize a huge array of tools, databases, search functions, and software, and the outlays can be quite significant, especially when you factor in the cost of commercial licensing.

However, the higher the standard and quality of the tools behind you, the easier it’ll be to conduct research, create graphics, mock-up website landing pages, generate client reporting, raise invoices, and submit account and tax returns—amongst many other tasks.

You’ll likely already know the tools and software you’ll rely on most, but you can also research the market to look for anything that will meet your requirements while being cost-effective. Platforms like Moz, HubSpot, Ahrefs, and Semrush are among the most popular, but that may depend on the type of digital marketing you’re focusing on.

As a new digital marketing agency, you may also need to compare and choose software to help with lead generation, email marketing campaigns, graphic design, content creation, and proofing, social media account management, and supporting online chat functions if you’ve included these on your website.

Step 7: Finesse Your Business offering and Fee Structure

Before you onboard a client, you need to know what you’re charging and how that all works. This could mean charging hourly, daily, or per-project fees or creating contracts based on client requirements.

Creating packages works well since new clients can see upfront what they’re getting for the price, although hourly services can provide a great way to establish yourself and undertake smaller ad hoc projects to improve your status and collate some positive client testimonials.

The right rates will depend on your experience and location since businesses anticipate paying very different rates between countries and jurisdictions. However, researching the competition and positioning your pricing to be competitive while still profitable is key.

Larger and better-known agencies usually charge a monthly retainer, although it can be tricky to attract clients without having a good portfolio – if you have one, you may be able to encourage clients to pay a fixed value for your services, which can boost your cash flow.

Step 8: Attract Your First Digital Marketing Client

Whether you have a previous client ready to onboard, need to advertise to find a local business looking for your services, or are pitching blind in the hope of finding your perfect client, this can take time—but it is a massive step forward.

Agencies often rely on businesses owned by friends or family to get started or can offer discounted or even free support for local charities or non-profit organizations to help build a portfolio of work and collate that all-important social proof.

You can also try looking at relevant job boards (including ours!) if you’re initially open to project-based work. Taking on lower value but relatively straightforward projects might seem less challenging but can strengthen your position as a professional agency.

While you’ll need to offer potentially lower pricing than you’d like, you need at least a handful of clients to show what you are capable of. Most agencies will start out with below-average pricing until they are able to charge more.

Step 9: Build on Your Digital Marketing Agency Presence and Reputation

Once you’ve secured your first client or contact, you’ll need to juggle the demands of running a business, completing client work, and promoting your agency, with options like:

  • Creating an informative, non-sales blog or writing outreach pieces for digital marketing or local press publications.
  • Monitoring and revising your online content to maintain a good position on the search engine rankings.
  • Attending networking and business events in your community.
  • Adding new work and testimonials to your social media channels, website, and third-party guest marketing pieces.

As you gain confidence and credibility, you may need to start creating defined procedures and processes to outline the services you offer and how you meet clients’ expectations. This enables you to think about hiring colleagues, associates, or trainees or outsourcing some aspects of your work when the workload becomes too much for one person to manage.

When the day arrives that you’re ready to hire your first employee, you’ll recognize that the preparation and commitment you’ve made during the early days of launching a digital marketing agency were an investment in longevity, and can look forward to onward growth and success in the years to come!

Lauren Edwards-Fowle

Lauren is a copywriter and content writer at Digital Marketing Jobs, specializing in digital marketing, business and finance. She simplifies complex topics into accessible and entertaining content. Outside of work, Lauren enjoys the beach, walking her dogs, and spending time with her family.

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