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How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency: 5 Key Steps

Sukanya Mukherjee -

People do think that starting a digital marketing agency with no prior experience is impossible, but this is not the truth. Starting a digital marketing agency is a tedious and difficult task but not impossible. If you have the zeal and dreams of starting your own digital marketing agency, then no one is stopping you from turning your dream into reality and entering the digital marketing world. This article will act as a guide and provide you with 5 key steps to start a digital marketing agency. Before we proceed to the steps of starting a digital marketing agency, it is crucial to understand the reasons for starting a digital marketing agency.

Why Should you Start a Digital Marketing Agency?

It is very important to understand the reasons for entering into the digital marketing world and if it is a good business to start or not.

1. Increasing demand for digital marketing services

E-commerce is getting bigger each passing day, and so is the competition in the online market. So, many businesses are opting for digital marketing services for better reach and better visibility.

2. No physical presence is required.

Unlike traditional businesses, there is no need to have a physical office for operating a digital marketing agency. All the operations can easily be done remotely using cloud services, emails, and online meeting applications.

3. No need to have a degree in digital marketing

Though having a college degree in marketing is definitely advantageous for the business, it is not compulsory. There are plenty of online courses that can help you build essential digital marketing skills like SEO, content marketing, and so on.

4. Be your own boss

The major advantage of starting a digital marketing agency is that you are your own boss, and you can make your own decisions.

5. Business is easily scalable.

Digital marketing business is easily scalable where you can start by providing services on your own, and then as the number of clients increases, you can grow your business and hire new employees.

6. Low-cost business

There is no need to make heavy investments to start a digital marketing agency, unlike traditional businesses. You just need to have a good internet connection, subscriptions to some important digital marketing tools, and a website or platform to get clients.

All these points clearly state that a digital marketing agency is a really good business to start even if you have no experience in this field. So, here are 5 key steps to start a digital marketing agency from scratch.

5 Key Steps to Start a Digital Marketing Agency

1. Develop Essential Skills

Though you don't need any certification or degree to start a digital marketing business, learning some important skills is very important to grow your business and sustain in the competitive market. In the initial phase of the business, clients do look into your learnings and skills before giving a project, so; it is very important to build necessary skills before starting a digital marketing agency. It may take years to build the necessary skills, but once you learn those skills, you will be able to provide your clients with the best results. Following are some basic skills that you must build before starting your career in digital marketing:

  • Social Media Marketing
  • Search Engine Optimisation
  • Search Engine Marketing
  • Keywords Placement
  • Content Marketing
  • Designing Advertisements
  • Building Websites and Landing Pages

These are some of the important skills to perform basic campaigns in the digital marketing world; other than these you must know how to work with different digital marketing tools like SEMrush, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc. It is also very important to develop client management skills and soft skills to look more professional. Once you develop these skills, you will be able to provide your clients with high-quality services and better results.

2. Start as a Side Income Before Becoming a Founder

Having a high income, well-secured job is everyone's dream, but there, the chances of growth are restricted, so people opt for entrepreneurial business where the growth chances are tremendous. But you can't ignore the fact that developing the base of new business is really risky if you drop your regular job, so it is advisable to start your digital marketing services as a side income along with your regular job. Starting as a side income and not a full-time job is beneficial due to many reasons:

  • It allows you to build contacts and referrals before starting as a full-time agency.
  • It provides you the necessary experience in managing clients like documentation, building proposals, negotiating deals, and forming contracts.
  • It allows you to assume the risk without costing you a regular job. If anytime you feel that this is not the correct line for you then, you can opt-out and continue with your regular full-time job.
  • It allows you to ascertain the charges for your digital marketing services, which is a really important component of a full-time digital marketing agency.
  • It allows you to get work from mutual connections and other employees, which provides you with the necessary expertise to maintain clients and manage them.

Looking into the advantages, it is always advisable to start as a side income rather than a full-time digital marketing job. This is not a compulsory step of starting a digital marketing agency, but it is an advisable step.

3. Develop the Right Payment Process

A successful digital marketing agency is primarily dependent upon the digital marketing services provided by you and the cost of those services. There are different ways of charging your clients:

  • Hourly basis: Here, the clients are charged on the basis of the hours spent on providing services. This method is not preferred by many as it is a complex process, and it is really difficult to ascertain the number of hours spent.
  • Flat payment basis: This is the most preferred method of charging clients as it is the simplest of all. Here, the specific client and business agree on a flat payment that has to be made every month for the services provided.
  • Commission based: This is the most preferred payment model by the clients as the payment is on the basis of the sales made by the client after the services are provided.

Decide the best payment model for the services, and the better the way is, the higher is the efficiency and the growth of your business.

4. Develop a Target Niche

Once you are done with your primary research and experience in the digital marketing field, then the next step is to develop a particular niche whom you will be targeting. Developing a target niche has the following advantages:

  • Once you have a client, it is really important to obtain basic information using questionnaires to provide them with the best services. Developing a niche helps to set a standard set of questions needed to obtain the necessary information from the client.
  • It allows you to build specific skills that are mostly required by the target niche.
  • It provides you with a unique selling proposition and competitive advantage over other similar businesses.

Developing a target niche helps you to focus on specific clients and allows you to give them the best solutions.

5. Make the Final Decision

When you are going to start a digital marketing agency, there are many decisions you have to consider:

  • Scalability decision: It is very important to decide the scalability of your business and how you are going to deal with it. This includes renting decisions and hiring employees' decisions.
  • Tax liability decision: Tax decisions are one of the major decisions that any business needs to consider before starting. Ascertain your tax liability and how you are going to pay it off.
  • Final decision: Once you have made the final decision to start a digital marketing agency, believe in it and stick to it.

Conclusion

Starting a digital marketing agency is a good decision, but keep the above points in mind to effectively manage the business and ensure growth.

All the Best!!

Also Read:

1) How To Register the Domain For Your Website?
2) How To Start A Business From Scratch?
3) How To Start Your Own Franchise?
4) How to Prepare Your Business for Tax Season?
5) How to Hire Staff for Your Small Business? Things to Be Considered & More