How To Start a Digital Marketing Agency With No Experience (a Straightforward Process)

You may have reached a point in your life where you are looking for a career change and a new challenge.

You are probably well aware of how lucrative the digital marketing industry has become and how all businesses, large and small, require expert services to grow and boost conversions.

This is why starting your own digital marketing agency is one of the best career choices you could make, but there is one problem … you don’t have any experience in running a marketing agency.

In this simple guide, we will talk you through how to start a digital marketing agency with no experience, and the individual steps that need to be taken to make it a success.

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What Services Does a Digital Marketing Agency Provide?

Before we begin, let’s take a look at some of the services your digital marketing agency will need to provide to your clients.

Website Development
Website Design
Graphic Design
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Marketing
Copywriting
Content Marketing
Brand Development
Social Media Marketing
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Email Marketing and Retargeting
Influencer Marketing
Lead Generation
Mobile Marketing Campaigns
PR and Media Campaigns

How To Start a Digital Marketing Agency With No Experience

Here is our step-by-step guide on how to start your very own digital marketing agency.

Start digital marketing agency step-by-step graph

1. Establish Your Business Goals

Before you do anything else, you must first establish the overall goal of your business.

What will you do for your clients?
What will your brand look like?
What is the overall philosophy of your business?
How will you measure success?

Answering the four questions above can help give you direction so you can start putting the necessary building blocks in place.

Many businesses that do not establish clear goals lack focus and fail to establish a key selling point. This is why creating a clear business plan with achievable goals is essential for new digital marketing agencies.

Below are several examples of business goals that could be applied to your new venture.

A focus on well-known clients to quickly build a strong reputation.
A focus on clients that have the potential for high growth.
A focus on numerous, low-maintenance clients.
A focus on strong branding and maximum publicity.

Digital marketing agencies can take many shapes and forms, therefore, no single model can be applied to all.

You may wish to focus on just one aspect of digital marketing such as social media and influencer marketing, or you could choose to offer the full package. There is no right and wrong way of doing things as long as you have a clear plan.

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2. Define Who Your Target Audience Is

Once your goals have been established, it makes it much easier to define your target audience.

The first step when defining your target audience is to create a user profile of your ideal client. When doing this you should ask yourself two questions.

What aspect of marketing is the client struggling with? How can you help them with this issue?

You need to outline the requirements of your ideal client, how they like to communicate, and what agency habits they would like to avoid. Think about their business goals, their employees, and how your agency can help them be successful.

You could even send out surveys to prospective clients and ask them to reveal what they like and don’t like about working with an agency.

Try to create 3 or 4 different user profiles based on their geographical location, industry, and the size of the business.

3. Develop a Website and Build Your Online Presence

A digital marketing company that does not have a website is unlikely to generate many leads.

Creating a nicely designed, user-friendly, and optimized website is an important component of your business, as it allows you to promote your services and create a narrative for your business.

Read our step-by-step guide➡️ How to Build a Website (Blog) From Scratch

Your website can play a major part in raising awareness about your brand, with its design, style, and tone of voice transferring to your social media pages so your business is instantly recognizable.

If you lack any web development experience, then WordPress is one of the best platforms for beginners, with customizable themes allowing you to build a functional website very quickly.

WordPress Theme Directory

WP theme directory — Source: WordPress.org

Additional functionality can also be added using plugins and widgets, requiring no coding skills.

🔵Tip: Create focused landing pages for each service you offer so you can effectively target specific keywords and phrases. Each landing page can also be tracked in Google Analytics so you can easily measure their performance.

4. Attract New Clients

Now you have conducted sufficient planning and have a website in place, you are in a position to start generating leads and attracting new clients.

Let’s take a look at three lead-generation methods that may be suitable for your digital marketing agency.

Direct Outreach – For many new businesses, direct outreach is the primary method for generating leads and building up a client base. Email marketing is a great way of targeting potential clients who fit within your target audience. You could also reach out to prospects via LinkedIn and other social media platforms to determine who is interested in your services.

Referrals – Referrals/ word of mouth remains one of the best ways of generating new business for agencies. Establishing yourself as a trustworthy and reputable company means clients are likely to recommend you to other businesses they work with

SEO – Developing an SEO strategy that increases your website’s visibility across search engines is one of the most effective ways of reaching potential customers. Creating unique and engaging content that targets keywords and developing a user-friendly, responsive website is certainly worth the effort.

In addition, if you have a budget, you can consider media buying—a strategy that involves purchasing ad space to reach a broader audience.

This approach will help your message be seen by a wider, targeted audience, which can lead to increased client acquisition and business growth, regardless of your agency’s size. For more information and insights on media buying, click here.

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5. Create a Growth Plan

As a new business, it is advised to keep your goals realistic and create a growth plan that is achievable in a specific timeframe.

Think about when you might need to bring in new employees to deliver services to your clients, or if outsourcing some of the work is a sensible solution. What IT requirements do you need to manage your agency? What processes need to be developed?

If your business grows quickly and you do not have the necessary resources to cater to your clients then it is likely they will become unhappy which could damage your reputation.

This is why a detailed growth plan is required to make sure you have considered every variable.

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