It’s a fact, there are many existing digital marketing agencies everywhere and new ones are popping up like wild mushrooms every day. This means you will always need to be up to date with the latest trends, marketing tools and software programs to stay in the game.
In this article we share five successful ways to start and operate a social media marketing agency.
1. IDENTIFY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
CONDUCT MARKET RESEARCH
You can do it by conducting your own surveys, or you can use websites like MarketResearch.Com to look through over 250K research reports collected from hundreds of sources.
1.1. Personalised Survey
Do the traditional one-to-one survey or use tools like Survey Monkey to conduct online and scalable research. Find answers to questions like:
Who are your ideal customers?
What are their pain points?
Do your services solve their problems?
How much are they willing to pay for your services?
1.2. Mass Survey
Alternatively, you can take help from expert companies who conduct large-scale surveys. MarketResearch.com is one such place where you can look for research reports collected from hundreds of sources. It’s highly recommended to conduct in-depth market research before you start a social media marketing agency.
2. DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL
It is important to have a business plan that is open-ended to allow a room for continuous improvement. Once you have conducted your marketing research and are sure about your business plan, it’s time to define a transparent and scalable business model for your digital marketing agency.
ADDRESS THESE QUESTION:
Who are your ideal clients?
Where will you find them?
What services will you offer?
How will you make money?
How will you fund your new business?
How will you promote your business?
What expenses will you have in the next twenty four months?
What are the possible glitches, and how do you manage to fix them?
Think of all the possible aspects of your digital marketing agency that you can think of and try to answer them as efficiently as possible.
Based on the above findings, create your business journey and set goals for the next two years of your new venture. The first twenty months of your business will be critical.
3. BUILD A GREAT TEAM
You should be well-aware of what a social media marketing agency does and what skillset the company will need as a whole. Do yourself a favour and take up Udemy courses to understand the basics of social media marketing, SEO, blog writing, paid ads, and more. Read extensively on how to develop your business, manage employees and clients, find and retain clients, and more.
Once you have a basic understanding of what teams you will need, start looking for people with skills to collaborate with you. You can also employ newly graduated individuals on a commission basis. When you are just starting out, you want to spend less money as possible on salaries. LinkedIn is a great place to find exactly who you are looking for.
YOUR BUSINESS STRUCTURE SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS:
A CONTENT TEAM – Your content writers, designers, copywriters and editors.
A GROWTH TEAM – Your SEO expert, PPC expert, growth lead and social media managers.
A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TEAM – Your sales, customer service, and marketing team.
ADMIN AND FINANCE TEAM – Your Administration/HR manager, receptionist and finance manager.
You can always start alone, then employ one person in each department as you sign up more clients and then grow from there.
4. USE THE RIGHT TOOLS OR SOFTWARE PROGRAMS
No online marketing agency can thrive without a highly-efficient set of tools or software programs.
MUST HAVE MARKETING TOOLS
Social media automation – Hoodsuite, Zoho, SocialPilot, Buffer, CoSchedule
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SocialSprout, SEMrush
Graphic Design – Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Canva, Prezi
Video Marketing – Adobe Premier
CRM – Hubspot, SalesForce
Email Marketing – AWeber, MailChimp, MailTrack
MUST HAVE ORGANIZATION TOOLS
Project management – TeamWork, Trello, Asana, Notion
Communication – Zoom, Skype, Slack, Google Meet
Cloud storage – G-suite, Dropbox
Accounting – Quickbooks, Tally
5. BUILD A PORTFOLIO AND PITCH TO POTENTIAL CLIENTS
PRACTICE BEFORE YOU PREACH
Get your website in place, start your online presence to warm up your account, and add credibility before pitching your potential clients. You can even offer some services for free to few clients and ask them for a case study. Remember to also experiment with your own brand to see what works and what doesn’t and that as a case study.
WAYS TO FIND CLIENTS
REFERRALS
Ask your friends, colleagues, existing clients and case study clients to introduce you to at least one potential client. Referrals are a great way to find clients as credibility is partially established when it comes from a known source.
WARM CALLING
Find twenty companies you are interested in working with, then study them thoroughly – their website, social presence, offline presence, ranking, etc. and write down a list of things they can do better. The bigger the list, the better the chances of you getting noticed. Find the contact of the business owner (very important), e-mail them this list and ask them for an appointment to discuss the list further.
NETWORKING
Socialise with your target audience through events, conferences, and social networking. Build personal connections on LinkedIn and engage with your target audience. Remember, in B2B services; people like to do business with people and not companies.
CONTENT MARKETING
Follow the content marketing funnel to establish yourself as a trustworthy brand for digital marketing. Be active on all social media platforms and strategically upload blogs, videos, podcasts, and other types of content for pulling potential customers towards you.
Discover all the pain points a company might have while deciding their digital marketing strategy and answer them in a way that leads the visitor towards choosing you.
Starting and operating a successful social media marketing agency isn’t exactly an easy job and it needs dedication and continuous learning. Algorithms changes all the time and a good social media marketing agency is always on top of all the important developments of the social and digital arena.
Keep learning and keep growing. Be sure to follow our blogs for more such articles where we help you excel at every step of your agency life.
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