How To Start A Digital Marketing Agency in 2024 (Step by Step)
Summary
TLDRThis video tutorial offers a comprehensive guide to starting and scaling a digital marketing agency in 2024. It covers six key steps, from setting goals to identifying target clients and building a team. The presenter emphasizes the importance of focusing on one marketing niche, gaining expertise, and utilizing free resources. Viewers are guided on how to offer services, price packages, and scale their agency to achieve a monthly revenue of $10,000, all without the need for expensive courses.
Takeaways
- π **Start-up Cost**: Starting a digital marketing agency is relatively inexpensive, making it an attractive business option.
- π **Scalability**: The potential earnings from a marketing agency are largely dependent on the effort and time you invest, with no fixed ceiling.
- π **Expertise Development**: Becoming an expert in a specific marketing field is crucial, and can be achieved through free services, apprenticeships, or self-education.
- πΌ **Professional Image**: Presenting a professional image, including having an LLC and a polished website, is essential for credibility and attracting clients.
- ποΈ **Service Offerings**: Specializing in one marketing service allows for deeper expertise and better client outcomes, rather than being a 'jack of all trades'.
- π **Target Client Identification**: Focus on clients with high profit margins who can afford and see the value in investing in marketing services.
- π€ **Referrals**: Word-of-mouth and referrals are powerful for acquiring new clients, underscoring the importance of excellent service delivery.
- π **Growth Strategy**: Starting with a few small clients and gradually scaling up is a feasible strategy to reach a $10,000 monthly revenue.
- π **Free Resources**: Utilize free resources and tutorials available online to build expertise in digital marketing without incurring high course costs.
- π **Networking**: Engaging with the community, such as following the speaker on social media, can provide further insights and support in running a marketing agency.
- π **Contract Importance**: Having formal contracts in place using platforms like PandaDoc is crucial to protect your agency from non-payment issues.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of the video?
-The main purpose of the video is to provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to start, scale, and operate a digital marketing agency in 2024, covering various aspects such as setting goals, identifying market segments, and becoming an expert in the field.
Why does the speaker emphasize not having a course to sell?
-The speaker emphasizes not having a course to sell to assure the viewers that the information provided is free and not a sales pitch, aiming to build trust and show that the content is genuinely educational.
What are some of the initial costs associated with starting a digital marketing agency?
-The initial costs for starting a digital marketing agency are relatively low, with potential expenses including setting up an LLC, using certain software tools, and possibly creating a professional website.
How many different types of marketing services are discussed in the video?
-The video discusses close to a dozen different types of marketing services, including social media marketing, paid ads, SEO, email marketing, web development, public relations, graphic design, and studying specific social platform algorithms.
Why is it recommended to focus on one specific marketing field initially?
-Focusing on one specific marketing field initially is recommended to become an expert in that area, provide high-quality services, and avoid spreading oneself too thin, which can lead to mediocre results across multiple services.
What are some of the tools mentioned in the video for running a digital marketing agency?
-Some of the tools mentioned include Northwest for LLC setup, Squarespace for website creation, High Level for all-in-one business operations, ClickUp for CRM and workflow management, and PandaDoc for document signing.
How does the speaker suggest becoming an expert in the field of marketing?
-The speaker suggests becoming an expert by either working for a marketing agency to learn the ropes or offering services for free to gain experience and build a portfolio, while also leveraging free educational resources and potentially inexpensive online courses.
What is the importance of having a professional website for a digital marketing agency?
-A professional website is important as it establishes credibility and authority, helps in branding, and serves as a platform to showcase services and expertise to potential clients.
How should one identify target clients for their digital marketing agency?
-One should identify target clients by focusing on businesses with high profit margins and the budget for marketing services, considering industries such as healthcare professionals, large corporations, political campaigns, e-commerce businesses, and startups.
What strategies are suggested for growing the agency to $1,000 and then to $10,000 per month?
-Strategies include offering package deals with different service levels, focusing on providing excellent service to gain referrals, utilizing cold emails for outreach, and potentially using paid advertising on platforms like Google and TikTok.
Outlines
π Starting a Digital Marketing Agency in 2024
The speaker introduces a comprehensive tutorial on establishing and operating a digital marketing agency, emphasizing the absence of a sales pitch and the intent to provide valuable free information. The tutorial is divided into six sections, covering goals, costs, marketing types, expertise development, tools, client identification, team building, and growth strategies. The aim is to empower viewers with actionable insights to potentially earn significant income from the agency.
πΌ Setting Up Your Digital Marketing Business Structure
The paragraph discusses the initial steps for setting up a digital marketing agency, including the recommendation to set up an LLC for legitimacy and the use of Northwest for the process. It also touches on the importance of choosing the right business partner and the potential pitfalls of partnerships, advocating for starting alone or with a trusted individual with aligned business visions.
π Selecting Your Marketing Specialization
The speaker lists various marketing fields such as social media, paid ads, SEO, email marketing, web development, public relations, graphic design, and algorithm-specific marketing, advising viewers to specialize in one area rather than being a 'jack of all trades.' The focus is on becoming an expert in a chosen field before expanding to others.
π Becoming an Expert in Marketing
This section delves into strategies for becoming a marketing expert, suggesting starting as an apprentice or offering services for free to gain experience. It also highlights the importance of presenting a professional image through an LLC, a polished website, and a professional email address. The speaker recommends utilizing free online resources and affordable courses to build expertise.
π§ Essential Tools for Running a Marketing Agency
The speaker introduces various tools beneficial for running a marketing agency, such as Northwest for LLC setup, Squarespace for website creation, High Level as an all-in-one software, ClickUp for CRM and workflow management, and PandaDoc for document signing. These tools are presented as aids for organization, efficiency, and professional credibility.
π― Identifying High-Value Target Clients
The focus shifts to identifying lucrative target clients, suggesting to 'follow the money' by targeting businesses with high profit margins. The speaker recommends considering professionals like doctors, lawyers, and dentists, but also encourages thinking outside the box to include larger corporations, political candidates, e-commerce businesses, and recently funded startups. The importance of specializing in a specific type of client to streamline marketing efforts is emphasized.
π€ Building Your Marketing Team and Scaling Your Agency
The final section discusses the challenges of building a team, advocating for handling work independently before outsourcing. The speaker suggests using platforms like Upwork, Workable, and Paired to find freelancers or employees, highlighting the benefits of hiring internationally for cost-effectiveness. The paragraph concludes with advice on creating package deals for services and leveraging referrals, cold emails, and ads to attract clients and scale the agency's revenue to $1,000 and then to $10,000 per month.
π Conclusion and Call to Action
The speaker concludes by reiterating the value of the video, encouraging viewers to utilize the provided resources and avoid expensive courses. They express hope for the success of the viewers in building their agencies and invite them to connect on social media for further discussion and assistance.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Digital Marketing Agency
π‘Scale
π‘Free Information
π‘Marketing Services
π‘Expertise
π‘Tools
π‘Target Clients
π‘Team Building
π‘Growth Strategy
π‘Referrals
π‘Freelancers
Highlights
This video provides a comprehensive tutorial on starting and operating a digital marketing agency in 2024.
The tutorial is all-inclusive, covering six different steps to grow an agency from the ground up.
The presenter assures that the information is free and not a sales pitch for a course or program.
The importance of setting goals and expectations for revenue in the marketing agency business is discussed.
The cost to set up a digital marketing agency is minimal, encouraging entrepreneurship.
Identifying a niche in marketing is crucial to avoid being a 'jack of all trades' and ensure expertise in one area.
Becoming an expert in marketing can be achieved by working for an agency or offering initial services for free to gain experience.
The presenter emphasizes the importance of having a professional image, including an LLC and a professional website.
Various tools for running an agency are introduced, including CRM and workflow management software.
Identifying target clients involves focusing on businesses with high profit margins that can afford marketing services.
The video suggests targeting specific types of clients such as doctors, lawyers, and e-commerce businesses for marketing services.
Building a team involves starting solo and gradually outsourcing tasks to freelancers as the agency scales.
Hiring freelancers can be more cost-effective when looking outside the United States for talent.
Strategies for getting to $1,000 and then $10,000 per month in revenue are outlined, emphasizing customer experience and referrals.
The video concludes with encouragement to utilize free resources for learning how to run a marketing agency.
Transcripts
so in this video I'm going to show you
step by step how to start scale and
operate a digital marketing agency in
2024 this is going to be an
all-inclusive tutorial showing you six
different steps of this process of
growing an agency getting off the ground
getting your first client and everything
else that you need to know about digital
marketing agencies all right so there's
a lot we can discuss in this video a
couple of things that we need to get out
of the way immediately is first of all I
don't have a course to sell you so you
don't have to worry about this being
like some massive sales pitch to get you
into some program this is all free
information and you can use this
information to scale your own agency I'm
a True Believer in free info there's so
much of it out there and I really hope
that in this video you can get just a
couple of gold nuggets maybe just
something I might say at minute 32 that
I'm going to say that you're going to
say wow this is incredible I'm going to
take this info it's going to make me
thousands of dollars that's my goal here
with this video here today okay so let's
talk about the six different sections
that we're getting into in this video
and feel free to take out a pen take out
a piece of paper jot down some notes as
we go through here cuz it is going to be
a lot of info I don't want to overwhelm
you but let's go over the review of what
we're talking about here today first of
all we're talking about goals and
expectations how much can you reasonably
expect to make with a marketing agency
this year what about 12 months from now
what about 2 years from now uh what are
some obstacles in there as well and then
we're talking about you know how much is
it going to cost you to set up hint it's
it's pretty much free to start an agency
that's why I love starting agencies and
then in section number two we're looking
at the different types of marketing that
you could potentially excel in and
create services for there's about uh
close to a dozen different types of
marketing that we discuss and it's going
to help you to identify which field you
would like to create an agency in then
in section number three this is one
that's really important because a lot of
people uh this is what stops them is how
do you actually become an expert in the
field of marketing this is a big hurdle
for many people they say well I want to
start an agency but I don't know how to
do marketing so how am I going to do
this we'll cover that in section number
three then we're going to talk about
some really important tools for running
an agency there's four or five different
tools that are super super helpful for
uh running an agency streamlining the
process and I'm going to leave links to
all those tools Down Below in the
description if you want to just kind of
skim through them and check some of them
out they will be down there then in
section number four we're talking about
how to identify Target clients should
you be selling your services to doctors
or to lawyers or to Big corporations or
the ice cream shop down the streets I'm
going to help you to identify Target
clients based on the types of services
that you are offering then in section
number five we're talking about building
your team so who should you hire who
should you partner with this is a really
big hurdle especially for Mike and I
when we launched our agency years ago
was who do we hire and how do we hire
them and how do we manage them it's very
very difficult to kind of get into that
it's it's just a big headache that we've
had especially in the first couple of
years of doing that properly so
hopefully I'm going to save you a lot of
headache in that section and then
section number six we're talking about
getting clients and growth strategy how
do you get to $11,000 a month and then
how do you get to $10,000 a month or
scale it even further than that and
we're talking about that in that section
specifically on getting clients and
setting things up and making sure that
your contracts are set up properly and
everything else in section number six
okay so without any further Ado let's
get into this let's start off with
setting goals and expectations for your
marketing agency now first of all why
marketing why running an agency what's
the point of this there's probably a
thousand different business ideas that
you could potentially run with this year
in 2024 or maybe you're watching this in
2025 so why an agenc the reason why I
think this is the best or one of the top
three businesses that you could
potentially start uh this year is
because there's really no cost upfront
to get this started so service-based
businesses are wonderful for this you
know if you're starting an e-commerce
brand uh which you know we have equity
and a bunch of Brands um but that's a
very Capital intensive like you need a
lot of money up front to go and start
like selling physical products it's
expensive but with a marketing agency
there's really no cost besides just
using your brain going out finding
customers and selling those services and
another beauty of an an agency is that
it's really up to you on how much you
can make in this field and I say that
because I know a lot of people who do
this very much part-time and this is how
kind of we started out way back in in
the day many many years ago is pretty
much part-time I was in college and so
you could do this 10 hours a week and
you can make a couple thousand doar a
month or you could take this very
seriously scale it up do it fulltime and
make tens of thousands of dollars per
month so it's really up to you on how
much you make for agencies and how much
time you have on your hands now of
course I can't promise you that you're
going to make millions of dollars from
this cuz truth is most people are going
to watch this and not act on it and
probably not going to make money because
they're just you know going to do other
things and that's understandable but my
hope is that some people can watch this
and take it and run with it so in terms
of goals and expectations it really is
up to you on how much you can make and
in terms of how much it's going to cost
you pretty much free there is some
software that is very very useful um and
for example if you want to set up an LLC
for your company then you're going to
want to use something like Northwest uh
this is how we set up our llc's
basically just legitimizes your company
so instead of you just running around
having people paying you personally you
can create a formal company a limited
liability company using Northwest it's
like $39 plus some State fees so I'll
show you just how easy it is to do this
but I would recommend everyone go and
set up an LLC now it's like the first
step of creating an agency so you just
go to Northwest I'll leave a link to
them down below in the description and
then the state in which I'm based is
Pennsylvania and so I'll just click on
that and then I will start my LLC
they'll help through this process of
creating it I'll enter a business name
and everything else and they'll just
walk through the process there so I'll
leave a link to them down below it's an
affiliate link it helps uh support the
channel and now there's one other
question that you're going to have to
answer for yourself here when you are
starting this agency is who are you
creating this with are you doing this on
your own are you building this company
with a friend of yours a business
partner you need to really think heavily
about this because my first business
that I ever started the person that I
decided to work with was my friend we
went 50/50 on the business and it didn't
work out because we were very much not
aligned we we we were friends and it
ruined our friendship we're not friends
anymore because my vision for taking the
company in a certain direction was much
different than his he didn't really want
to work and so I ended up working a lot
and he was kind of just like weighing
things down and wasn't working but still
getting 50% of the profits and so be
very careful of who you decide to
partner with I always recommend starting
this company on your own and then you
can always bring in someone else later
on you know further down the road if
you're scaling up and you really think
it's a great opportunity you can bring
someone else on as like a minority
Equity partner in the company but I
really do recommend starting this on
your own or starting this company with
someone that you absolutely trust and
very much are aligned with on business
so for myself that's my brother Mike we
do everything together because we think
very similarly we don't even I I don't
think we've ever argued ever in our
lives and so because of that we're great
business partners but just be very
careful who you pick as a business
partner when and doubt do it on your own
you can people into the mix later you
don't want to have a headache of having
like four different co-founders on the
company trust me that's for setting
goals and expectations let's get into
the next section here where we're
talking about uh the different types of
marketing that you could excel in and
which field should you look at so let me
just list off a couple of different
options for marketing because what I
don't want you to do is go out and try
to be what we call a jack of all trades
where in your first marketing agency you
try to sell a dozen different services
and you basically end up half-assing all
of them and not being an expert in any
one of those those fields so what you
want to do is obsess over one specific
field and become the best at that sell
that as a service and then later on down
the road you can add other services and
I'll show you how to do that later in
this video but here are some different
fields that are very very profitable in
the marketing industry okay so the first
one that a lot of people think of is
social media so social media marketing
running uh accounts for businesses this
could be running their Tik Tok accounts
their Instagram accounts their Facebook
page anything along those lines this is
a pretty straightforward business it's
also pretty competitive because there's
a lot of people who offer to do that for
businesses in your local area or any
other type of companies but it's one
that's pretty straightforward and most
people can do this without a lot of
training and so that's beneficial to you
that you don't have to spend a lot of
time learning how to create content but
also like I said there's going to be a
lot more competition with that as well
so social media marketing basically
getting clients this could be you know
the local ice cream shop in your area
you have them on retainer for $500 a
month and you do a certain amount of
posts for them per month and you have
packages and you run their accounts for
them I just made up that number there
500 it's it's there's a lot of factors
that go into the equation there the
other thing you could potentially do is
paid ads So Paid ads is one that Mike
and I really started with and it's one
that we found to be the most successful
for us now running paid ads for
companies is something that not everyone
can do and that's why we liked it
basically you can charge retainer you
can also charge fees on top of you know
the amount of AD spend that you're
running for the company so if you're
running a million a year in ads for the
company you can take a chunk of that ad
spend for your services learning how to
run paid ads can be a little bit of a
learning curve luckily we have videos on
this channel showing you how to run ads
on Facebook on Instagram on Google on
LinkedIn like we have all these
different ads videos that you can watch
and kind of get some of the basics of of
how to run ads but that's a feeli that
is really really interesting another one
is search engine optimization so you
could start an entire company helping
other companies with something called
SEO and this is basically helping
companies to rank at the top of Google
or other platforms rank number one for
certain terms so like when someone goes
on to Google and they type in plumber in
Philadelphia if you can help a company
rank on Google number one for plumber in
Philadelphia literally that Google term
is worth thousands of dollars per month
and so you could charge them hundreds of
dollars per month at a minimum just for
that service alone for helping them rank
on Google so you can make a whole
company out of that uh another one is
something like email marketing there are
email Mark marketing agencies that will
help companies to run their email lists
you could do this once again for local
businesses in your area in one of the
sections coming up will talk about like
potential clients and how to Target them
but running email marketing is super
profitable as an agency so you can do
this for influencers as well you could
run their newsletter there's a lot of
different routes you could take with
this on email marketing but basically
becoming an expert in that field of
email running drip campaigns lead
magnets there's there's a lot you could
go into there with with that another
type of agency is something focused on
web development so if you understand how
to build websites or design websites uh
everyone needs a website uh including
you for your own agency and so if that's
a skill that you have this can be very
profitable other things public relations
right a lot of influencers a lot of
famous people they have PR teams they
pay them quite a bit of money for PR we
have Graphic Design This is a field that
I'm not very well skilled in is graphic
design but there are design agencies
think about any product that you've ever
purchased it was
drafted up by a design agency so think
about like Logan Paul with prime right
this drink that he launched a few years
ago I'm sure a design agency made a lot
of money designing the bottle designing
the logo everything else and all the art
around it and that was an agency that
I'm sure they hired for many many
thousands of dollars at least tens of
thousands I would assume for that
service and then the other area of
marketing that you can go into which is
probably my favorite um is going to be
specifically studying an algorithm a
specific algorithm uh for social
platforms so for example I know a guy
who obsessed over the YouTube algorithm
he understood everything there is to
know about what makes a YouTube video go
viral and then because he was the guy
and he just like lived and breathed
YouTube Every Day 12 hours a day studied
the YouTube algorithm and figured out
what makes a great video now massive
companies pay him tons of money like
tens of thousands of dollars per month
for his advice on YouTube and how to
make thumbnails and how to create viral
videos even people like Mr Beast go to
this guy for advice I shouldn't name his
name but they go to him for advice on
how to create really great videos and
that's because he just focused on one
specific thing so what I want you to
take away from this section here is that
pick one of these and there are other
avenues as well you can even do like
physical mail marketing like there's a
lot of different types of marketing but
pick one from this list or from some
other list you can search on Google and
find one that you really think you have
some potential to understand and to be
pretty decent at and then spend all of
your time obsessing over that one field
okay and I I can't tell you which one
that you should do because it's going to
be different for everyone but you should
know yourself personally like like I
said design is not really my thing so
that's why we didn't really spend a lot
of time trying to sell Design Services
but instead I focused more on running
paid ads for people because that's just
the way my brain works I like numbers I
like stats and so it it's easier for me
to do something like ads than it was to
do something like graphic design or PR
for other companies that's a pretty
important section there just please
don't try to be a jack of all trades
focus on one and then you can always
Outsource and AD Services later if let's
say that you focus on becoming a website
agency where you build websites for
clients and then one of your clients
while you're building the site says hey
also can you run paid ads for me well if
that's not really your field then I
would suggest either selling that as a
lead to another marketing agency or
Outsourcing hiring someone and having
them do it underneath the umbrella of
your agency but I don't want to confuse
you there too much we'll talk about that
later on in the video okay now let's get
into to the next section here which is
something that's very important and this
stops a lot of people for or from
running an agency which is how do you
actually become an expert in the field
of marketing and I've seen so many
people who want to start an agency but
they're just not sure how because
they're worried about their lack of
expertise in this field so let me show
you how I would become an expert in
marketing this is actually what we did
there's a certain level of well you
would say fake it till you make it but
you want to be careful with that because
if you go out and you start an agency
and you promise the world to a customer
and you say I can do this for you I can
make this beautiful website I can you
know do all this things all these things
on social media for you if you
overpromise and underd deliver that's
going to be a disaster so be careful
faking it till you make it you can a
little bit but don't overdo it so the
way that we do this first of all on how
to become an expert there's really two
different ways the one and the best one
actually is to work for a marketing
agency for a while learn the ropes and
then go out and do it on your own that's
basically like The Apprentice Model A
lot of people aren't going to want to do
that because it takes time and you have
to spend six months or a year at another
agency learning the ropes I understand
if you don't want to do that the other
option for becoming an expert marketer
is to offer your services for free and I
know this sucks but offer your services
for free be very transparent and open to
the businesses that you bring on as
clients initially and say look I'm
becoming an expert I'm learning how to
run ads or I'm learning how to make
websites can I do this for you for free
and what you're going to find is is that
a lot of businesses are going to be
willing to take this up because you know
you want to learn how to do this it's
free to them there's not really anything
for them to lose and then once you do
that for a couple of customers then you
can go out and start selling that as a
service once you have those under your
belt you've built up some experience you
feel more confident and you can use them
as referrals for future clients that you
can actually start charging money for so
that's how I would become an expert but
there's one other thing here that's
going to be really important if you want
to Brand yourself as an expert and you
need to make sure that you have a
professional looking image before you
even begin to reach out to anyone you
know as a potential client okay as I
mentioned earlier make sure that you
have an LLC setup this is going to be
important for billing for sending emails
that is coming from a formal company and
not just like you know some random
person and that they don't have to like
write you a personal check that's just
kind of weird so once you have your LLC
set up you also are going to want to
make sure that you have a clean
professional website up and running uh
you can use something like Squarespace I
think most people know Squarespace but
the reason why this is important is
because when you reach out to someone
whether this is cold email or you give
some your business card when you reach
out to them they're going to look you up
they're going to look at your website
and if you don't have a website or if
it's a pretty bad website it's going to
be hard to lock down even your first
customer so what I recommend doing is
you can go down below into the
description of this video you can go to
sandal media.com Squarespace and you can
set up a website I would do this today
spend 30 minutes spend an hour just
create the basics on your website and
you can see how easy it is to launch a
site on Squarespace like they already
have templat what's made it's super easy
you can fill this out add your services
on here and get it up and running today
so I'll leave that link Down Below in
the description it is an affiliate link
so it helps support this channel when
you go through that link and create an
account there but I really do recommend
Squarespace there are some other options
like Wix and stuff but I think
Squarespace is really going to be the
best option just in terms of ease of use
and it's not going to be too expensive
about 20 some dollars per month for up
uh getting that up and running so when
you create this Squarespace site you'll
also have the option to get a Google
admin account this used to be called
Gite and what this is is it's going to
give you a professional email so that
instead of reaching out at like Nate Bob
poophead 447 gmail.com or yahoo.com uh
instead of reaching out like that to
potential customers it's going to be
from a very clean email from your domain
so it' be like Nate santral media.com
reaching out and it looks much more
professional I know from a personal
experience that when I get emails from
people with Gmail accounts I don't take
them as seriously I know that's bad to
say but it's true people judge and
that's one of the first things you look
at is what email account it's coming
from so just spend a little bit of money
get the Squarespace site up and running
so that you have some level of authority
you can build this out in an hour I
would just do this today and then you
can get that Google admin account so you
can set up that clean domain I think it
might be a bit of an upsell I'm not sure
what the cost is on that for Google
admin when you do it through Squarespace
but it's going to be pretty cheap and
it's going to be worth it it's kind of
like an investment for your agency is to
get that up and running and having that
professionalism and that's one of the
biggest most important parts of just
creating agency is making sure that you
have that website up and running now
other things you can do to build some
expertise look we have so many videos on
this channel alone I mean we have
hundreds of videos showing you how to do
all these various different things
whether you're trying to run Facebook
ads or you're trying to set up email
marketing campaigns you're trying to
figure out MailChimp software we have
videos on so many of these different
topics so make sure you are subscribed
to this Channel and go check out those
libraries of videos helping you with
those topics the internet is incredible
like the amount of free info that you
can have on there is really really
useful now I'm not a really big advocate
of online courses but I would say
another route for becoming an expert is
just go and spend like 10 or 20 bucks on
something like udem me they're not
sponsoring this video at all but there
are courses on udemy that are super
cheap that that will teach you how to do
specific things like running ads or
other things like that okay so uh you
can check them out as well I just
wouldn't spend tons of money on courses
like you can do a lot of this for free
but UD to me is pretty cheap so you know
it's probably not too bad all right so
to sum up this section the process that
I would go through to become an expert
in your field is to first of all make
sure that you look professional create
that professional site have that
professional email address then find a
way to become an expert that's either
going to be through becoming an
apprentice somewhere else which is going
to take some time or it's going to be by
offering your services for free being
very transparent with the business
saying look I'm I'm learning how to do
this can I do it for you for free no
cost to the company at all just let me
run it and see what happens and then use
that experience that you built from
doing it for free to then go and get
customers that are going to pay you
money that is the process that I would
go through to become an expert in this
field and then also utilizing all the
free info all the free videos that we
have on this channel is going to help
you quite a bit as well now in the next
section I want to just share some tools
that are very helpful for running your
agency so of course we have uh Northwest
for setting up that LLC we have square
space for just creating your website but
then we also have something like High
level and so a lot of agencies use high
level uh for running their company now
the reason this is kind of like an
all-in-one software it is a little bit
expensive but regardless I will leave a
link to it below in the description that
you can check out but basically with
high level I'll show you I'll scroll
down to this one section to show you the
different features and products that
they have but it's sort of like this
all-in-one you're going to have a CRM
you're going have workflow automations
email marketing surveys call tracking
all kinds of different things inside of
high level so it can be worth the cost I
would say that this software is going to
be useful for people who are going to
take this very seriously and are willing
to make a bit of an investment into this
software I will try to create a tutorial
around high level to walk you through
the entire software it can be a little
bit confusing but I would recommend
signing up you get a 14-day free trial
so it's probably worthwhile at least
getting started with and like I said I
will leave a link to that down below now
if you're not looking to spend some
money you know cuz it's $97 a month or
297 per month for all these different
features if you're looking to kind of go
for more of a free option you can also
use something like clickup so clickup is
a really great CRM basically like
workflow management so uh you can manage
all of your customers inside of here
your campaigns you know it could be
something as simple as doing social
media for companies or you could be
doing something more complex like
running ads uh you can run a lot of
different processes through clickup and
big companies use clickup uh it's kind
of similar to like notion or a SAA or
Monday but it's one that we like to use
we just started using it recently but I
know a lot of big that use them so you
can just see what you can do on here you
know time tracking tons of different
solutions here for your company con Bon
boards everything else and the beauty of
clickup is that it is free they do have
a paid version as well but I'll leave
some links to that down below as well if
you want to check them out and just sign
up for a free account basically I use
this as like my second brain an
extension of my brain because there's
only so much you can remember during a
day or during a week like what type of
content are you making for specific
client you need to organize it somewhere
and if you're not using like Google Docs
or pen and paper you're going to want to
use something like clickup or high level
for all of those different operations
okay so I wanted to just include those
here in this video the other tool that
is super useful is going to be some type
of platform for sending and signing
documents with your customers okay don't
look over this because I've seen people
get burned so use something like Panda
do so with panda do uh it's going to
it's basically like a DocuSign type of
setup um but it's going to be very
helpful for creating and sending
documents you can also use something
like legal templates. net I'll leave a
link to them down below in the
description as well and these are both
great platforms for creating your
contracts so they have ones that you can
use that are pretty much templates and
you just have to fill in a couple of the
blanks there and then send them out to
your customers and then have them sign
those documents you counter sign those
documents uh so that you have a formal
contract I've seen people get burned
where you know they will do some
Services they'll do some marketing
services for someone and then the
customer at the end of the you know you
spent 30 hours working on this they'll
say you know what I'm not going to pay
you either they don't have money or they
don't like the O overall service and
they just say I'm not paying you and if
you don't have a contract you can get
screwed you can get burned on that I've
seen people get burned so make sure you
have those contracts use something like
Panda do to have official contracts it's
definitely going to be something that
you don't want to skip over so that's a
little tool section I'll leave all of
those resources Down Below in the
description and I do recommend all of
them okay all right so there's three
more sections that we're going to
discuss in this video we're going to
talk about identifying Target clients
then we're talking about building your
team and then how to grow the company
growth strategy how to get to $1,000 and
then how to get to $10,000 per month on
your marketing agency talking about
identifying Target clients who do we
want to bring on as customers so I think
a lot of people view this the wrong way
and they don't follow the money as much
as they should so what I mean by this is
you need to think about companies that
already have really great profit margins
and these are going to be great places
to start for building a company for
example if you look at you know the
restaurant down the street from where
you live so the problem with food
businesses for example is that they have
really low profit margins now this is
generally speaking of course there's
restaurants that make a lot of money but
a lot of food businesses they have tight
profit margins they might only be making
you know five or 10% margins from their
food business and so if you go and Pitch
them $2,000 a month for marketing
they're going to say well you know in a
lot of cases they might not not even be
making $2,000 a month in in profit so
it's going to be difficult for them to
pay you a very high amounts of money for
those Services that's why we never
really targeted restaurants or food
businesses not saying that you can't
make money on that like I have friends
who have agencies that focus on
restaurants and they make good money but
just the way that I think of it I would
focus more on people who are already
making good money or can at least afford
higher ticket Services where you can
charge them $5,000 a month or $10,000 a
month or more for your services and they
have the budget for it okay so let's
talk about some potential different
clients for your agency so uh one of the
ones that I think everyone is going to
think of right away it's going to be
doctors lawyers dentists now these can
be very profitable I would say the issue
with these is that um you know a lot of
people have already run services for
them uh and so they probably already
have someone who does marketing for them
so you going have to basically compete
with someone who's already doing
marketing but they do tend to have much
higher budgets a lawyer who might be
making $100,000 a month from their
practice isn't really going to you know
shy away from spending $2,000 a month on
marketing if it's going to bring them a
lot of new customers because those
customers are high value okay so doctors
lawyers dentist those are some really
great ones but I want you to start
thinking outside the box a bit for
potential customers so one that uh we
actually got into recently actually now
more like 2021 was larger corporations
because they just have much larger
budgets and so I shouldn't name names on
the exact corporations but we've done
marketing for very large corporations
where the contract size can be 20 or
$30,000 a month and to them if it's like
you know A10 billion company them
spending $30,000 a month to hire us to
run marketing for them or help in
specific fields on their marketing team
it's not really much of a big issue for
them because that's like a drop in the
bucket $30,000 a month you know they're
making a billion dollars a year what's
that to them and so corporations this
one is a bit harder to get into I would
not recommend this right off the bat
it's just something that we kind of have
graduated to you know years and years
after you know running marketing
campaigns but start thinking more
outside the box as well things like
political candidates so every election
season right which is basically
elections every single year there's a
lot of money that's being spent on
Advertising so you can find ways to get
into this and run ads for political
campaigns or for even things like super
packs they're out there hiring people to
run ads and you can be an expert in that
field specifically on political
campaigns maybe someone's running for
congress in your local District you know
reach out to them and see if you can
help them on social media or help them
to run their campaign and this is a like
one that not enough people reach out to
on and they're always looking for
marketing experts in this field on top
of that look A lot of people are running
e-commerce businesses you know there are
millions of people who have Shopify
stores who are selling products online
helping them to run ads or helping them
with any other area of their business is
going to be very useful because there's
a lot of those potential customers out
there people who are already running
e-commerce businesses and then probably
my favorite one that I really think you
should consider doing is look at a list
of startups that recently announced that
they raised money for their startup you
can use something like crunch BAS or
pitchbook to look at all the different
companies and there are companies every
day that it's hitting the news that you
know some company just raised a ton of
money for their St they just raised $40
million for their series a or their
series B funding round and what this
means to you what this should mean is
that this company's now flush with cash
they raised a bunch of money and they're
ready to spend it and they might need
some marketing people to help spend that
money to grow the company so that is one
of the best ways like one of the best
hacks for getting new customers is to
just look at the list of recent
fundraising rounds and reach out to them
with cold email and you can do that all
day and you know you're going to get
some really great customers from that
now this all of course does depend like
your Target customer is going to depend
on the category of marketing that you
chose that we talked about earlier in
this video but those are just some
different potential Target clients that
you can uh go for another thing to
remember here is that it is helpful as
well to focus on one type of client that
you can really Niche down and become an
expert in that field like for example if
you focus specifically on marketing for
lawyers and then you try to go out and
run marketing for an ice cream shop it's
going to be a little bit of a different
game and so I think it's always better
to stick with one specific type of
client and then just find a bunch of
those so that you can basically rinse
and repeat and copy what has worked for
those previous lawyers that you have
done marketing for and then use that to
pitch it to the new lawyers that you
might be trying to sign on as clients so
that's going to be the section for
identifying your target clients now
let's talk about building your team this
is something that really was difficult
for Mike and I when we started our
company years ago and it's hiring people
hiring people can be very difficult and
you know managing people it's usually
not very fun and so how do you find the
right employees who do you hire how do
you hire them let's talk about that here
today what I would recommend doing first
of all is try to do this on your own for
as long as possible until you get to a
point where you physically cannot manage
it anymore and I say that because this
is important for understanding how the
business operates don't Outsource it too
quickly because then if you try to
manage someone on a project and you
haven't done it yourself in the past
then it's going to be a little bit more
disconnected so try to do this on your
own for as long as possible but once you
get to a point where you can't work
anymore then you want to start
Outsourcing now what we do in our
company is we have a list a running list
with different categories of potential
freelance workers so we can tap someone
anytime we need someone whether it's you
know we don't have the bandwidth and we
need someone to build a website or we
need someone to to run ads for someone
we we can just go and tap someone in
that you know specific category and we
have probably close to 100 different
Freelancers on this list that we can go
to uh whenever we need something done so
this is useful build up Your Arsenal
basically of of freelance workers who
can help you on any specific projects
now how do you go out and find them
there's a couple of options here you can
use something like upwork honestly I
love upwork we've hired so many people
from upwork you can also use something
like workable which I will leave a link
to Below in the description and workable
is great for hiring people and they have
a lot of other services as well and they
have HR as well which is going to be
helpful or you can use something like
paired so I've used paired as well this
a little bit more expensive but this is
like a head hunter where they will help
find an employee for you and they'll
like vet them they'll Source them
they'll they'll handle all of it and
then give you a really great high
quality employee so this is something
that I do think can be pretty great as
well and I'll leave a link to pair below
in the description they're a little bit
more expensive but if you want to take
it seriously and you are scaling then I
would check out paired now where should
you hire from I just want to talk on
this briefly because we used to hire
people in the United States and the
problem here is that it's really
expensive so like if you want to hire
someone for your agency in the United
States you're looking at you know
$60,000 a year minimum but probably
closer to $80,000 a year or more for
your marketing agency and if it's
something really specific too like if
you want someone to run ads those people
are very expensive they can be well into
the six figure range if they are
American and so we actually end up
hiring people in different countries
where the cost of Labor is a lot cheaper
and it's kind of a win-win for both us
and for the person who were hiring
because they're making a lot more money
than they would in their country that
they live in so for example we love
hiring people in Argentina or Brazil
because the time zone is very similar
and the languages is pretty similar as
well Spanish or Portuguese and English
there's not much of a language
difference there really the cost is
going to be at a much better price I
mean we're talking like a quarter of the
price so if you're paying someone
$80,000 a year in America you could get
someone with honestly the same amount of
uh skills and credentials for $20,000 a
year that's going to be a much higher
price than they could get if they were
you know working at a company in their
own country so it's basically a win-win
I'm a huge advocate of hiring people
outside of the United States you can go
to the Philippines you can go to
Malaysia there's like most countries
around the world are going to be lower
cost of Labor and just as good of
quality of Labor if you Source them
properly so you can do that on upwork
you can do that with workable or with
paired that's what I recommend doing is
sourcing International okay now let's
get into the final section here which is
how do you get to $1,000 a month and
then how do you get to $10,000 a month
and scale this agency as I said earlier
the thing you're going to want to do is
offer your services for free once you
have those locked down you can go out
and start pitching other companies and
other businesses with your services now
the way that I would do this is create
three different package deals that
someone can choose from for example if
you go to a local business in your area
and you say I can do marketing for you
it's going to be $1,000 a month and you
only give them one option that's not
really a great way to get customers what
you want to do is offer packages so
package one and I'm just making up these
numbers and these examples here but
package one could be maybe $500 a month
and this is for say like running their
Instagram account or their Tik Tok and
doing some basic things for them package
number two option number two could be
something a little bit more intricate
you're doing a lot more for them and
maybe that's at $1,500 a month and then
package three could be like an
all-in-one you know $5,000 a month for
all these different services but
basically my point here and you can mess
with the price points I recommend
starting lower especially for like your
first few clients it could be like a
couple hundred bucks a month package two
could be like you know $600 a month
package three could be like $1,000 a
month right uh it really depends on on
where you're at and the people that
you're pitching but creating these
packages really does give the business
more of an option of what they want to
choose from and I can go more into that
and you can feel free to ask me
questions too I'll leave my Instagram
somewhere here you can DM me if you have
questions on setting up and running a
marketing agency and I'll try to respond
to you but that's what I would do for
pricing and getting those initial
customers what you're going to find is
that in marketing most of your customers
are going to come from referrals if you
do a good job people are going to ask
that company hey who made this website
for you or hey who's running your ads
for you they're going to want to know if
you're doing a great job the other
businesses in your area are going to
take notice especially if you are
getting them results okay so referrals
is going to be the best way for your
business for getting new customers and
the beauty of referrals is that it's not
going to cost you any money to get those
new referrals and to get those new
customers cuz they're coming in for free
cuz you just did a really great job
that's going to be the number one option
another option for getting customers is
going to just do cold emails this is
also a great one because it's going to
be free I mean you can go out and you
can email a dozen companies per day and
offer your services if you're coming
from a professional email you kind of
modify and work on your email pitch and
you know the rate on that's going to be
really low but if you send out 100
emails and you get one new customer per
100 emails that you send out it's really
just a numbers game you know you send
out 100 emails every day and suddenly
you got seven new customers this week
for your agency so cold email is a
really incredible tool for getting
customers out a very very low cost you
can also do things like run Tik Tok ads
to get new clients or even run Google
ads for example like when someone
searches up marketing agency in Phoenix
you pop up at the top of Google you paid
for that but you can get customers that
way as well but getting to your first
,000 per month really will be one or two
customers in a lot of cases for your
agency really focus on making sure that
they have the best experience you're
providing the best results and then from
there you can scale up and you're going
to find that getting to $10,000 a month
is probably not as difficult as what you
might think initially once you get this
off the ground you get to a couple
thousand you're going to realize all you
have to do is just replicate what you've
just done to get to that 10K Mark and so
I think with most people if you're
taking this seriously and you're
spending you know at least 20 to 30
hours per week on running an agency that
getting to $10,000 a month within the
next 12 months is definitely feasible
it's something that we did I made this
very similar video a couple of years ago
on showing people how to run an agency
and I can't tell you how many people
have reached out to me and told me that
they use the principles that I've shared
in that video and they applied it to an
agency that they just started and within
a few months they were almost at or over
that $10,000 per month mark from just
using these principles that I've shared
in this video if you found this video to
be valuable make sure you subscribe to
the channel I really do appreciate you
watching this I hope it was of some help
to you and you know we have lots of
resources Down Below in the description
that you can get started with for
building your website for creating your
LLC for doing all those different things
signing up for high level I hope this
video was valuable if it was make sure
you follow me on Instagram follow me on
Twitter and let's chat let's talk
there's a lot of people who are trying
to sell like expensive five or $10,000
courses on how to run an agency you
don't have to spend money to learn how
to do that we have so many free
resources on this channel so thank you
for watching and I wish everyone the
best of luck
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