Building an agency from zero? Here’s how to do it right.
Dav Nash
18 min read
There’s never been a better time to learn how to build a digital marketing agency. With demand for digital marketing services expected to increase significantly in the coming years, getting your agency underway today will put you in a prime position to take advantage of the highly lucrative digital marketing pie.
That’s not to say that finding success in this sector will be easy. The relatively low barrier to entry means that there’s a lot of competition for clients, and even once you get clients, you’ll need to ensure that you’re delivering great results. After all, this is a results-oriented industry.
In this post, we’ll run through how to build a marketing agency from scratch. Our guide will outline all the key components of building a successful marketing agency, including setting goals, putting together an expert team, and how to market your new agency.
There’s more than one way to determine whether a digital marketing agency is ‘successful’; and the person that gets to determine whether your venture is a success is, well, you!
Everyone has different goals for their digital marketing agency. Some want to disrupt the entire industry. Some want to work with the world’s leading brands. Others want to simply help local businesses be the best that they can.
Setting goals isn’t just helpful in letting you know when you’ve achieved success. They can also help to shape the direction of your blossoming agency and also serve as a motivating tool. It’s much easier to put in those long hours in the office if you have a clear vision of what you’re aiming for.
Creating objectives for your agency will be important at every stage of its lifespan, but it’s arguably most important at the beginning. After all, all great endeavours begin with a dream!
As we just said, it’s good to start an agency — actually, anything — with a bit of hopeful optimism. So have a think: what are you hoping to achieve? What’s the overall vision for your digital marketing agency?
Whatever you land upon will essentially be the fundamental purpose of your digital marketing agency, helping to guide your strategic decisions. Remember: so long as you’re being truthful, there are no wrong answers!
OK, so now that you’ve established the overall vision for your digital marketing agency, the next step will be to get into the nitty-gritty of how you’ll get there.
And this is where your targets come in. For example, you might want to have X number of clients within 6 months, or achieve X amount of revenue within the first year. You could also simply hope to achieve a 100% client retention rate for the first year, which would be a pretty big indicator that you’re doing something right.
Your targets can be considered medium- and long-term goals. But there’s a lot of work that needs to be done before you’re in a position to achieve those targets.
Your short-term goals will give you the structural support it needs to grow. These are things that you’ll do within the first month or so.
We don’t want to say that you won’t have a digital marketing agency until you do those things, but — actually, we will. You won’t have a digital marketing agency until you do those things!
You’ll (likely) have modest ambitions when you first get your digital marketing agency underway.
But keep in mind that we often make our own reality. If you lock yourself into believing that you’ll only have mild levels of success, then that’s likely all that you’ll get.
Putting together a growth plan will ensure your agency can expand and reach its full potential. You don’t need to utilise those tactics straight away, but having an idea of how you’ll grow when the time comes (getting an office; hiring more employees; using technology) will make things easier. Oftentimes, marketing agencies struggle to grow not because they don’t want to, but because they’re taken by surprise and don’t know how to.
Finally, remember that your goals aren’t just stepping stones on your journey toward your pre-defined version of success. They’re achievements in their own right that are worthy of celebration.
Brought those five clients on board within the six-month mark? Helped a client achieve their marketing goals? Brought in plenty of revenue? These are all moments when you should be popping the champagne!
You might start your digital marketing agency as a one-person operation, and it may remain that way even when you have a few clients on board.
But at some stage, you’ll likely find that you need to put together a team of professionals. After all, there’s only so much work that you can do yourself. Plus, bringing in other experts allows you to expand the range of services you can offer your clients since they’ll possess skills that you don’t have yourself.
Putting together a strong team, however, is often easier said than done. Let’s take a look at some handy tips that’ll increase the chances of bringing the right employee on board.
You can’t hire the right employee until you’ve figured out who you’re looking for.
This will be determined, in large part, by the services that you offer or are planning to offer. You’ll need to ensure that every facet of your operations is covered.
You might even hire people for skills that you already possess. That way, you can free up your time that you can then spend on other tasks that will benefit your business.
Now that you’ve figured out which professionals you need, you’ll simply need to click your fingers, offer them a job, and then wait for them to work their digital marketing magic.
Alas, if it were only so easy.
Digital marketing professionals are in high demand (good ones, anyway!), so you can’t expect that the experts you need will simply fall into your lap. You’ll need to go out there and find them.
Tapping your existing network is a good starting point. Do you already know some marketing professionals who may be interested in joining your team? Or have friends or family members who can point you in the right direction?
You can also list your available roles on your website and job advertisement boards. If none of those things yield good candidates, then you can always consider working with a digital marketing recruitment agency — you’ll pay for the service, but you’ll be sure to get a quality employee who can help push your agency forward.
Remember, you’re not just trying to bring anyone on board. The success of your agency depends on bringing quality employees on board.
In fact, not only will hiring the wrong candidate make it more difficult to push your business forward, but it might even hold it back. A subpar employee will deliver subpar results, which could impact client satisfaction.
Plus, it can take a lot of money to identify, hire, and train a replacement because an employee didn’t work out. And it’s not as if you’ll have a ton of money to work with in the first place — wasted spending, therefore, should be avoided at all costs.
But don’t worry, you won’t hire the wrong candidate. Well, you won’t if you correctly assess a candidate’s skills and experience. Can they demonstrate that they possess the technical skills you need? Have they worked in a similar role before (or have other valuable experience)?
You can’t guarantee that a new recruit will work out, but if they can walk the walk and talk the talk, then there’ll be a reasonably good chance that they’ll be successful.
A person’s CV could tick all the wrong boxes, yet still end up not being right for your agency.
In the competitive world of marketing, passion counts for a lot. And it’s especially important for new agencies, who often need to make up for a lack of experience by simply showing more motivation and determination to succeed than others.
You’ll find it easier to get ahead if you pack your team with enthusiastic go-getters who are determined to do their best.
Packing your team with talented employees is a good start, but keep in mind that it won’t automatically translate into success.
How you manage your team will play an influential role, too. In fact, it’s just as influential as the skills of your employees. Poor management results in low productivity, decreased client satisfaction, and a poor employee retention rate.
It’s best not to assume that you’ll be a great leader. Instead, analyse your strengths and weaknesses, and look at shoring up any of your weak points. It’s much easier to grow a digital marketing agency with a team of happy employees!
It’d be nice if you were the only digital marketing agency serving your target audience. Alas, that just won’t be the case. Even if you’ve picked a niche, you’ll have a bunch of competitors.
So you’ll need to stand out somehow.
Investing in your agency’s branding is an effective way to stand out from the crowd. Even before your potential clients know the ins and outs of your agency, your branding should give them a strong sense of who you are and what you’re all about.
It’s easy to overlook your agency’s branding, but it will be vital to your success. After all, done correctly, branding can provide a competitive edge, making it more likely that a potential client chooses you over one of your competitors.
OK, so that’s all good and well, but how do you actually brand your agency? Let’s take a look at some useful steps.
Step one: Identify why your agency exists, the mission it’s on, and the underlying values that guide your actions.
This, in many ways, is your brand. Maybe you’re passionate about elevating local businesses, or you believe in sustainable practices. Whatever the reason for your existence should be woven into your branding.
Once you’ve figured out your core values, you’ll need to think about your audience. That is, the people you’re trying to reach with your branding.
Understanding who they are, what they like, and what they want is essential for crafting your brand’s story. Once you know your audience, you can begin putting together a narrative that uses language that resonates with them.
You’re not the only digital marketing agency in town.
But you’re the only digital marketing agency like you in town.
Your branding should show the world what makes you unique. Maybe you go about your work in an innovative way, or you specialise in a unique area. Whatever it is, don’t keep it a secret — let your audience know!
Your agency only exists because it solves a problem. The thing is, your potential clients may be unaware that they even have a problem.
Showcasing how you can help your clients is paramount for having them buy into your branding.
Finally, remember that it’s not just the story you tell that matters, but how you tell it. It’s often beneficial to work with a branding agency to ensure that you have an attention-grabbing look.
The success of your digital marketing agency will be down, in the main part, to the actions of you and your team.
But you and your team won’t necessarily be the only ones who contribute to your success. Other players may be involved too.
Strategic partnerships can help push your agency forward in any number of ways, including helping to fill skill gaps and ensuring that the impact of your digital marketing strategies is as wide-reaching as possible.
And by that, we don’t mean other digital marketing agencies, though that can also be recommended, especially in the early days of your agency before you have your team in place.
No, we mean agencies that provide skills that are complementary to your own. For example, you could partner with an IT agency that offers web hosting, or a website design agency that can give your clients a beautifully designed website.
These partnerships strengthen your agency by increasing the number — and quality — of services you provide.
Struggling to find the calibre of candidates you need to push your agency forward, or maybe you simply don’t have the time to identify, interview, recruit, and onboard new employees?
Then a digital marketing recruitment agency can become your trusted partner on your way towards putting together a great team. They’ll have access to the industry’s most talented professionals, ensuring you can pack your agency with skilled employees without having to do the hard work of actually finding them.
Finally, consider partnering with a public relations firm. They can help ensure that your client’s message is spread as far as possible, which will ultimately help to make your campaigns as successful as possible.
It’s your website that will play the biggest role in getting the attention of your potential clients.
But don’t necessarily discount the role that social media will play.
After all, some 82% of the UK population are on social media, which means there’s a high chance that your potential clients are on there.
Used correctly, social media can greatly expand your reach, get your message seen by potential clients, and can even be used to understand your target audience on a deeper level.
You’ll need to have a plan for optimising your social media profiles. But happily, if you’re a digital marketing agency then you probably already have those skills. Simply use the tactics you’d use for your client’s social media channels for yourself.
Remember that finding success through social media marketing is a long-term strategy. It won’t yield a stream of clients overnight. But if you post quality content and demonstrate your expertise, then it’ll pay off eventually.
Remember above, when we said that your website will be responsible for bringing in the bulk of your clients?
We weren’t lying. A solid, well-designed website that reflects your brand is paramount for grabbing the attention of potential clients.
But of course, if they can’t find your website, then they’ll have no opportunity to be dazzled by it.
That’s where your SEO efforts come in. Getting your website search-engine-ready is essential for attracting those clicks that may result in you earning yourself another client.
We recommend starting your SEO journey as soon as possible since it can take a few months before you see results. At that point, your agency will be fully ready to handle the new clients that come from your website being at the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page)!
You’re not trying to get the attention of any old Google user. You’re trying to get the attention of users who are specifically looking for the services that you offer.
It’s the quality of your keyword research that’ll determine whether you’re successful. It’s best to be as specific as possible. For example, if your digital marketing agency focuses on law firms, then you could aim to rank for keywords like ‘law firm SEO agency,’ ‘SEO agency for law firm,’ and ‘law SEO specialist.’
You can help improve your website’s ranking by ensuring it ticks all the boxes that Google’s bots and crawlers look for. For instance:
All of those things are within your control, and none of them are complicated. Don’t hurt your chances of obtaining new clients by overlooking these simple SEO strategies!
If there’s one thing Google loves, it’s quality, informative content. And the reason Google loves it so much is because its users love it.
Think about it. Would you rather read a hastily written, error-laden blog post, or an informative, fun-to-read article?
We know what we’d choose. Hosting great content on your website won’t just help you move up the search engine results page, either. It also presents an opportunity to showcase your expertise to potential clients. It’s a win-win situation, basically!
Trying to get the attention of local businesses? Then you’ll need to invest in your website’s Local
SEO.
This is essentially the same as general SEO, only tilted towards a local audience. It’s what’s behind all those ‘services near me’ keywords you keep seeing.
The bulk of your SEO efforts will take place on your website, but you can also improve your ranking by utilising off-page SEO strategies, too.
Link-building is a particularly effective strategy. This involves inserting a link to your website on other websites. The more your website is linked around the web, the higher its ranking.
Good reviews are also useful for SEO purposes. In fact, they’re useful for all kinds of purposes. If you’ve got a happy client, then ask them to leave a review. Google will see it as a sign that you’re trustworthy, and give your search engine ranking a bump in the right direction.
Finally, and as you’ll probably be aware, enhancing your website’s SEO should be an ongoing process, not just something that you do once.
You might spend your working hours improving your clients’ SEO, but remember that your own website’s SEO will require some attention from time to time!
It’s all good and well to bring clients on board, but it’ll count for little if they drop your agency after a couple of months.
The success of your agency, therefore, depends not just on winning clients, but keeping clients.
And any agency that takes it for granted that their clients will automatically stay with them is playing a dangerous game. After all, there’s no shortage of digital marketing agencies to choose from. If you’re not meeting their needs, then they’ll be able to be wooed by an agency that can.
So, how do you keep your clients happy? By viewing it as a relationship that requires nurturing from time to time. We’ve put together some handy tips that’ll ensure your clients are nothing other than fully satisfied.
All of your clients will broadly have the same objectives, but their specific goals and how you go about achieving them will vary from one client to the next.
Or they should, anyway. Cookie-cutter solutions make things easier for your agency, but they don’t impress clients.
Being open and attentive to what your clients need is a tried and tested method for keeping them on board. It’s not something that you can fake. You’ll need to ask questions, listen carefully to their answers, and all-around give them the personal treatment. It’s not rocket science in the slightest, but you’d be amazed at how many agencies don’t do these simple things!
There will be times when a client tells you that they’re leaving you. It’s inevitable.
But in those instances, don’t assume that the relationship is absolutely coming to an end. It may be salvageable.
If they’re leaving because of budget constraints, then see if you can work with them to come up with a price that they (and you!) are happy with. Or you can offer to pause their accounts until they’re ready to start again.
Remember: the best agencies view their clients as humans, rather than just numbers.
Finally, remember that the best way has always been — and will always be — to simply deliver results.
You might be able to get away with not sending your clients a Christmas card, but there’s no hiding from poor results. This is so important that many of your clients simply won’t care what you do, so long as you’ve delivered the kinds of results that you said you would deliver.
And this means on a continuous basis, so you’ll need to continually update your skills to ensure you always have what it takes to get your clients noticed online.
If you’ve taken all of the tips we’ve outlined above, then you’ll have a great opportunity to bag yourself as many clients as possible.
Now that all the pieces are in place, you’ll need to monitor and measure your agency’s performance. Doing so won’t just tell you that you’re on the right track. It can also provide a warning sign if things have to be adjusted.
We’ve put together a few handy tips that’ll make it easier to make sense of your agency’s performance.
First of all, you’ll need to define what success looks like for your agency.
You might set a target of onboarding X amount of clients, or reaching a certain amount of revenue. In the early days, you might simply gauge progress by looking at your website traffic.
Success will look different for every agency. It’s best to put together some KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) early on, so you can check how you’re doing.
The number of clients you bring in can go a long way toward figuring out the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.
If you’re getting plenty of interest via your website, then you’ll be on the right track. On the other hand, if your email inquiries inbox is looking a little empty, then it’ll be a sign that something needs to change. If you’re getting website visitors but have a poor conversion rate, then improving CTAs may be effective.
And remember that while getting new clients is important, it’s arguably not as important as your client retention rate. You’ll build a successful agency by having your clients stay with you on a long-term basis. If they’re leaving shortly after joining, then that’ll be a pretty big sign that something needs to change.
Getting feedback from your clients will help you to improve your services. If they’re fully satisfied, then you can move forward reasonably confident that you’re on the right track.
If they’re not, then taking their feedback on board will be essentially for keeping them as clients.
It’s dangerous to assume that you’re a successful agency just because your clients have stayed with you. There are a whole bunch of reasons why a client might stick with an agency even if they’re not fully satisfied. Getting feedback from your clients can help you determine the likelihood that they’ll stay with you.
Finally, keep in mind that your objectives and goals should evolve over time. Your initial indicators of success will be measured when you’re a new agency. Once you’re fully established, it’ll be time to update those goals to be more ambitious.
As we said at the beginning of the article: now might just be the perfect time to start a digital marketing agency. Take our advice on board, and it won’t be long before you’re winning your first clients. And from there? There’s no telling what your agency might achieve.
