A question I get quite a bit is how do I start a digital marketing agency from scratch?
Well, I'm going to get right to that right after this.
So how do you start a digital marketing agency from scratch?
Whether it be no experience, not knowing how to do it, where to find clients, what tools
do you need?
Hopefully I'm going to answer a lot of those questions right here.
But before I do, if you like videos like this, do me a favor, hit that like button below,
and that subscribe button, and hit that little bell icon, so you'd be notified of when I
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Starting a digital marketing agency, I'm not going to lie, it's not easy.
And the reason is because starting a business, isn't easy.
If you're not willing to put in the work and you just want to basically put up a banner
and say, I'm open and expect to become a millionaire, you're in for a rude awakening.
But with that said, this is probably one of the easiest businesses I've ever started.
Now I've had an online e-commerce company, which I sold.
I've had a landscaping company that I did a lot of years ago.
I've had online training courses.
I've had a number of different businesses and this by far is the easiest one I've ever
done.
Now, why is that?
Number one, because of the tools that you need to start.
If you're watching this, you're watching it on a computer or a phone.
Right there, you've already got some of the tools that you need.
You'll need a computer, whether it's a laptop or desktop, it doesn't really matter.
To start a digital agency, you're going to need an internet connection, which you obviously
already have if you're watching this video.
Then you're also probably going to need a phone.
And the reason you're going to need a phone, you're going to have to talk to clients.
If you don't have a phone, which you probably do, but if you don't, you can still set up
Zoom calls over your computer.
So the tools it takes to start a digital agency, you probably already have.
It's not like when I started my landscaping company and I needed all this equipment and
trailers and the right type of car to tow the trailer and just all of this money that
I had to front out.
You probably have all of the tools you need right now.
But when you're starting a digital agency, how do you get clients?
Maybe you don't have a social media following.
Maybe people don't know who you are.
Maybe this is a brand new venture.
Maybe you're working a corporate job and now you want to branch out and start your own
thing.
Guess what?
It doesn't matter.
All you need to know is how to put yourself in front of the right types of clients.
And do you know who those right types of clients are?
People who are already advertising.
I've had my digital agency now for over eight years, and by far the easiest clients I've
ever worked with are the ones that understand the value of marketing.
Believe it or not, a lot of businesses will start their business and they will put all
their money to equipment and websites and all this stuff, but yet they don't leave a
marketing budget.
The number one way you are going to get new clients is through marketing.
Clients who are not marketing right now, have not budgeted for it.
Therefore, you have to knock down two walls.
One, why should they market?
And number two, how are they going to get a budget for it?
So what I like to do is I like to put myself in front of people who are already marketing,
and here's the caveat, but they are marketing their business incorrectly.
So what I do is I will go out there and approach them and show them what they could be doing
differently.
That is just one of the ways, and it's one of the most effective ways that I actually
market my digital agency.
Another question I get is, "If I started digital agency, I'm not sure what niche I should start
in?"
Go with your passion, go with your gut, go with something that you enjoy.
If you enjoy e-commerce and you find it more interesting and that would motivate you more
than start by working with e-commerce businesses.
Let's say you were in college and you worked as an electrician's apprentice and you enjoy
that world, maybe that's something that you're interested in.
You know what?
Start a digital marketing agency for electricians.
One thing that could really help you in that arena is if you already spoke their language.
You say you understand what they're going through because you've actually worked in
that type of business.
Now, one of the niches that I actually kind of fell into was working with service businesses
like home service businesses, such as pest control, plumbers, electricians, things like
that.
And you hear me talk about it if you watch some of my previous videos, but the reason
why I prefer going after that niche is because it's really, really easy to sell to people
who are looking for those businesses.
And I know I use this example a lot.
You've probably heard it, but if somebody is at home and a pipe breaks and they go to
Google, they type in emergency plumber or plumber near me, they have a very, very large
pain point right now.
So they're out there looking for somebody to solve that problem.
And what I do as a digital agency is I put that solution in front of that person right
when they have that problem.
So it's very, very easy to sell.
And with the easier it is to sell, the more likely they are to buy from my client, the
happier that client makes me and the longer they stay with me as a client.
But go after whatever niche interests you or what can motivate you to keep moving forward
or just something that's going to make you happy.
Another barrier to entry I hear people talk about when starting a digital agency is in
my experience they'll say, "Well, I don't know Google Ads.
Okay, guess what?
I didn't either.
But you know how I found out?
Research, studying, learning about it.
If I was to start over today, what would I probably do?
I would probably start out by outsourcing it immediately.
I can go learn Google Ads on my own and Google Ads is always changing.
So the thing is that you need to learn the most updated information, but one of the easiest
ways to do it would be to outsource the Google Ads work.
You find clients, you connect the two, and basically you're making money by essentially
setting up a service, but you're not even setting it up.
You are literally just connecting the two, the client and the Google Ads provider.
You can still be the middleman where it's actually your agency and the outsourcer is
working for you.
But guess what?
You don't have to pay for that outsourcer upfront.
You don't have to pay for that outsourcer and put them on staff.
You can literally hire them as clients come in.
So you're not putting any money out front.
You're not saying, "Hey, I want to hire you for $70,000 a year or whatever it might be."
you are literally saying, "Hey, I have this client, can you set them up?
Run the ads.
I'll pay you X amount."
That is one of the top reasons how I run my agency in less than 90 minutes a day is because
I'm front facing.
I'm the one that the clients deal with, but I have an employee who basically runs the
ads for me.
This employee is an outsourcer.
They live overseas and he's amazing at his job.
But what I do is I connect the two.
I'm just a middleman.
If I don't want to, I don't need to know how to run Google Ads.
I know just enough to sell it.
But if I was starting my digital agency from scratch, I would probably outsource right
away.
That's a great way to get some momentum, to get some clients in the door, and to start
building your agency from scratch right away.
And the last point I'm going to touch on with starting a digital agency is a lot of people
will say, "Well, I just don't have the time."
And my response to that would probably be, "You're right.
You probably shouldn't start a digital agency."
If you're going to not make time to start a business, guess what?
It's not going to start it by itself.
If you think that you can do this in five minutes a day, you probably can, it's just
going to take you a very long time.
But if you're really serious about starting a digital agency, you're going to have to
commit some time to it, but it doesn't have to be a lot.
To be totally honest, I have a course that shows people how to start a Google Ads agency.
And two of my first students got their first client within a week.
These are two people that they didn't have an agency before.
They were literally starting from scratch.
So it doesn't have to take a lot of time, but guess what?
To start a business, you're going to have to put some time into it.
You're going to have to suck it up.
You're going to have to make a sacrifice somewhere else in your life, whether that's watching
Netflix or going out and doing something fun.
You might have to sacrifice a little bit of that time to start your digital agency.
And as a bonus tip, and maybe this is a little bit self-fulfilling, but I want to be up front
with you about it.
If I was to start a digital agency over, like I did eight years ago from scratch.
If I could go back and do it again, I would put myself in touch with somebody that could
help me do it quicker.
It took me six of those eight years to get my agency to this point.
And the reason is, is because I didn't have somebody saying, "Don't do that.
You're wasting your time."
Or "You know what?
What you're doing over here, that's right, you should keep going with that."
I would rather give myself a quicker jump because I know I will make much more money
quicker, way quicker than I ever did.
If I had somebody telling me step-by-step or showing me what I should be doing, what
I shouldn't be doing, where to stop wasting your time, where you should expand and so
on.
If you're interested in that, there is a link down below to my course called Ads Agency
Unlocked.
You can go take a look at that, if you would like.
If this video helped you out, do me a favor, hit that like button and over to the right-hand
side, you will see some more related videos that will hopefully help you start your digital
agency.
All right, thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next time.