You may have been looking to start a marketing business for a while now. Maybe you’ve been a marketing expert for a few years, and you know that you’re ready to break out on your own.

What You Need to Know About Starting a Marketing Business

This article will go through a few things you need to know before you start a marketing business.

Find Your Market Niche

A startup business that provides a narrow focus will have greater credibility in that market. It allows you to stand out more, which will be useful in the starting stages of your business.

This will also allow you to pitch to the most relevant clients instead of diversifying.

These are some ways you can find your target market or your niche:

• Specifying on a business model (SaaS, B2B, B2C, etc)
• Focusing on a certain industry (finance, education, etc)
• Company size (small businesses, fortune 500 companies, etc)

Once you have a focused market in mind, this will make it easier for you to optimize your marketing strategy to reach those clients.

Launch a Website

How would clients find you when you don’t have a website? As a marketing agency, the bare minimum you need to have is a website to entice clients.

Your website will explain what your company does, and provide clients with a deeper understanding of the type of services you offer. It’s also a great place to showcase your previous wins – testimonials, statistics, and more – that will cement your credibility.

When launching a website, think about the content you will include. You will not only need pages for your services, but most companies find that having a blog filled with relevant industry information is a good advertising method. You can publish blog articles using SEO industry-relevant keywords to boost your visibility.

Elements such as visuals and design are also important. The more visually appealing your website is, the longer your clients will linger.

Establish a Social Media Presence

You can rake in the big bucks by going to where you will find more people, and this is social media.

Create social media accounts on all the relevant platforms, and start posting. You can post about the industry you’re in, include content from your website, or simply post things that you know your clients will find helpful.

You can also reshare or repost relevant content. This will keep you at the top of people’s pages and will ensure that more people view your account.

Make Sure You Can Create Content Regularly

It’s important to establish yourself as a regular content creator. When people go online, they mostly do so because they have a pressing question and want to find out something new. The best way you can tap into this need is by writing articles and blog posts about them.

Doing so regularly will increase the reach of your website, and will also make you seem like a credible authority in the industry.

Creating content often will also increase the chances that you will rank higher in Google by using organic keywords and posting relevant information.

Find Ways to Finance Your Marketing Business

As a startup business, one of your biggest goals should be to grow. In order to accomplish this, however, you will need to have a financial source to tap into. For instance, you may have to apply for business loans to keep your company running.

The best business loans will be those that have low-interest rates and that are specific to your size. In general, you may require a good credit score to apply for the best loans. Some lenders require collateral, and a merchant cash advance will need proof of your annual revenues.

Develop Your Business Model

How will you bill your customers for the work that you provide? There are several different ways you can do this.

1. Hourly Rates

You can bill them by the hour. This is often the go-to when you have to focus your attention on a single client at a time, such as over the phone or having in-person meetings.

However, if you are providing a lot of digital marketing services for them, this may not be a very sustainable model. Planning and running campaigns and social media accounts will make the hours you work a little more abstract.

2. Flat Retainer

A flat retainer pricing model is very simple. You go through the work that your client wants you to do, assess the value of it and the time you need to spend, and you both agree on a flat monthly fee.

This makes it easier for you, as you know you will get paid at a certain time each month. It also prevents any disagreements, because the fees will not change.

3. Paid Commissions

Especially when you are a startup business, going by a commission-based payment model can make you stand out from the crowd. You will basically only get paid if the client makes money from a sale or from your services.

The billing process may be quite difficult over time. The unstable nature of these revenues may also make this business model unsustainable over the long run.

Ways to Start a Marketing Business

If you want to start a marketing business, you may as well do so with a bang. Settle on a market niche, launch a website and social media accounts, know how to create more content, find business loans and settle on a business model.

All of these techniques will ensure you are setting up your business to grow and succeed. You may have to live with some of these choices for a long time, though, so make sure you do your research.

Did you find this article helpful? Check out the rest of our blog.

Some other articles you might find of interest:

Would you like to better understand how to drive and increase traffic to your startup website?

How to Drive & Increase Traffic to Your Startup Website

Do you have what it takes to start and run an online business?

5 Key Skills You Must Have to Start & Run an Online Home Based Business