If you have an eye for marketing and you want to create a business with low startup expenses that can grow quickly, look into how to start your own marketing firm.

This can be a rewarding job, helping businesses reach new customers without actually having to manage their marketing yourself.

Let me explain.

One of the biggest draws of running your own marketing firm is that you can oversee the entire operation without having to actually run the marketing for each of your clients. You can outsource the work to staff, while managing the firm.

Operating a marketing firm is a great way to serve many clients without having to work 20 hours a day, as you may have experienced if you have your own personal clients.

What is a marketing firm?

A marketing firm (or marketing agency) is a company that helps businesses create and execute their marketing strategy.

For example, a bakery might hire a marketing firm to help them craft and carry out a marketing campaign to help them reach their goal of serving 100 customers per day.

Marketing firms can vary, serving businesses in different industries and in all sizes, targeting specific types of marketing, in local or regional areas, as well as globally.

Here are some examples of the different industries a marketing firm can help:

• Retail
• Wholesale/manufacturing
• Food
• Wellness/health
• Beauty
• Education
• And, more!

Virtually every industry can be helped by a marketing firm.

How to start your own marketing firm

Starting a marketing firm can earn you $1,000 to $2,000 per client or more before expenses. This means a 10-client customer list could bring in $10,000 to $20,000 per month before expenses and if you outsourced to freelancers paying them 40% of each client’s fee, you could earn $6,000 to $12,000 monthly before any other expenses.

This can be a very lucrative endeavor with relatively low output from you.

Sounds interesting?

Here’s how you can get started.

1. Identify your target market

First, identify what kind of companies you will target. While you could work with businesses from every industry, niching down and choosing a specific area of expertise, will likely give you better results.

For example, if you have the most experience working with dentists, you may consider working only in the dental industry. You can be known as “the marketer for dentists” in your community.

You can start with dentists in your local area and then branch out to work with dentists in your region, state, country and globally.

So, in this step pick a target market.

2. Define your business

Next, figure out what kind of marketing firm you’ll be running.

Will you only work under one marketing medium, such as direct marketing, or will you target all marketing types to serve your clients.

Here are some of the different marketing types available:

• Direct marketing: This implements the use of direct mail campaigns to help companies reach their target market through mailing lists. Have you ever received a coupon or advertisement in your mailbox? That’s an example of direct marketing.
• Digital marketing: This is online marketing and it’s about using a mix of online and internet mediums for marketing purposes, like email marketing, social media marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), and others.
• Digital marketing can serve businesses in many industries that attract and target customers online.
• Telemarketing: The use of telephone-based marketing. Have you ever received a marketing call asking you to support or donate to a cause, buy a timeshare, etc.? That is telemarketing at work.

These are just a handful of the different kinds of marketing types that marketing firms can operate under.

Not all marketing firms are designed this way though. You can target all marketing mediums if you wish.

Create a business plan

In business planning, you define your target customer and target industry. You set goals using real numbers based on industry trends and analytics, customer and financial analysis and other metrics.

You are outlining the entire business.

For more on business planning, check out our practical guide for creating a digital marketing agency business plan.

Define your business model

This part is really important. Figure out your business model.Consider factors such as:

• Will you charge clients hourly or on a monthly retainer?
• When will payment be due? Will there be late fees or a grace period?
• What will your contract look like and who will draw it up?
• What marketing ad spend will you recommend for each client and is there a formula for that?
• How will you handle taxes?

These are just a few questions to consider when setting up your company. If you don’t have an answer, consult a professional and if you’re unsure about doing something yourself (like your taxes), hire an expert to help.

Create marketing packages

Using a marketing package is a great way to bundle multiple services and easily present it to clients.

For packages to work effectively, you’ll want to have at least two, preferably three — a small, medium, and large.

To build your marketing packages, start by listing all the services you offer. Then, begin to group them according to difficulty level and create your marketing packages to cater to businesses at all levels. Put yourself in the shoes of your client and consider what you would want to see in a marketing package.

Here’s a quick example of how you could design three marketing packages:

Small package:

• 1 A/B tested Facebook campaign
• 1 A/B tested Google Ads campaign
• Monthly reports
• Unlimited email support

Medium package:

• 2 A/B tested Facebook campaigns
• 2 A/B tested Google Ads campaigns
• 1 quarterly direct mail campaign or email sales sequence
• Monthly reports
• Unlimited email support
• Quarterly phone calls

Package 3 includes:

• Website set up
• 4 A/B tested Facebook campaigns
• 4 A/B tested Google Ads campaigns
• 1 quarterly direct mail campaign or email sales sequence
• Monthly reports
• Monthly phone calls
• Unlimited email support

There are many ways to structure this and you can make changes in the future so don’t feel burdened by making a final decision now.

Facebook ads are especially effective. If you are new to Facebook ads, or just want to brush up on your skills, consider our Facebook Side Hustle Course. It goes over everything you need to know about running Facebook ads for Clients.

3. Find your team

In this step you’re going to be hitting the ground running to search for, interview, and get commitments from team members that will work for your firm.

You can hire employees or freelancers, your choice.

Here are some places where you can find people to join your team:

• Upwork: This is an online freelance marketplace where clients can hire freelancers to work for them. You can create a free Upwork account, put out a job posting to hire marketers, then interview and select candidates to join your team.
• Forums: These online groups are a great place to find like minded marketers to join your team.
• Groups: Online groups like Facebook groups can be a goldmine if you find a group of marketing professionals looking to pick up some extra freelance work.
• Marketing communities: Research and find marketing communities and places online where you can collaborate with others and hire from that pool of marketers you find.
• Job boards: Traditional online job boards like Indeed are good for finding staff.
• Classified sites: Craigslist and other classified sites should not be disregarded and can be a source where you can find staff for your marketing firm.

As you’re finding your team, make sure to come up with and document your business processes so you train your new team members.

You’ll want to clearly define a process for finding and onboarding clients, monitoring the work of your staff, checking in with clients, billing, maintenance, etc.

4. Build your website

As a marketing firm business owner, you know the importance of creating an attractive and professional website. You don’t have to invest thousands in a website at this stage.

Creating a simple website telling your story, sharing your mission, with the ability to capture leads, is what you’re aiming for.

You will want to include pages like these on your website:

• About page: The About page can also be called About Us, Our Story, Our Mission or something similar. This is where you tell your business’ story. Talk about why you started our company, what your goals are, what the business mission is, etc.
  This is where you can do storytelling to paint the picture for your target audience and don’t be afraid to go personal either, telling a story of how you were burned by a bad marketing firm in the past or what pushed you to help others in marketing, etc.
• Contact page: This is how customers will contact you. Post your work email address or a contact form on this page so prospective clients can contact you.
• List of services: Your list of services tells your audience what you specialize in and how you can help them.

And these optional pages can be helpful to add too:

• Testimonials and reviews: In an online world, testimonials and reviews from others can really sell your services for you. Try to get as many testimonials and reviews as you can.
  If you can have at least two or three testimonials you can post on your website at launch, that’s great. You can also continue to add more testimonials as time moves forward and your company grows.
• Portfolio: Don’t be afraid to show off and share some companies you’ve worked with in the past.
• Success stories and case studies: If you’ve documented your processes and worked on any client case studies in the past, share those on your websites. Success stories showing before and after results can be very effective too.
• Your personal background and experience: Your clients want to know they’re in good hands so if you can talk about your background, history, experience, and/or education, that can be helpful to sell your customer on your services.

5. Get testimonials

You read a bit about getting testimonials in the previous section. If you have clients that you’ve worked with in the past or currently working with, ask for testimonials.

Adding testimonials to your website can be the difference between landing a client and not.

This is an important step, don’t skip it. And, if you can’t manage to get any testimonials, don’t stop here. Set the stage for this as you bring on new clients to your marketing firm. Say something like “I can’t wait to put your success story on my website”.

6. Get clients

You’re a marketer, so start marketing! Create a plan for acquiring clients and then put it into action.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Contact your personal and professional network: Talk to friends, family, coworkers and others in your professional network. This can include online business friends you met on Facebook, people you follow or who follow you on your business social media accounts, people you interact with in Facebook groups, etc.
• Talk to current and former clients: Ask current clients for referrals and reach out to former clients to see if they can refer you or if they’d like to start working together again.
• Networking: Attend events and network. Hand out your business card, make connections, and sell your services.
• Get on social media: Get busy on social media, being active in groups, talking about the opening of your marketing firm, sharing case studies and success stories, etc.

Before you start this process though, make sure you’ve perfected your sales process and onboarding strategy.

Your sales process is how you’ll get clients in the door.

How do you expect to win clients over? Will you have a sales call or presentation? Do you plan on having a group Zoom session with your entire team? Or, will you hire a salesperson to close your deals for you?

Figure out this process before you start executing your client acquisition plan.

Client onboarding is the process of introducing new clients to your company. It’s the first step in their journey of working together.

Onboarding clients can include a call with you and/or a call with the freelancer who will work their marketing campaign or both. It can also involve formally presenting the marketing plan to the client, establishing objectives, communication methods and check-in times, timeline, etc.

This onboarding process should be established before you start trying to acquire clients as well. You want all your processes set before you begin taking on new clients in your marketing firm so every part of your business can function like a well-oiled machine.

7. Track results

Tracking is helpful to measure your actions and progress in your business. These are periodic check ins to ensure you are meeting the objectives outlined in your business plan.

You want to make sure you’re achieving your goals and if you’re not, you can step back, evaluate the full picture and make changes so you can meet those goals.

Other than tracking the processes and goals of your business, you also want to be able to measure the performance of your staff.

This is crucial to ensure your staff is doing the work they should be doing and make sure they’re doing it well. It’s also an opportunity to make sure your staff is happy and they have all the tools they need to do their job well.

8. Outsource

Outsourcing is one of the building blocks of a successful business. One person can’t do it all. And, that’s why you have staff working in your marketing firm.

In addition to freelancers who will run the marketing campaigns for your clients, consider other ways you can outsource in your business. The idea is to work smarter not harder so if you can automate or outsource parts of your company to save time and resources, do it!

Here are some examples of areas of your business you can automate and/or outsource:

• Client sales
• Client campaign management
• Copywriting
• Client acquisition and onboarding
• Graphic design
• Bookkeeping and accounting
• Taxes

9. Grow your company

The last step in the process of how to start your own marketing firm is to grow and scale the business!

Growing the business means bringing on more clients and more staff to manage those clients so you can grow your company.

This could include putting more money toward paid ads to grow your leads list, following up with existing leads, and other practices. Growing your company doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t need to happen until you’ve established yourself after a period of time.

Time to get started

If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking about starting your own marketing firm. Go for it!

While there are ups and downs to starting and running any business, being an entrepreneur and having your own company can be very rewarding. It can also lead to tons of benefits that can overshadow any drawbacks.

Make a decision, commit to it and follow through.

If you want to sharpen your marketing skills in Facebook ads and learn about how to attract and convince clients to work with you, consider our Facebook Side Hustle course.