This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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How can you start a small marketing agency or perhaps an agency of one? You're just one person, you wanna help some businesses or clients, whoever they are with marketing, what are the steps to go from zero to actually, well, I don't know, is it zero to 10? Is it zero to action, implementation, whatever it is you need to do to get started? How can you do that in a short amount of time? 'Cause that's what we're all about here.
Not spending a lot of money, not wasting a lot of time. Today's question comes from Lucas in Kansas City. He is hoping to do exactly what I mentioned, start a small marketing agency, but isn't sure how to begin. So if you've ever thought about doing this, or if you're looking for different ideas, or trying to figure out what kind of service can I offer, this episode is for you. Let's get into some practical tips.
His question and my answer, coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Lucas from Kansas City. I'm planning to start a small marketing agency, specializing in social media management and content creation for local businesses. I'm really excited about this idea, but I'm not sure where to start. What are the key steps I should take to get my agency off the ground and attract clients and grow the business?
Also, how can I make sure I'm offering services that really stand out in a competitive market? Any advice on setting up a portfolio, pricing, and marketing would be really helpful. Thanks, man. - You know, Lucas, the first thing I would do, if I was starting a marketing agency or anything else where I could clearly identify, okay, here is the category, the industry and such, I would do a little bit of research. I mean, calling in to ask a question is great.
That's in that category. But I would also say, look at what has been done before. So I would go out and use tools like search engines, Google, for example, but also chat GPT, some other language models to say, tell me what has been done before, show me some case studies. Because often, and I did a quick little search for marketing agencies, but this is true across many different fields. Often there are lots of helpful people who have gone before and have documented, here's what it's like to open a restaurant.
Here's what you are not thinking about. Here's what you should be thinking about. Here are some things you don't need to worry about. You might think this is a big deal, but this doesn't really matter. However, here is something that does matter.
And so this has been done for so many different industries and categories and little businesses that it's so, so helpful. So I would do that. And I would find some good case studies. They often refer you to other specific resources for that specific industry. So I would start with that.
But then thinking more broadly about, okay, what kind of marketing agency do I want to start? Well, we always encourage people to focus on a niche or some specialty, could be social media marketing. I would say I would go even further and be like social media marketing for X, like have a target market. Could be SEO, content creation, pay-per-click advertising, some other stuff, whatever it is, just having that clear niche and target market is gonna help you stand out. You want some kind of business plan.
Doesn't need to be a 90-page business plan, but a couple of pages or at least answers to key questions where our customer is going to come from, how much will you charge and so on. It probably helps to have a portfolio. Probably helps to have had some work that you can show off, whether it's from an employer, whether it's from freelance. If you have to do free work, like you do some stuff for friends, that's normal. In this world, do some stuff for friends, get a portfolio.
And as part of all of this, be thinking about your client acquisition strategy. That's probably one of the biggest challenges when starting an agency because lots of other agencies out there, businesses are already with somebody or maybe they haven't thought about hiring an agency. So you have to kind of go through that whole process and figure out a sales process, whether it is cold outreach, whether it is kind of asking around, looking for referrals, networking and so on, or content marketing, perhaps, where you're creating content that goes on a website or other platform, blog posts, video tutorials, something else that shows what you do. And then that is basically your lead generation tool, whatever it is you wanna think about where your clients are coming from. And that gives you something to start with, right?
Like that's gonna give you several steps. And if you do those things, you're gonna be much better off than you are in the beginning. So Lucas, I'm wishing you well. Let us know how it goes. Listeners, always wishing you the best as well.
I hope that I can be helpful to you through this daily podcast. Let me know how we can continue to improve. sidehustleschool.com. I'm on social media most days. Chris Gilibow, my name, or 193 countries on Instagram.
Much more is coming up in the days and weeks to come. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
