Starting a social media management agency can be a walk in the park for some and a herculean task for others. Floating one could be the opportunity you need to develop, strategize, implement, test and scale the social media marketing efforts of businesses.
The steps to starting the agency include choosing a niche to serve, determining the type of services to offer, creating a solid business plan and knowing how best to charge for your services. In this article, you’ll learn the nitty-gritty of starting such a business in 45 days or less.
Actionable Tips for Starting a Social Media Marketing Agency
This section covers the step-by-step process of establishing an agency that provides marketing, content and influencer services to businesses.
1. Differentiate Yourself with a Niche
In an ever-competing industry, new agencies need to “get their foot into the door” by choosing a niche where they have the upper hand. Rather than be a generalist, go for a niche that matches these criteria:
- Specifics: are you running an agency that is platform-specific (provides marketing solutions on specific platforms) or industry-specific?
- Your Expertise: you’re better off starting a social media management agency based on your core expertise. This gives an edge to building based on what you’re already familiar with while working your way up from there.
- Service Offering: the niche market you choose to serve, besides being laser-targeted, also needs to offer the opportunity to offer different kinds of services. Agencies that focus on digital marketing can also integrate content marketing, content publishing, and performance reporting.
2. Figure out the USP
Agreed, setting up an agency to oversee the marketing campaigns of brands is profitable. But what makes yours different from the already-existing agencies? Figuring out the Unique Selling Point (USP) is the key to answering this question.
The value proposition is what your agency promises to offer the clients when hired to handle the social media marketing campaigns.
These factors are worth considering:
- Study and understand the dynamics of the niche or target market of the agency.
- Be specific about how the services offered will immensely benefit the customer(s).
- Find out the “missing link” (what the audience wants) and factor in how your USP can fill that gap.
Also Read: How to Start Affiliate Marketing Business as a Beginner and Make Money
3. Create a Business Plan
Now that you’re sure of what the market wants and possible solutions to offer; proceed to making a blueprint of the agency. Creating a business plan at this stage is essential for the following reasons:
- It helps you to prioritize what to do.
- Creating a business plan is a good way to reduce the confusion that comes with trying to do a lot of things at once.
- Making decisions and implementing different phases of the agency’s operations becomes easier when there’s a blueprint.
4. Determine the Services to Offer
You now need to determine the kind of services to offer. General rules to keep in mind include offering services that match the chosen niche/market and avoiding services that don’t match it.
Below are some common services to offer through your social media management agency:
- Consulting: you’ll help brands and businesses find clarity on issues bordering on growing their presence and service offerings across social media platforms.
- Social Media Management: this is the hallmark of the services offered. It typically covers the social media platform being managed, the types of content to publish and the consistency, as well as whether custom graphics will be created.
- Community Management: this has to do with whether your agency will also answer direct messages and reply to emails on behalf of the brand.
- Social Media Strategy: this service covers anything from exploring best approaches to managing social media profiles, and the account branding and growth processes.
5. Set Your Pricing
Clients need value for their money. How your agency’s pricing plan is structured goes a long way to determining whether the profits will start rolling in a short time or not.
Here are pro tips:
- Consider the average industry pricing structure.
- The price should correlate to the type of service offered. The more services required, the higher the amount charged.
These are important approaches to setting the price for your social media management agency’s pricing:
6. Work out the Costs
Except it’s a one-man agency; costs will add up quickly, especially when more clients are being attended to. Here’s how to work out the costs:
- Factor the costs for operations. These include payment for an office space and software, paying staff and administrative charges.
- Marketing costs, including promotional campaigns, billboards, flyers and business cards.
7. Determine the Payment Options
How does your agency intend to get paid for the services offered? Monthly payments are common, but exploring other options can also be a game-changer.
Project-based payments allow you to earn income for each one-off or bulky project executed. Hourly payments can also be used if you choose to be paid for each hour of service rendered. Setting a realistic hourly rate is advised.
8. Hire Employees
Most agencies are made up of 3 or more persons. Hiring extra hands is a good way to lessen the burden of work on you, as you step back and assume a managerial role.
You could start with 2 or 3 team members who can cover the most important services. As the clientele grows; hire more hands.
9. Launch the Agency
How the agency is launched can also make all the difference in client acquisition. You want as many people as possible to know about the brand.
Leverage PRs (including interviewing the team members and giving a brief as the founder), running paid campaigns on social media and search engines and listing the agency on Google Maps and local directories.
10. Start Pitching
The bulk of the work has been done already. Now is the time to get pitching to get more clients to patronize your new social media management agency.
Here are tips:
- Offer some services and see if the prospective clients liked them and would like to check out other paid services.
- Network on LinkedIn.
- Create helpful content around the services offered. Have these published on your agency’s website/blog section, and guest post on other sites to increase visibility.
Also Read: How to Attract High-paying Clients to Your Social Media Management Agency
Conclusion
Starting a social media management agency gives you the best of both worlds – an opportunity to help businesses have a social presence and build a consistent income stream. Make sure to turn every successful campaign into social proof. This convinces other (prospective) clients that you are an expert in what you do; convincing them further to do business with your agency.
