How To Start A Social Media Marketing Agency (SMMA): Ultimate Beginner's Guide

How To Start A Social Media Marketing Agency

Have you seen some young teenagers making 6 figures per year from social media marketing business?

And you’re wondering ‘how you can reach that level of success with an SMMA?


Don't worry because this article will give you a step by step process that you can follow to setup and run your own social media marketing agency.

After reading this article, you will be in a better position to go out there and start your own SMMA.


So read till the end if you want to learn more about this topic.



Steps Involved:

Without further ado, let me jump straight into more detail.



1. Pick A Niche


The first crucial step in setting up a social media marketing agency is choosing a niche.

From the onset, you should clearly define ‘who' you intend to serve with your agency.

You should try to find an industry which you're knowledgeable about – so that it won’t be difficult for you to deliver the services.

However, if you're passionate about a certain industry but you don't have the necessary skills needed to work in that industry, you can educate yourself through online resources i.e. courses, YouTube videos, articles, etc.

You can also outsource the services to someone who is really good at doing the work.

For example, let's say that you choose to run Facebook Ads for local companies, you can outsource the services to a freelancer who is really good at yielding higher ROAS (Return On Ad Spent).

This helps to deliver great results for your clients – thus, they'll be more than willing to refer your agency to their fellow friends who might need similar services in the future.

But keep in mind that your profit margins will be quite lower if you choose to outsource the services – since you'll be sharing your profits with the person doing the actual work.

But again, it’s not bad at all since you'll be earning a larger % without doing the actual work – whilst keeping your clients happy with great results.


With that being said, the most profitable niches right now are:


• Web Development – most businesses are moving online due to the pandemic.


• Shopify Store Building – most shops are now preferring to use Shopify – rather than traditional brick and mortar buildings.

• Advertising – most companies are looking for people who're good at running paid ads in order to scale their business (Facebook Ads, Google Ads, YouTube Ads, etc.)


• Graphic Design – most companies are looking for great designers who can create stunning marketing materials for their campaigns (logos, banners, infographics, etc.)


• Content Creation – most companies are looking for content creators who can create some marketing content for their brand (video content, articles, copywriting, etc.)


2. Pricing Your Services


Assuming that you have found your niche, the next crucial step is to set prices for your services.

This is key because when you reach potential clients, they'll ask you about your fees.

Thus, you must at least have some rough estimates on how much you're willing to accept for your services.

You can research how much other agencies are charging for similar services – so as to get an idea of how you'll structure your pricing.

This can be done by visiting other agency websites and check their pricing tab.

Alternatively, you can reach out to them via email – pretending like you want to buy their services and they'll give you their quotations.


With that being said, there is basically 2 types of pricing i.e.


• Convenient based pricing

• Result based pricing


With convenient based pricing, you get paid for completing certain tasks – rather than the results yielded from that task.

For example, if you're writing articles for a company, you might be paid a flat rate per every article that you write – regardless of how much that piece of content earns for the company.

The downside of convenient based pricing is that you don't get compensated accordingly.

Imagine, writing a blog post for $100 (One Time Fee) – and that post turn out to generate $1 500 every month!

That's not fair!


Due to the drawbacks of convenient based pricing, most agencies are now preferring to use the result based pricing.

This is where you get paid based on the results that you yield for the company.

For example, let's say that you're running ads for a company, you might agree that you'll get paid 10% of all the profits from your campaigns.

This is very fair as you get compensated according to your efforts – rather than a flat/fixed rate.


Thus, you need to know the difference between these 2 forms of pricing before setting your prices.

But still on the same note, it is important to note that the result based pricing is not applicable to some industries.

For example, if you design logos for clients, it's a bit difficult to measure the results of that logo to a company's revenues.

In such cases, you won't have any option that to charge a once-off convenient price.



3. Creating Your Business Website


Now that you've found your niche, and you've decided on how you're going to structure your pricing, it’s now high time to create a website for your business.

A website is key in this modern day and age – since it proves that you're a legit and trustworthy business.

Without a website, you might struggle to convince clients – since most companies are scared of dealing with random people due to high rates of scams in recent years.

Thus, l highly urge you to create your own website if you want to take your SMMA business to another level.

You don't necessarily need to build a fancy website – but you just need a simple site that has your business information, pricing details, contact information, (as well as testimonials – when you start getting clients).

And the most interesting part is that you can get a website up and running with as little as $2.95/month with GreenGeeks.

Thus, you can get your own business website up and running for such a low price – less than the price of coffee.


👉You can read this article if you want to learn how to build your own website (even without prior experience).



4. Finding Clients


Assuming that you've finished all the backend staff, it’s now high time to go out there and find clients for your business.

Getting clients is the hardest part for most people – since most people thinks that you can naturally get clients whilst chilling at your couch.

Although this might work for some people, this is however not the case for most people.

You need to do some cold calling in order to find potential prospects for your business.

For example, let's assume that your business serves local restaurants, you might need to visit Google Maps and search for restaurants in your local area.

Once you find them, gather their contact information and start reaching out to them either by call or email.

Although some might ignore your emails, you might be lucky to get some few positive responses – and that's how most SMMA found their first few clients.

The key is to be consistent in order to increase your odds of success.


Once some companies reads your proposals, they might ask you about your business information, pricing details, etc.

That's where you will send them to your website.

And if they are convinced about your services, they might offer you a contract to deliver those services to their company.



Pro Tip


If your target clients are located within your local area, it's better to physically visit their premises.

I know this sounds weird for most people – since most people are not confident to walk to these big established companies.

But l tell you – in-person visits are highly converting than phone chats.

The reason being that most companies receives a lot of emails everyday – thus, they might fail to see your email.

But if you go directly, it's difficult for them to ignore you.


Another pro tip is that you need to add some testimonials to your website (in the future) when you start getting more clients.

This helps to get even more clients – since testimonials acts as social proof that your agency is really great at delivering those services.

Thus, whenever you help a client to achieve great results, ask them for their testimonial and add it to your site.



5. Delivering Your Services


Assuming you have landed your first client, it's now high time to deliver your services to them.

You can choose to deliver the services by yourself or you can hire a freelancer to deliver the services on your behalf.

If you're just starting out, it's a good idea to fulfil the tasks by yourself – since you'll be on a tight budget.

But as you start getting more clients, it will be a great idea to start outsourcing the services in order to scale up your business.

Either way, the key is to provide great quality work for your clients – so that they'll continue to give you more contracts.

Not only that, but they'll also refer your agency to their fellow friends and family who might need similar services in the future.

Thus, it's important to build a good reputation for your business if you want to survive in the long term.



Wrapping Up


There we go!

These are the 5 simple steps that you need to follow in order to setup and run your own social media marketing agency.

I hope that you have gained a lot of valuable gems from this article – since l tried by all means to share my best knowledge regarding to this topic.

Using this information, you can go out there and get started with SMMA as soon as today.

The key is to take action and implement these strategies in order to bring your business to life.

Without action, your ideas will be as good as non-existent.



Ready To Start Your Own Social Media Marketing Agency?


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