Setting up a digital marketing agency with no experience might seem overwhelming in the start, but nothing to worry about, it's completely possible with the right approach and some basic learning, an organized roadmap, and support. Digital marketing services are an important toolkit for early-stage companies, small and medium businesses (SMBs), and enterprise-level organizations, helping them grow online presence, generate quality leads, and enhance sales.
If you’re wondering how to start a digital marketing company without any experience, then you are in the right place. This guide will explain you through all necessary steps, offering valuable tips to assist you in building a successful agency from scratch.
Let’s understand the purpose of a Digital Marketing Agency
Service providers who work in digital marketing offer multiple services such as search engine optimization, social media marketing, content creation, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, online presence management, and more. These services help businesses:
- Connect targeted customers through digital platforms
- Improve brand recognition and credibility
- Generate leads
- Fueling sales growth and maximizing revenue
- Stay ahead in an increasingly digital business landscape
For early stage companies to small to medium enterprises, digital marketing provides affordable, effective ways for quick business scaling and enhance online visibility. Launching an agency that delivers these effective Services Indicates your ability to assist businesses thrive while building your own brand and establishing financial success.
Transforming from Zero Experience to Digital Marketing agency owner: Your Step-by-Step Startup Guide
1. Acquire key skills and build a solid foundation
You don’t need a formal degree, but learning the core digital marketing skills is essential. Explore free and paid resources like Google Digital Garage, HubSpot Academy, Coursera, Udemy, and well written comprehensive guide freely available online written by market SEO experts to gain skills in digital marketing about:
- SEO fundamentals
- Social media marketing techniques
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- PPC advertising
- Analytics and reporting
Hands-on experience through personal work or contributing as a volunteer to manage small campaigns will enhance your confidence and skillset.
2. Determine a target market
Now let’s focus on a niche helps you to get noticed and become a specialist in a focused area, such as:
- Social media marketing to grow local businesses
- SEO for e-commerce stores
- Content marketing for early stage company
- PPC campaigns for the real estate market
Focusing on a target niche enables you to tailor personalized services, address your target clients’ requirements, and prevent overloading yourself.
3. Build a robust business plan and ensure regulatory compliance
Define your goals, focus on the target market segment, prepare a list of marketing services you plan to deliver, construct pricing plans, and ready with marketing tactics. Decide appropriate business entity type (sole proprietorship, LLC, etc.) and register your business to operate legally, build trust, and meet regulatory standards.
4. Establish your Online Visibility
Create a professional website. Your agency website is the primary gateway to showcase your services, portfolio, achievements, case studies, and other relevant information. Therefore construct SEO-optimized online website showcasing:
- Your Digital marketing services and packages
- Portfolio of work or in-depth case analyses
- Client feedback and endorsements (even early experiences or volunteer work)
- A blog with valuable digital marketing tips with FAQ’s
Maintain a vibrant presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and other popular social media platforms to interact regularly with prospects and share your valuable insights regularly.
List Your Digital Marketing Agency
Showcase your services, packages, and expertise directly on Upzency. Get discovered by potential clients and grow your business faster.
Register Your Agency Now5. Leverage Free and Economical Tools
You can begin with the free versions of digital marketing tools outlined below to manage and monitor your campaigns and analytics affordably while keeping early costs low. Many tools have upgrade plans that you can choose as your needs grow.
| Tool Name | Description | Free Plan Details | Paid Plan Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics (GA4) | Tracks website user behavior, measures user engagement, monitors key conversions, and cross-platform data with robust reports. | Fully free for most small and medium businesses with robust features. | Google Analytics 360 enterprise version for large organizations with advanced & priority support |
| Google Search Console | Monitors website indexing, search performance, and alerts on SEO issues directly from Google. | Completely free to use with essential SEO metrics. | No paid version. |
| Ubersuggest | SEO tool for keyword research, site audits, backlink data, and competitive analysis. | Free tier includes limited daily search queries and audits. | Upgrading to a paid plan unlocked unlimited searches, got detailed analytics, and extra features designed for growth. |
| Canva | An easy graphic design tool specifically designed to create professional visuals, social posts, and marketing contents. | The free plan includes many templates, photos, and designs. | Pro plans offer team collaboration, branded templates, and premium assets. |
| Buffer | A Social media scheduling platform from one dashboard. | The free plan allows limited scheduling and a set number of posts/accounts. | Upgrade to a paid plan to avail more accounts, higher post limits, and get detailed analytics. |
| Hootsuite | A complete social media management tool for content scheduling in advance, measuring user engagement, and other features. | The free plan allows limited social profiles and scheduled posts. | Upgrading to a paid plan unlocked advanced features, got comprehensive analytics, and team collaboration. |
| Mailchimp | An email marketing solution with workflow automation, design templates, smart audience segmentation, and more | With Free plan you can avail limited contacts with basic automation and templates. | Upgrading to a paid plan add enhanced advanced automations, larger audiences, and premium customer support. |
| Trello | A Visual project and campaign management tool that uses boards and cards for task tracking. | The free plan includes unlimited personal boards and basic automation. | Paid plans include team features, integrations, and other premium features. |
| Google Keyword Planner | Free Google Ads tool for discovering keywords and estimating search volume and competition. | Free with a Google Ads account. | No paid version, but keyword data is limited without running ads. |
| Answer The Public | Review consumer search questions and autocomplete data to inspire content ideas. | The free version gives limited daily searches. | Paid plans offer unlimited searches and data exports. |
| Grammarly | An AI-powered writing assistant to correct grammar, spelling, improve text clarity, and other useful features | The free plan offers basic grammar, limited plagiarism checks, spelling checks, and other basic useful features | Premium plans add style, tone, clarity, plagiarism checks, and more |
| Zapier | Automation tool that links different apps and workflows without coding. | Free plan allows certains tasks/month (automations). | Paid plans increase task limits and add premium apps. |
| Mailerlite | Email marketing platform with easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor and automation workflows. | Free up to a significant number of subscribers, including automation and landing pages. | Moving to a paid level unlocks advanced features and expanded sending capacity. |
| ChatGPT | An intelligent content assistant that helps to generate tailored content based on prompts, brainstorm innovative ideas, and automate copywriting workflows. | Free tier offers basic usage and chat completion tokens. | Plus plan provides faster response and priority access. |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Desktop SEO crawler for site audits, broken links, and on-page SEO analysis. | The free version crawls up to a certain number of URLs per website, which is sufficient for early-stage companies | Paid license unlocks unlimited crawling and advanced features. |
| Metricool | Social media scheduling, performance analytics, and competitor analysis with some AI tools. | Free plan supports limited accounts and posts with basic analytics. | Paid plans unlock advanced features |
How to Maximize your output with tools efficiently:
- Begin by setting up Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Search Console for your agency website to collect key insights about your site visitors and SEO health. Both of these tools are free and important.
- Use Ubersuggest, Semrush (Free with limited usage), ahrefs (Free with limited usage) or Google Keyword Planner for keyword research and content planning.
- Design eye-catching social media visuals quickly with Canva (with free media kit available on canva).
- Organize and schedule posts using Buffer or Hootsuite. Start with their no-cost options first before upgrading to their paid plan.
- Automate your foundational email marketing task with Mailchimp or Mailerlite entry-level plans.
- Use Trello flexible task boards for collaborative project management.
- Simplify your project workflows by using Zapier’s entry-level plan
- Use AI-driven writing assistance to craft compelling content and brainstorm ideas by providing context based prompts using ChatGPT.
- Utilize Screaming Frog to scan your site periodically, which helps in checking broken links within your website placed on any of your web pages, finding missing or duplicate page titles and meta descriptions, checking for pages returning 400, 500 errors while accessing and other SEO factors.
Once you think and observe that you are getting relevant traffic and building customer trust, then you can go for paid plans. These tools offer scalable paid plans with enhanced features to support marketing demands without switching software solutions.