We have assisted more than 500 business owners and entrepreneurs in developing business plans to launch and expand their digital marketing firms over the course of the previous 20+ years.
If you’ve never written a business plan for a digital marketing agency, you might assume it will be a difficult and time-consuming task. It is for the majority of entrepreneurs, but since we are here to assist you, it won’t be. We are equipped with the know-how, resources, and experience to assist you in writing a strong business plan.
You can discover some background information on the significance of company planning in this post. After that, you’ll discover a step-by-step process for writing a business plan for a digital marketing agency so you can start writing yours right away.
A Business Plan: What Is It?
A business plan outlines your growth strategy for the following five years and gives an overview of your current digital marketing agency. It outlines your company’s objectives and your plans for achieving them. In order to bolster your plans, market research is also included.
The Purpose of a Digital Marketing Agency Business Plan
A business strategy is necessary whether you want to launch a new digital marketing agency or expand an already-existing one. To increase your chances of success, a business plan can help you plan out the expansion of your digital marketing agency and secure capital, if necessary. As your firm expands and develops, your digital marketing agency business plan should be updated yearly.
Funding Sources for Digital Marketing Agencies
In terms of finance, bank loans, credit cards, angel investors, and personal savings are the primary sources of funding for digital marketing agencies. Banks will want to see your business plan before approving a loan, in order to be assured that you can pay back the loan plus interest. The loan officer will want to see a professional plan in addition to verifying that your finances are fair in order to get this confidence. They will feel more confident that you can run a firm successfully and competently if you have a plan like this. Digital marketing companies typically obtain capital from bank loans and personal savings.
How to Write a Digital Marketing Agency Business Plan
A business plan is necessary if you want to launch a new digital marketing agency or grow your existing one. The following tutorial provides all the information you need to write each crucial part of your business plan for a digital marketing agency.
- Executive Summary
Although it introduces your business plan, your executive summary should typically come last because it summarizes all of the important parts of your document.
Your executive summary should draw the reader in right away. Tell them about the nature of your digital marketing agency and its current state. Are you a startup, for instance, running a chain of digital marketing agencies, or do you already have a digital marketing firm that you would like to expand?
After that, give a brief synopsis of each of the areas that follow in your strategy.
- Give a succinct summary of the digital marketing sector.
- Talk about the kind of digital marketing company you run.
- Provide specifics about your direct rivals. Provide a synopsis of your intended clientele.
- Give a brief overview of your marketing approach. Determine who the important team members are.
- Provide a synopsis of your budget.
- Overview of the Company
You will describe the kind of digital marketing agency you run in your company overview.
For instance, your company may focus on any of the following categories of digital marketing agencies:
- Full Service Digital Marketing Agency: This category of agencies typically provides a wide range of digital marketing services and is larger than most other categories. Because they have the expertise completing particular tasks that businesses need done, including lead nurturing campaigns or website redesigns, businesses frequently collaborate with full-service digital marketing organizations. Additionally, these firms can bolster current marketing teams at a less expensive rate than it would be to expand them through new recruits.
- SEO Digital Marketing Agency: the main goal of this kind of agency is to improve their clients’ websites’ search engine rankings and content.
- Digital marketing agencies that specialize in social media strategy assist businesses in creating and managing a strong online presence on social media. They create content for social media and oversee their ads on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Other services include managing influencer outreach for affiliate marketing and/or cross-promotion as well as responding to customer interactions on social media platforms.
- Web design and digital marketing agencies: these firms are composed of a group of imaginative designers who develop unique, search engine-optimized websites for their customers.
The business background and the type of digital marketing agency you will run should be covered in the company overview.
Provide responses to inquiries like these:
- When did you launch the company, and why?
- What accomplishments have you made thus far? Reaching a certain number of clients served, serving a certain number of clients with favorable outcomes, and so on are examples of milestones.
- Your company’s legal setup. Have you filed as an S-Corp? A Limited Liability Company? An individual business? Here is where you explain your legal structure.
- Industry Analysis
You must include a summary of the digital marketing sector in your industry or market study.
Even while it might not appear required, this has several uses.
First, you become knowledgeable by investigating the digital marketing sector. It aids in your comprehension of the market you are serving.
Second, if you identify market trends using your study, market research can help you better your marketing plan.
Demonstrating to readers your sector expertise is the third reason. You accomplish it by carrying out the study and incorporating it into your plan.
Your digital marketing agency business plan’s industry analysis section should address the following queries:
- In terms of dollars, how large is the digital marketing industry?
- Is the market growing or shrinking?
- Who are the main rivals in the industry?
- Which companies dominate the market as suppliers?
- Which trends are having an impact on the sector?
- How much does the industry expect to grow over the next five to ten years?
- What is the size of the relevant market? In other words, What is the size of your digital marketing agency’s possible target market? By determining the size of the market throughout the nation and then extrapolating that number to your local population, you can get an estimate of this kind.
- Customer Evaluation
Your digital marketing agency business plan needs to include a customer analysis section that lists all of the clients you now service and/or anticipate servicing.
Examples of client segments include small and large enterprises as well as nonprofit organizations.
As you may expect, the kind of digital marketing business you run will be greatly influenced by the customer segment or segments that you decide to target. It seems to make sense that charitable organizations would react differently to marketing campaigns than, say, major corporations.
Make an effort to identify the distinct psychographic and demographic profiles of your target audience. In terms of demographics, you should talk about the ages, genders, localities, and economic brackets of the possible clients you hope to work with.
Your target clients’ demands and goals are clarified by psychographic profiles. Your ability to identify and categorize these needs will improve as you try to draw in and keep clients.
- Competitive Analysis
The direct and indirect rivals that your company faces should be listed in your competitive analysis, with an emphasis on the latter.
Other digital marketing agencies are direct rivals.
Other options that clients must choose from that do not directly compete with your goods or service are known as indirect rivals. This covers freelancers, apps, and social networking sites. You should also bring up this kind of rivalry.
Give a brief synopsis of each of these rivals’ businesses and list their advantages and disadvantages. It will be impossible to know everything about your competition unless you were employed by them at one point. However, you ought to be able to learn important details about them, including
- Which kinds of customers do they cater to?
- What kind of digital marketing company do they operate?
- How much do they charge (premium, inexpensive, etc.)?
- What skills do they possess?
- What shortcomings do they have?
Consider your responses to the last two questions from the standpoint of the customers. Additionally, don’t be scared to find out what aspects of your rivals’ offerings your customers appreciate and dislike.
Recording your areas of competitive advantage is the last step in your competitive analysis section. As an illustration:
- Will you offer services other than digital marketing?
- Will you provide goods or services that your rivals don’t?
- Will your customer service be improved?
- Will you provide more affordable prices?
Consider how you will surpass your competitors and list those strategies in this area of your plan.
- Marketing Plan
The four Ps are traditionally included in a marketing plan: product, price, place, and promotion. Your marketing plan for a digital marketing agency should contain the following elements:
Product: You should restate the kind of digital marketing agency that you listed in your company overview under the product area. Next, provide specifics about the goods and services you plan to provide. For instance, would you offer public relations, social media management, SEO management, or website design?
Price: List the rates you will charge and how much they will cost less than those of your rivals. Your plan’s product and price subsections essentially list the goods and/or services you provide together with their associated costs.
Location: The address of your digital marketing firm is the place in question. Note the location of your agency and how the site will contribute to your success. For instance, is your digital marketing company based entirely online, in a busy business district, a freestanding office, or a retail district? Talk about how your website might be the best place for your clients to visit.
Promotions: The last section of your marketing plan for your digital marketing agency is where you detail your strategy for attracting prospective clients to your location(s). Some promotional techniques you may want to think about are as follows:
Place an ad in regional publications, on radio, or in magazines.
- Make contact with websites
- Make fliers available.
- Take part in email marketing.
- Promote your brand on social networking sites.
- Boost your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) for certain keywords.
- Operations Plan
Your operations plan outlines how you will achieve your goals, which were previously detailed in the sections of your business plan. The two separate sections that make up your operations strategy are as follows.
All of the daily short-term procedures that go into managing your digital marketing agency, such as staff meetings, billing clients, planning and scheduling ad campaigns, and client communication, are considered everyday short-term operations.
Your long-term objectives are the benchmarks you want to reach. These could be the days you intend to schedule your Xth session or the goal of earning $X in income. It might also correspond with your plans to move your digital marketing company to an other city.
- Management Team
A solid management team is necessary to showcase the potential for success of your digital marketing organization. Emphasize the backgrounds of your important people, highlighting the abilities and experiences that demonstrate their capacity to expand a business.
It would be ideal if you have direct experience managing digital marketing companies, as does any member of your team. If so, emphasize your experience and knowledge. Additionally, emphasize any experience you believe will contribute to the success of your company.
If there are gaps in your staff, think about forming an advisory board. Two to eight people who could mentor your company would make up an advisory board. They would assist in offering clarification and tactical direction. Seek out advisory board members who have successfully managed an advertising and/or public relations agency, as well as experience operating a digital marketing business.
- Financial Plan
Your five-year financial statement, broken down monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually after that, should be included in your financial plan. The cash flow, balance sheet, and income statements are parts of your financial statements.
- Income Statement
A profit and loss statement, or P&L, is a more popular term for an income statement. To determine whether you made a profit or not, it first displays your revenue and then deducts your costs.
As you are creating your income statement, you must make assumptions. Will you, for instance, schedule five clients per day and/or provide customizable advertising packages? And will sales increase annually by 2% or 10%? As you may expect, the assumptions you choose to make will have a big impact on your company’s financial projections. Try to find as much evidence as you can to support your assumptions via study.
- Balance Sheets
Liabilities and assets are displayed on balance sheets. Balance sheets might contain a lot of information, so attempt to distill them down to the essential details you should be aware of. For example, investing $50,000 to establish your digital marketing agency won’t result in instant financial gain. Instead, it’s an asset that should continue to bring in money for you in the future. Similarly, you are not required to repay a $50,000 check that a lender sends you right away. Instead, you will eventually have to repay that obligation.
- Cash Flow Statement
You can make sure you never run out of money by using your cash flow statement to estimate how much you’ll need to launch or expand your company. The majority of entrepreneurs and company owners are unaware that it is possible to make a profit but still run out of money and file for bankruptcy.
Make sure to incorporate a number of the essential expenses required for establishing or expanding a digital marketing business in your Income Statement and Balance Sheets:
- The price of supplies and equipment for the office
- Employee salary or payroll
- Commercial insurance
- Taxes
- Additional start-up costs, such as those related to equipment, computer software, permits, and legal fees, if you’re a new company
- Appendix
Include all of your financial estimates in the appendix of your strategy, along with any additional documentation that strengthens it. For instance, you may attach the lease for your office space or a list of the digital marketing services you want to provide.
It is a worthwhile task to write a business strategy for your digital marketing organization. You will be a true expert by the time you finish if you adhere to the above template. You’ll have a thorough understanding of your target market, your competitors, and the digital marketing sector. You’ll create a marketing plan and learn what it takes to start and expand a profitable digital marketing firm.