How to start a Digital Marketing Agency in Nigeria - 5 Key Steps

                                                           Credit: Searchenginejournal

A digital marketing agency business is about money spending and getting ROI can be so hard.

Too many people in the sphere and that can make it even harder.

So, how can you stand out when the likes of CK digital, and Wildfusion and more are doing the same business?

That can be a whole day assignment.

Trying to figure out what would work or not and sometimes it might not forever work.

And that could be so dangerous.

We've been hearing of small businesses and why digital marketing agency could be their footage. That really is fantastic but how many of them would convert for what you do?

How does what you do would make them ready for sales intent?

That's a question that needs an answer.

Do you think when it comes to running a digital marketing agency what works is the money spend on ads or the recruitment that was held for new staff?

I believe that should be a normal standard for any organization so don't just expect something as big from that.

A digital marketing agency is something you can't know how good enough you can run it. You might set up some goals and objectives even to the extent of drafting out a marketing plan.

Even so, that might not do much if you ain't focusing on targeting your prospects.

Marketing is not what brings sales nor staffs but there's always one thing that does and that's your customers.

Customers are the success in every business and no matter what strategy you pulled out that can't just happen to convert them right away.

It takes a lot of inbound effort and content strategy to convert them for sales leads.

I believe you know that everything about this guide is surrounded on the topic "how you can also drive sales" that means I won't just talk about how to start a digital marketing agency but also to know how to turn your prospects into qualified leads.

It's important that everyone understands that because generating qualified leads isn't that easy and the process can take forever.

And the forever process it takes happens not because everyone was sleeping with it but it happens that they're not getting everything right.

This time it's no longer about being inexperienced or expert because that can happen to anyone.

Even big brands you know not every time they get their marketing tactics right.

So, I don't see any point of not giving it another try when you lose out on the first shot because that's business for you everyone gambles because it's a risky thing.

Anyone who is really scared of losing isn't a good fit for doing business.

Maybe that isn't your calling because you have to stay strong and be ready to gamble things out.

Actually, nothing you have to be scared of life is a game so you just have to play your part and wait for what's next.

If so, how can you stand out in the digital marketing agency sphere when you know everyday numbers keep growing?

Well, it's simple when you know who you're about targeting.

Today, we live in the internet world where everything actually is gradually becoming what everyone above 18 years would have access to and that would be profitable for any online business.

And according to Hubspot, an average adult spends over 20 hours per week with digital media.

That shows the internet would become a trusted source that everyone would likely want to run into in order to digest some pieces of information.

Yet, that might still not help every business because of slight chances are that your target audiences are the ones converting.

If that they're not the ones seeing your brand then it will take your marketing team more effort to target the right audience.

So, here in this guide, I'll show you everything you need to know concerning the best way you can start a digital marketing agency that everyone would convert into sales.

Here are how you can start a digital marketing agency that's so lucrative in Nigeria:

1. Your brand story speaks
2. Locate your brand element
3. Build on your ideal customer profile
4. Build on a content pillar
5. Run ads for your digital marketing agency business

1. Your brand story speaks 

I'm not a big fan of the way Nigeria's companies tell their story maybe no one has noticed that yet?

Yeah, I don't like it we take things too direct and that won't help much when it comes to telling a brand story.

A good story humanizes your brand and that eventually would make your brand stand out more.

When it comes to telling a brand story you don't make it plain and straight-forward.

Because that could hit your brand which makes no one care for your service.

A digital marketing agency kind of story shouldn't have to base on what you're offering.

If that you don't know yet people don't just convert for what you do anymore but why you do them.

Read here: How To Start A Business That Drives Online Sales In Nigeria 

It's important you set the conversion right away from what you're about telling out.

Because when it comes to storytelling the power is in what you're teaching.

So, what is your brand about teaching out?

Take a look at this, here's the kind of pattern most companies in Nigeria uses and that isn't right for conversion.

To what tech advance did that really shows they're pinching at what they do and that's too direct.

People don't remember what you do but always remember how you solve their needs.

When your brand story isn't solving people's needs that means there will be so many problems converting them.

The purpose of storytelling is to convert people from marketing funnel into sales intent.

That means study the pipeline will really help more that's knowing who they're and what really is their needs.

The priority here is your audience and how you can blend your marketing tactics to convert them for leads.

A digital marketing agency story I'm talking about here is about standing out not fixing in.

A good story is not just what you do or your history but why you're doing what you're doing.

More importantly, telling it in a way that looks emotional to your prospects.

It's about resonating with people, people that need your support and guidance more.

Your goal here is to humanize your brand that's to make a human connection.

That's super needed because it makes your audience make a qualified decision they're about to make and that would convert them even more.

Just a few brands can boast of what storytelling means and Nike is one of them.

Nike brand story continues to attract, engage and delight year after year.

Because it forms a human connection, stay real, emotional, and transparent to their audience.

According to CarlaJohnson,

When your brand story is true to who you are, creative ways to express it won’t come only from marketing. It will come from employees who believe it and have fresh ways to make it come alive. Whether that’s how to take care of a customer, thinking about new product development or even how business is done. A great brand story has no limits on expression.

2. Locate your brand element

A story without an element is just like speaking without words. It won't connect much with your audience.

It means the story isn't valuable enough and it doesn't need any attention.

So when it comes to the element of a brand story that can come in various forms like blog posts, webinars, videos and more.

It's your choice to know what works best for your digital marketing agency and that would rely on who you're targeting.

If that your ideal customer profile is for B2B that means you're targeting people of your kind so you'll have to apply more inbound effort to make them buy from you.

Because it's hard when targeting people of your kind this way they would want to see your loyalty and how well they can trust your product.

People don't buy what you do but why you do them.

And that's why anytime your brand is about promoting a product it's best to solve your audience's needs by leveraging the WHY Golden circle.

So, what does that mean to your digital marketing agency?

In any kind of stage, most companies start with the What Golden circle.

Yet, big brands quickly realized that when starting up with the What stage that isn't converting as much.

The stage really doesn't connect with human feelings whichsoever it's hard to get those prospects for leads intent.

Read here: How To Grow Your Business - The Fast Way Of Driving Online sales

As per digital marketing agency, whenever you're about creating your brand story to blend in with your prospect's needs.

Think of it this way: The Why Golden circle.

So, what impact does it brings into your digital marketing agency business?

For the why stage, it deals more with human behavior.

That's the kind of feelings they'll have towards your business.

And it talks more about why you're doing what you're doing.

The thing about what is just been said now is.

Your objective is not just about focusing on your unique selling point or pinching out a mission statement.

That doesn't really matter here.

But using the Why strategy means you're focusing more on standing out.

You want to set a track right away that more people will see as real.

In reality, you don't have to fake it because it must be something your brand is really good at.

By saying things your brand doesn't really know how to do can negatively impact your brand reputation.

People generally would stain your brand with a lot of bad comments and that can affect the behavior of your new prospects.

That's why it's best for brands to stay real and transparent when it comes to storytelling.

And once you've fulfilled the Golden circle stages, that's:

• Why - Why is your brand doing this?
• How - How will what you're about doing help your audience?
• What - What are your goals, what impact of what you're about offering brings?

When your business critically thinks that way then there won't be much problem when it comes to the time getting them for leads intent.

Yet, all that isn't complete you still need to support it with storytelling elements.

This is when you have to build on character, conflict, and call-to-action.

The character mainly brings out your point of view.

It supports the motion of what you're about telling out.

On the other hand, a good character can't stand out without understanding your audience.

And challenges that the character will face.

When it comes to a character in storytelling, it means there's always a point of view.

And that is of three views.

• The first person - Yourself
• Second person - The audience
• Third-person - Reference

In a single-story, having more than one point of view may likely occur.

But it's best when telling a story stick on one and keep it consistent.

As per conflict, here's when you have something important to solve.

Here's an example:

A blog post for SEO - How to write one that everyone would love

Now, in that headline above, it's obvious that the problem or need I'm about solving is how to write one that everyone would love.

Which is the conflict in the headline?

Remember, storytelling can come in any form like blog posts, videos, podcasts, webinars and more.

That means sticking to one angle can't help much and I never told you to stick only to what you write about on your website.

With social media, you can always churn out your stories with relevant infographic hooks.

More importantly, use call-to-action to drive leads to whatever landing page you've created for conversion.

Yet, the user experience matters so make sure the loading experience is quite fast in order for them to accomplish what they want in the quickest manner.

3. Build your ideal customer profile

Let's say the understanding of your target audience's behavior is clear enough.

That way, thinking of who to target comes next.

So you're thinking about who's a good fit for your digital marketing agency business.

Right?

It quite simple to set up but first is your company's objectives clear to people working around you?

• Are they having the same focus and goals as you?
• Do you have a target in place for them?
• Are your KPIs still effective or everything just come randomly?

Even though you keep your company on SMART goals.

Yet, that isn't enough to stand out.

With your inbound tactics, marketing strategy, and initiatives you still have to think deeper in order to make everything work as planned.

You have to strategically think beyond your prospect's ideology but act on their emotions.

It is until when you act on their feelings then you know into how they would behave.

Mastery your prospect's actions go beyond SMART goals or SWOT analysis.

Read here: What’s Sales Enablement? – The Strategy, Benefits, And Why It’s Important

Don't get me wrong I didn't say they ain't important but that isn't the criteria for knowing who's a good fit for your business.

So, to know who's a good fit for your digital marketing agency business?

Master the lead qualification matrix, that's:

• Sales-ready.
• Unready
• Hand raisers.

Then how do you know who's a good fit or poor fit for your digital marketing agency business?

• Set an objective for your customer profile.

That's what kind of people you want them doing business with you.

So here targeting all demographics isn't the thing but those with feelings for your business.

And how can you get them right away?

Let's say your digital marketing agency business ideal customer profile goes this way:

• Name: Anyone
• Job: Not specific
• Interest: SEO, SMM, training, digital ads, content writing.
• Salary: 300, 000 and above.
• Location: must be based in Lagos

Now, potential customers ideal profile:

• Name: Ebuka BBnaija
• Job: Presenter
• Interest: SEO, digital ads, training.
• Salary: 600,000 and above
• Location: Lagos

Alternative,

• Name: Tacha
• Job: Model
• Interest: cloth, shoes, bags, make-up.
• Salary: 400,000 Naira and above
• Location: Portharcourt

Now, with that there're two listed ideal customer profiles above and how can you determine who actually is a good fit for your digital marketing agency business?

I'm sure it's easy to identify who's a good fit based on the company's ideal customer profile.

That's who you want to do business with. This means targeting Tacha or throwing multiple touchpoints won't make her convert.

And that's because she doesn't have an interest in doing business with your company.

That way it's hard getting her for leads intent.

But for Ebuka, he's likely to convert more because the company fit in properly to his interest.

Which will make him look forward to doing business with your company.

By signing up for your email marketing newsletter, pop-up notification or follow up on social media.

The marketing team's duty is to hack on those leads and turn them into sales-ready leads.

Using marketing automation to get in touch with them.

4. Build on a content pillar

When it comes to driving sales or promotion, your content says it all.

No matter what inbound marketing channels whether social media, YouTube, blog or more.

Your content still has to stand out.

So whenever your digital marketing agency business is ready to promote a product.

That way, You have to think of what inbound tactics would blend in properly.

It means you need a content audit and content creation framework, that's:

• Planning a publishing timeline
• Creating a workflow
• Reviewing and editing content
• Organizing of content.
• Channel workflow.

With that, You would have a unique sense of what might interest the audience to convert even more.

So, how can you create a content pillar for your digital marketing agency business?

Your goal here is to stand out and steal customers from other competitors.

Here's how to go about that.

• Create a resourceful pillar page.

Let's say there's a new product ready for promotion and the source of the month is using a blog post.

This way, You create a landing page of the product where you want to drive leads into and make conversion happen.

That's a separate web page or land copy.

Yet, you still have to create a blog post for the promotion.

And how can you do that?

Click here: Inbound Marketing In 2020 – The Definitive Guide

Let's say, your digital marketing agency is about promoting a software called sales automation.

That means the keyword to target is sales automation.

It means you have to go through keyword research, keyword strategy, and search intent in order to rank high on Google for that keyword.

More importantly, check the keyword difficulty to know how hard it is to rank on SERP.

Because a new digital marketing agency business would find it so hard to rank if the keyword difficulty is high.

But that doesn't mean you can't still rank but your SEO team needs to do more.

For example, what I would expect your digital marketing agency team to do is to check the top 10 result ranking for that keyword.

To see how they can outrank the big boys.

Let's say about like 6 brands that rank high in SERP for that keyword aren't using enough infographics then you can hack on that by using infographic hooks in your blog post.

However, if some of the content that also ranks isn't in-depth then you can build on that and write something really valuable and insightful for the audience.

That's the possible way to hack on what your competitors aren't doing enough or yet.

For the keyword, Sales automation.

First, your headline needs to be appealing to the audience and don't forget to hack on character, conflict, and call-to-actions.

And make sure your point of view is clear right from the beginning of the blog post.

Use interlinking to drive traffic to the landing page of the product.

For example, let's say your team has written a definitive guide about sales automation yet you want conversion.

That way use call-to-actions like:

• Buy now
• Learn more
• Sign up now
• Call now.
• Click here

To drive leads to the landing page of the new product announcement.

5 Run ads for your digital marketing agency business

The faster means of promoting your brand reach is when you run ads even though that die out with time.

Yet, it works like magic.

With Facebook ads, Google Adwords, Twitter ads your brand can promote its reach and visibility.

More importantly, leverage Google My Business to get featured on Google knowledge panel and that's so critical for building trust and credibility for your digital marketing agency business.



So the new featured enrolled in Google ads supports extension on the search results but that can only appear live when linked to Google my business profile.



With that, your digital marketing agency business can simply act on different extensions in order to boost conversion.

When people of your kind see that they would want to perform specific actions based on what your extension is really saying.



It really matters because there's a shortcut to what to do immediately.



So even with running ads and in order to compete in the auction system still based on two things:

• Relevance(quality score)
• Bids.

So to outrank other advertisers your ad copy must fulfill those needs above.

• Your headline must fulfill the search intent of the audience.
• And your bids must stay higher.

At times, your competitors might change their bids so it's best you keep staying up to date to their changes in order to remain on top.

Another important stuff is this,

Let’s say you’re a digital marketer, you may want your ad to show when someone searches for a digital marketing agency. The exciting thing is you’ll only pay if the searcher clicks on your advert.

Say you’re willing to pay up 10 dollars when people click on your ad after searching for a digital marketing agency. Known as cost-per-click.

If your competitors only got a max CPC of 7 dollars, you’ll have a higher bid, quite impressive! meaning you’ll be ahead in the auction slot.

Apparently, there’s more to the auction than just the bids. Another big factor that needs much more attention is relevance(known as quality score).

Let’s say someone searches for “digital marketing agency business” and your ad’s headline is “digital marketing agency business in Lagos”, the search engine may seem to consider your ad highly relevant to the search query.

But, what if your ad’s headline is “digital marketing agency service in Lagos“, to that, both ad’s headline refers to a digital marketing agency, but this one seems to be less relevant because it’s about digital marketing agency service instead of a digital marketing agency business.

That's why it's best to leverage search intent when optimizing for your ad campaign.

And make sure you utilize A/B testing to know which ad copy performs best by segmenting them into the different copy.

Tips: Here's how to set a digital marketing agency business plan(pdf)

1. Set a business  goal
2. Create a unique selling point
3. Know who you're about targeting
4. Your brand should reflect what you do
5. Create valuable content for every buyer's journey
6. Set an ideal customer profile
7. Use marketing automation to generate leads
8. Build on planning and execution
9. Stay real and unique with your brand story
10. Use why Golden circle to build human connection and feeling
11. Increase your customer acquisition and retention
12. Use sales enablement tactics for a purchase decision
13. Track social mentions and listening 
14. Stay consistent

Conclusion

Now that you know how to start a digital marketing agency what other digital marketing skills can still work best?

Maybe sending out surveys for prospects to fill, leveraging email marketing to boost ROI.

Whatever way I believe setting up a digital marketing agency is very much clear to you.

Because for everyone the end-product is to make a conversion.

And that matters for every business.

So, if done well digital marketing agency can be so lucrative for your business.

What matters is how you train your minds and utilize your marketing skills.

Now, over to you, how do you want to start a digital marketing agency that is lucrative in Nigeria?

I'm Destined boy, a certified digital and inbound marketer.

Follow @Blogdestined