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You’re a Type-A problem solver that wants to help others come up with creative methods to improve their organizations, and you want to run your own business to provide your outstanding consulting services. You're stuck, however, on how exactly to start a consulting agency.
That’s where we come in. We’re Slam Media Lab, an award-winning web design agency in San Francisco that has worked alongside businesses of all sizes, ranging from nonprofits like Fresh Approach to venture capital firms like Worklife Ventures. We’ve spent hundreds of hours working with clients, iterating on our workflows, and getting into the nitty gritty of running a business to now have over $2M revenue in just 3 years.
We know that starting your own consulting agency can feel daunting, and it doesn’t help that no one explicitly teaches you how to start your own business unless you spent thousands of dollars to attend business school or take online courses. We’re here to bridge that gap by providing products & resources that we’ve used to develop and scale our agency.
As a professional B2B website design agency, we understand how to start an agency from the ground up as well as how to grow it and continuously rank #1 on the search engines. In fact, we have a killer Consulting Proposal Template you can run away with right now! Although we do suggest you stick around for some helpful tips, templates, tools, and more!
So, without further ado, let’s learn about how to start a marketing consulting agency.
What Does a Marketing Consulting Agency Do?
If you’re getting into the marketing consulting game, be prepared to spend a lot of time online. Your job will be growing and optimizing other businesses by guiding their digital marketing strategies, so it’s crucial to stay up to date about digital trends, industry updates, and everything in between. Your direct responsibilities will depend on what type of consulting agency you want to run as well as what services you want to offer.
Marketing Consulting Agencies vs. Marketing Agencies
So, what are the scope of your responsibilities as a marketing consulting agency? Consulting agencies and marketing agencies are different entities even though there is some overlap in the tasks they perform. As a consulting agency, your focus is on bringing advice and guidance to the table, so a separate marketing team can implement a strategy for a business. You will analyze the existing state of a business and provide insights on where they can improve. However, it is not your job to then implement those changes for them. That’s up to marketing experts like our team at Slam!
If you want to learn how to start a digital marketing business, we can help you there, too. As a full-service digital marketing agency ourselves, Slam offers comprehensive services ranging from research and strategy to implementation and ongoing SEO benefits for small businesses. Our areas of expertise encompass brand strategy and identity, content writing and strategy, SEO, and webflow design and development.
Types of Marketing Consulting Agencies
There is no one right answer when it comes to what services to offer at your marketing consulting agency. It all comes down to what you want to specialize in and what services you want to offer. Are you interested in managing social media accounts? Or perhaps you want to tackle technical SEO issues?
Some popular examples of specialized marketing consultants include:
- Branding & Creative Consultants
- Communications & PR Consultants
- Digital Marketing Consultants
- Inbound/Outbound Consultants
- Market Research Consultants
- Marketing Strategy Consultant
- Media Consultants
- Social Media Consultants
- And More!
You can also choose to be an all-in-one solution and offer comprehensive consulting expertise that touches on every area of business marketing.
While every consulting agency is different, Slam does have a go-to Market Strategy Template that you can use to build the best foundation for yours! Moreover, we have all the information you need to run a successful consulting agency, including:
- How to Start a Consulting Agency in 6 Easy Steps
- How to Navigate Legal Operations
- How to Grow a Marketing Consulting Agency
- Why You Should Partner with Slam to Start Yours!
How to Start a Marketing Consulting Agency in 6 Easy Steps
Every business is unique, so it’s safe to say your experience with how to start a consulting agency won’t be the same as someone else’s. That being said, there are proven steps you can take to set yourself up for success from the start. Let’s dive into these six easy steps for launching your marketing consulting agency:
- Define Your Expertise
- Develop a Plan
- Find Tools to Execute Your Plans
- Create a Portfolio
- Set Your Rates
- Start Building Your Client Base
Defining Your Expertise for Your Consulting Agency
There are plenty of different types of consulting businesses to explore, so one of your first steps should be to figure out where your new business will fit into the mix. For example, learning how to start a social media consulting business will be different from learning how to be a brand consultant to improve SEO for a travel blog or to handle website design for small business SEO.
Do you want to offer comprehensive marketing services to businesses within a given industry? Or would you rather provide select services to businesses in different fields? According to IBIS World, there were over 345,000 marketing consultant businesses in the United States in 2023, and that number was on the rise. So, you have to ask yourself how you will stand out amongst the crowd.
Defining the services you plan to offer is key to clarifying your brand positioning and discovering your unique selling point (USP). Tools like our Notion Vision Board make it easy to keep ideas organized while you’re hashing out the details and defining your skills!
Developing a Business Plan & Marketing Strategy
Now that you have a good idea of the direction you’re headed in for your business, it’s time to create a plan. It’s not even to simply outline your ideas and call it a day. A good business plan will answer pertinent questions about your business with research, facts, and figures, so you are prepared for what to expect as you embark on this journey.
A basic business plan will include these six sections:
- Executive Summary
- Objectives
- Products/Services
- Competitive Analysis
- Sales & Marketing Plans
- Financial Analysis
The executive summary will serve as a concise overview of your plan. It will include your business name and location, the legal structure of your business, products and services you offer, and your mission statements. You’ll follow this section up with your objectives, where you’ll explain the purpose of this business plan.
When you talk about the products and/or services you plan to offer, it’s important that you clearly describe what you’re selling. You should include detailed descriptions, how your product/service has unique advantages over others, information about lifecycle, and your research and development activities to continue improving your offerings.
After you’ve defined everything you’re bringing to the table, it’s time to look outward by performing a competitive analysis, or market analysis. This will demonstrate your industry knowledge and provide important information about where your business will stand based on current market conditions.
Based on these findings, you can start to form a sales plan and marketing plan that will drive your business strategy forward. This section should talk about your plans for promoting your business, pricing, logistics, operations cycle, labor, operating hours, and more. Finally, you’ll wrap everything up with your financial analysis. Your financial analysis will provide a brief look at your financial data and essentially show you if you are able to enter the market and be successful.
Executing Your Business Strategies
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Now that you’ve researched and planned what you want to do, it’s time to start doing it! Making plans is a lot easier than actually following through on them, so you should leverage as many tools as possible to ensure you stay on track when it comes to execution.
The good news is there are plenty of helpful resources out there to help optimize every facet of your digital marketing strategy—starting with the first steps of the brainstorming process. Slam has an arsenal of tools on our side, including Notion, Airtable, and Slack to simplify and optimize internal tasks.
Keep your team on track during team meetings with a Notion Sprint template and Notion Meeting Notes Template. You can also hold everyone accountable for their tasks with the Notion Assignment Tracker, dream up content that converts with our Notion Content Creation Template, and keep everything organized with an Airtable Content Calendar.
Notion isn’t just helpful for external project management purposes; you can also use our Noiton Documentation Template to keep internal processes organized and easy to find. You should also utilize a website launch checklist to ensure you have everything in order before you move forward.
You also have to start opening channels of communication with your target audience, which means diving headfirst into the world of social media. The good news is social media management tools like Sprout Social and Iconosquare make it easy to schedule and organize content as well as track metrics to help you build a solid social strategy.
Creating a Portfolio to Show Off Your Skills
As a marketing consultant, you’re being trusted with people’s visions. That being said, they’ll want some proof of your success before they trust you with their ideas. Landing that first client can be a challenge because of this trust factor, but once you land it, it’s time to show off!
Setting up a portfolio of past work as well as a space for reviews and ratings will help you gain more people’s trust in your expertise, allowing you to really get your foot in the door of the consulting world and start making a difference.
Taking Care of Accounting
You’ve set your rates for your services, but are you prepared to get paid? Tools like Quickbooks and FreshBooks make it easy to keep your accounting, financing, and invoicing processes organized in one place, so
Building Your Client Base
There are many avenues to explore when it comes to finding new clients for your business. It’s up to you to get creative with your outreach to ensure you’re drawing the right people to you. We suggest using Canva to make quality marketing materials! Here are some things to consider when it comes to building your client base:
- Cold Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Google Ads
- Referrals & Word of Mouth
- Social Media Marketing
- Upwork & Other Freelance Platforms
How to Start a Consulting Agency Legally
Now that we’ve talked about the logistics of how to start a consulting agency, let’s dive into the legal side of everything. To kick things off, you have to decide on your business structure. There are key advantages, setbacks, and differences between LLCs (Limited Liability Corporations) and S-Corporations, so it’s crucial to do your research before you make a decision. If you decide on an LLC, resources like Stripe can help with the set up and ongoing financial processes.
You also have to make sure you’re checking all your boxes when it comes to taking care of your employees. Luckily, there are many resources for you to use to make agency onboarding easy. This includes:
- Brex or Ramp for a corporate credit card
- Deel for human resources processes
- Gusto for registering employees and acquiring insurance
- Mercury for banking services for startups
- And so much more!
Are you still unsure about your legal requirements as a registered business? Contact the Slam team for a digital marketing partner that’s got your back!
How to Start a Marketing Consulting Agency & Keep Growing It
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Knowing how to start an agency is one thing, but the work is far from over. Building a successful consulting agency means implementing a scalable and sustainable strategy that grows with you
Managing Projects Efficiently
As you grow your business, you need to have the capacity to take on more clients. Project management systems like Notion and Airtable make it easy to delegate tasks and keep everyone on the same page about the status of specific projects over time. You should also a custom agency meeting template
In fact, Slam implements Notion organization strategies in our own processes to stay on task and provide top-tier service to every client. Even using individual templates like our Notion Task List can optimize your project management efforts by allowing you to:
- Customize a task list for every project.
- Generate tasks and subtasks.
- Keep your team on track through every stage.
- Successfully complete projects on time, every time.
Tracking SEO Efforts
Implementing your SEO strategy is one part of the process. It’s crucial that you stay up to date with industry trends and best practices to stay at the top of your SEO game.
This involves routine tasks like researching within your field consistently , conducting a technical SEO audit regularly, and updating content on your website and across all channels. Slam has a great Technical SEO Audit Template that’s optimized for Webflow (but works with any website!)
Slam also offers comprehensive small business SEO packages and a stellar keyword research template that make it easy to boost traffic and grow businesses. You can also leverage a wide array of tools to drive your SEO strategy, including:
As certified Webflow SEO consultants with years of experience setting businesses up for long-term growth, we know what tools will help you most when it comes to finding and securing clients—starting with our Marketing Proposal Template, SEO Proposal Template, and Website Proposal Template.
Stay in the know about SEO (and more!) with Slam’s blog!
Launch Your Marketing Consulting Agency with Slam Today
Before you can run an effective consulting agency, you have to know how to start an agency and how to leverage your marketing knowledge for other businesses outside yours. The good news is you don’t have to do it alone. Much like you plan to partner with companies to help them grow, Slam Media Lab can partner with you to get you on your feet.
When you choose Slam as your partner in marketing, you’re choosing an award-winning web design agency in San Francisco that brings complete digital marketing expertise to the table. There’s a lot to learn about Slam, but the most important thing you should know is our products, resources, and services encompass different facets of digital marketing, including:
- Brand Strategy & Identity
- Content Writing & Strategy
- Search Engine Optimization
- Webflow Design & Development
That being said, we understand the ins and outs of what makes a good business tick from every angle and can offer comprehensive services no matter where you need support for your business strategy. Don’t worry about how to choose a digital marketing agency; set up your consulting agency with Slam and make it a slam dunk!
Looking to start an agency but not in consulting? Check out these top Slam resources to get your dream up and running:
- How to Start a SMMA Agency [10+ Resources & Course]
- How to Start a PR Agency: 10 Steps for Launch and Growth [Course & 20+ Templates]
- How to Start a Successful Digital Marketing Agency [PDF + Course]
- How to Start an Email Marketing Agency in 2024: 6 Key Steps & 20+ Templates
- Learn How to Start a Lead Generation Agency with Our Tools + Templates
- How to Market Your Digital Marketing Agency
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