How to create a digital marketing agency business plan in 2018?
Running a business is hard with lots of moving parts and demands on your time. One important task is marketing, especially digital marketing. Developing an actionable marketing plan is critical to success.
The downside is that digital marketing can be a challenge to understand. It takes expertise to craft an effective digital marketing plan.
Failing to focus on digital marketing for your business is a mistake. Business with a good digital marketing plan have 2X the revenues per employee. they are also 2X more likely to be growing.
Here are few steps to help you develop a digital marketing agency business plan that can guide your team to better results.
Who is it for?
Inexperienced business owners almost invariably ignore the basic and eternal truth of writing a digital marketing agency business plan – the audience matters. It may seem inconsequential, but it is actually a distinction that will affect all subsequent decisions.
1.Internal purposes:
you may be coming up with a business plan that will be used mostly for internal purposes. You will be laying out your goals and means to achieve those goals to your employees. You will let them know what is expected of them and what kind of performance will be considered satisfactory. It will also let them know how the company is doing and try to convince them to stay on board.
An internally-oriented business plan is also a great way to understand where you stand realistically, which is often a problem for digital marketing agencies.
2.Investors and Partners:
Another kind of a business plan is aimed at investors and partners. This kind of a business plan is intended to reinforce their trust and belief in your digital marketing agency. It goes without saying that this kind of a business plan will be finances-heavy, dealing in cold, hard numbers.
3.Potential customers:
Finally, your business plan may be aimed at your existing and potential customers. It will be a borderline marketing tactic where you will point out all of the amazing things you are planning to accomplish and tools that you intend to use. It can also be a great way to advertise the wide array of your services and introduce new ones.
It should be pointed out that, since this is 2018, your digital marketing agency business plan should also start introducing certain terms and concepts that will be the future of digital marketing,There is nothing wrong with being ambitious in your business plan, especially if it is aimed at investors and potential customers.
Know about Market:
Many business owners fall into the trap of believing that their products or services are “for everyone”— that is, anyone would be interested in or need the products. But even if you define your business as a full service digital marketing agency that appeals to a broad market of diverse consumers, you need to identify who your ideal consumer is.
Numbers:
Whether you like figures or not, having a thorough understanding of the numbers that impact your business is a crucial component in agency business plan. It does not matter who the audience for your 2018 business plan is, you will have to be excruciatingly precise with your numbers.
Focus on People:
The reason why they are making a feature in an article about a digital marketing agency business plan in 2018 is that 2018 will hopefully finally be the year when digital marketing agency owners and managers realize the value of the people in their employ.
The situation is such that the employee loyalties are all but becoming a thing of the past and in an industry such as digital marketing, this is perhaps even more pronounced than in some other, “slower” industries.
Be realistic and honest:
Business plans should avoid fluff, be realistic and honest. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs can make when writing a business plan is to be overly optimistic with sales and future cost estimates.
Make sure your business plan demonstrates the compelling reasons why customers need your agency’s services and how you will achieve competitive differentiation in the digital marketing industry. Make the financials realistic, and look at worse case scenarios so you get a view of what could go wrong and what you would need to do to put things right.
Conclusion:
If you came looking for a bulletproof, step-by-step business plan template for your digital marketing agency, the author is sorry to disappoint. The reason why this article does not fit that description is that such a template does not exist.
Instead, the author tried to provide the most important things to keep in mind when coming up with a digital marketing agency business plan for 2018.