What Are Some Examples of After-Training Deliverables?
You might already know that after training and after we launch your business with you, we provide ongoing training, education, and support at no additional cost. And, clearly there’s always more to learn, share, and include in your agency’s repertoire of knowledge and deliverables.
We are always adding more and improving on what is already working. A couple of examples include:
A Grad-only eBook: Simplify
This eBook is hot off the presses. It went out to all of our grads and it is chock-full of additional ways to simplify the often-confusing digital marketing topics that are discussed with business owners during the sales process.
An Updated Proposal Template (completely editable and shareable online (‘in the cloud)).
Not only did we solve a common problem (varying versions of MS Word and/or formatting issues when sharing between Mac & PC), we added a comprehensive addendum: case studies, design examples, team accomplishments, and more).
We would be honored to share the same with you after we help you launch your own lucrative digital agency (with our team doing all the hard marketing work for you and your clients!). Take a moment and fill out our no-obligation, no hard sell contact form. Our VP of Enrollment, Eric, would be happy to speak with your personally and answer every question and more!
Get started right here. We’ll see you in class!
Are There Enough Potential Clients in the U.S. for My Agency to Be Financially Successful?
Absolutely. We’ve broken out the number of potential clients/businesses (in the United States) that a marketing agency could prospect, pitch, and sell working campaigns to:
QUESTION: How Many Small Businesses Need Marketing in the U.S.?
Current research suggests that 50% of small businesses in the U.S. lack a working marketing plan.
……………………
QUESTION: How Many Small Businesses Are There in the U.S.?
There are roughly 30.2 million small businesses in the U.S. (they account for 99% of all businesses in the U.S.
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QUESTION: If 50% of those small businesses lack a working marketing plan, how many target businesses is that?
The above stats result in about 15.1 million small businesses that need digital marketing services.
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QUESTION: How many marketing and advertising agencies are in the U.S.?
Some estimates put the number of marketing/advertising agencies at about 17,000.
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QUESTION: How many target small businesses does that mean for each agency?
If we do some math and divide the number of small businesses lacking a working marketing plan by the number of agencies, we get roughly 888 viable target businesses and campaigns.
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QUESTION: Does that mean the other 50% of businesses don’t need marketing?
Absolutely not. Just because the other 15.1 million businesses have some sort of marketing plan, that stat does not account for poorly implemented campaigns or campaigns that have gaps that an agency can fill.
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QUESTION: What does all of this mean?
Simply put, there is almost an endless supply of small businesses to approach and pitch marketing and advertising services in order to grow and sustain an agency.
Need a quick definition for common digital marketing services and terms? We have what you’re looking for. See our quick reference guide to digital marketing services and terms:
Website: A document of group of documents that are accessible on the World Wide Web.
Web Development: Broadly refers to the tasks associated with developing websites for hosting via intranet or internet. The web development process includes web design, web content development, client-side/server-side scripting and network security configuration, among other tasks.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing): a term that can apply to either (1.) Any digital marketing that involves the use of a search engine, or
(2.) Only paid digital marketing that involves a search engine, ie: PPC (pay-per-click). There is not an industry standard as to which definition is correct, however the latter is most commonly used.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): the process of improving a website’s performance and positioning in organic search engine results through a variety of methodologies including content production or improvement, technical and code improvement, and link acquisition.
PPC / Pay-Per-Click: An online advertising model in which advertisers are charged for their ad once it is clicked. The PPC model is commonly associated with search engine and social media advertising like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads.
Content Marketing: a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
Email Marketing: The use of email with the goal of acquiring sales, customers, retaining customers, or any other type of conversion.
Social media marketing (SMM): the techniques that target social networks and applications to spread brand awareness or promote particular products. Social media marketing campaigns usually center around:
- Establishing a social media presence on major platforms
- Creating shareable content and advertorials
- Cultivating customer feedback throughout the campaign through surveys and contests
- Social media marketing is perceived as a more targeted type of advertising and is therefore believed to be very effective in creating brand awareness.
Conversion: The completion of a predefined goal. This is often used to track the number of site visitors that have been “converted” into paying customers, though sales are not always chosen as the metric. Other common goals are newsletter subscriptions and downloads of content from the website.
Branding: The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.
Those who strive to increase their knowledge and self-educate on a regular basis tend to be more successful with prospecting, pitching clients, and closing deals.
And those who seek to increase their knowledge in the digital marketing industry also tend to have more confidence in themselves and that shows when dealing with potential clients during the sales process.
We’ve assembled a short list of powerful marketing books that are must-haves for 2020:
one
The Practice of Management, by Peter Drucker
two
The Social Organism: A Radical Understanding of Social Media to Transform Your Business and Life by Oliver Luckett and Michael J. Casey
three
The Definitive Guide to Strategic Content Marketing : Perspectives, Issues, Challenges and Solutions – Lazar Dzamic & Justin Kirby
four
Content Marketing For Traffic And Sales: How To Use Direct Response Copywriting, For More Effective Content Marketing – Daniel Daines-Hutt
five
The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioural Biases That Influence What We Buy – Richard Shotton
six
They Ask, You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer – Revised & Updated – Marcus Sheridan
seven
This is Marketing: You Can’t be Seen Until You Learn to See, by Seth Godin
Should I Pan for Gold or Sell Pans?
Why Starting a Digital Marketing Agency is an Undeniably Smart & Profitable Move
The New Gold Rush
No doubt, we’re all familiar with the Gold Rush in the 1800s here in America. A er all, the discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 lead to the California Gold Rush — arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century.
And when news spreads, thousands of prospective gold miners (many of which with no experience) traveled any way possible to the west coast for their chance to strike it rich.
PROFIT SMARTER, NOT HARDER
Many of the gold miners at the time either failed miserably or only eked out enough profit to keep moving forward without ever truly finding that elusive financial success.
On the other hand, the smarter business owner would have gone into business selling pans rather than taking the ultra-risky road towards business success based on hope and simply a desire to strike it rich.
In other words, panning for gold had high-risk potential but it created a gigantic audience with a need for pans — when thinking about what kind of business to launch, think about selling pans and not panning for gold.
Fast Forward to Today
What Does History Tell Us to Do in 2020 and Beyond?
THINK ABOUT THIS:
Research shows that a majority of businesses in America today don’t have an active marketing plan. According to a survey of 350 small and medium business (SMB) owners, 50% do not have a marketing plan for 2019. They are basically panning for gold.
NOW THINK ABOUT WHY BUSINESSES OFTEN FAIL:
A couple of the most common reasons businesses fail are due to a lack of capital and a lack of an effective marketing plan. If we equate them to those who are panning for gold (and there are millions of those businesses out there), that means a huge demand is out there for digital marketing agencies to swoop in and save the day.
Just like the Gold Rush in the 1800s, a huge audience was out there scraping up tiny nuggets, but the company that sold the pans had exactly what every gold miner needed — today, every business owner needs a reputable, trustworthy digital agency that gets results.
LET’S PUT THIS TO THE TEST
Start with Avoidable Mistakes: How to NOT Choose a Business Idea
If you’ve never owned a business before, know that the majority of businesses owners learn that it’s not the person running the business or the employees that make or break a company’s success— it’s often the need for, and profitability of, the idea behind the company.
People often choose a business idea that they want to turn into a fledging business based on two (2) common personal reasons.
And it’s more important for the success and longevity of the business to approach the pre-planning from a completely different angle than what comes naturally to mind.
The Two Most Common Personal Reasons/Misconceptions About Pursuing a Business Idea:
NUMBER ONE
“I already know this business!”
Just because you’re a great with cars doesn’t mean you know how to run an auto repair shop. Nor does it mean you know how to successfully capture your local or regional market.
NUMBER TWO
“I love this [product/service]”
Just because you love something doesn’t mean a profitable business will result based on your passion, even of there are successful businesses just like it already.
Learning to run a business is hard enough. You don’t need the added challenges of doing something you love rather than doing something that customers will love paying you in a profitable manner.
Start at the End:
3 Ways You’ll Know Your Business Idea Can TRULY MAKE A PROFIT
Where’s the End? It’s Where You Want To Be With Regard to Profit, Of Course!
ONE
Make sure the product/service has a repeat buy component
This is the most important aspect of business success based on longevity. You have to have a product or service that people will continue buying.
It’s more profitable to have a pool service company than a pool construction company. You’ll want a profitable product/ service based on not simply acquiring customers, but retaining them. In the world of digital marketing and advertising, the vast majority of solution-based services are monthly recurring services that produce monthly recurring profits.
TWO
Feature products/services with a high profit margin
Sure, as consumers, we can all be guilty of buying the ‘cheaper product’ from time to time; however, businesses that are in the game for the long term know that is not a sustainable model. This is especially true in the starting stages of a business.
Cash flow is your best friend at this point and if your profit margins are low and you’re banking on the strategy of doing business based on volume, you had best have a large amount of working capital on hand to get you through the lean years ahead. High-profit products and services are naturally the best strategy for businesses just getting started.
THREE
Plan for and have a strong support team: Good ideas go badly without this essential element
We’ve been exploring the need for a great business idea, but few great ideas flourish and prosper without the right team of people behind you and on your side. A great team will always greatly improve the chances for financial and competitive success of any business (new or established).
Don’t Plan to Pan
You don’t make money simply panning for gold, you’ll make money selling pans. And with the millions of businesses out there struggling to stay in business, succeed financially, and compete on a level that will keep those businesses growing for the long term, the question is:
Where is the gold rush today? You guessed it, digital marketing.
DIGITAL MARKETING STATISTICS
* 2018 saw digital marketing and advertising revenues hit $17 Billion
That includes traditional marketing and advertising (TV, radio, billboards, etc.).
* 54% of that revenue was for digital agencies only.
* Roughly $9 Billion in revenue was split among all digital agencies in the U.S. (2018).
* On average, that means roughly $700,000 per agency in revenue (includes small one/two person shops. Again, this is average).
However, you have to account for operating costs (office space, equipment, employees, tools, etc.).
You can see how the revenue starts to whittle down to leave profits; however, our program is built to not only help you remove those operating costs (keeping more revenue in the profit column), but the program is also built to scale profits higher than the U.S. average (above).
WE LAUNCH DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCIES FOR EVERYDAY PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU
OPERATING COSTS? NOT SO FAST!
The most common overhead for each of our ‘graduates’ and their agencies is the following:
• Laptop
• Smartphone
• Printer
• Internet connection
(Almost everyone has this equipment already!)
Office space? Unnecessary. Employees? Our entire team of experienced marketers ARE your team. Tools? Since it’s our team doing the work, you need few, if any tools that come with a high price tag.
Start at the End:
Remember these 3 essential components?
Make sure the product/service has a repeat buy component
The majority of services we train you to offer are recurring monthly service solutions.
Feature products/services with a high profit margin
We offer every ‘graduate’ high-quality, result-driven services for their clients at a true wholesale cost; enabling a sizable mark up on a monthly basis.
Plan for and have a strong support team: Good ideas go badly without this essential element
Our team of marketers and project managers are yours to ensure quality campaigns are helping your clients grow. And, not only is your access to all of them included in your training investment, your own Support team is as well: they’ll help you prospect, strategize, write proposals, and pitch proposals (and more).
…
Although we are Digital Marketing Training Group and digital marketing training is part of what our business model entails, we are so much more than simply a marketing training program: We are a digital marketing agency launchpad that comes with support, marketing for your agency (you’ll need to be in front of the right buyers, right?), and so much more. Let’s chat today, shall we?
