How to Start a Marketing Agency: A 90-Day Pipeline Plan
The setup steps for a new marketing agency, how long the first clients take and a 90-day plan for the pipeline.
Robbert Veer, Founder
8 min read
To start a marketing agency, pick one service and one kind of client, set a price and register the business. Then spend most of each week finding clients. The paperwork is the short part. The first clients are the slow part, so plan in months. This guide shows how to start a marketing agency in that order, with a 90-day plan for the pipeline.
What do you need before starting a marketing agency?
You need four things. A service you can deliver, a kind of client you understand, a price, and savings for the months before the first invoice is paid.
- One service. SEO, paid ads, social media, email or web design. Start with the one you have already delivered for an employer or a client.
- One kind of client. A trade and an area, such as dentists in Phoenix or roofers in Ohio. Our ideal customer profile template gives you the format.
- One price. A monthly retainer, a fixed project fee or an hourly rate. Our guide to agency pricing models sets out the trade-offs.
- A runway. Count the months you can pay your own bills with no agency income. That number decides how patient you can afford to be.
Narrow is easier to sell. "SEO for dentists in Phoenix" tells a dentist in Phoenix that you mean them. "Full-service marketing" tells nobody anything.
If you are working out how to start a digital marketing agency, the steps are the same. "Digital" only names the services.
How do you set up the business?
Handle the legal and money basics in the first two weeks, then leave them alone. In the US that means a structure, a tax ID, a bank account and a contract.
- Structure. You are automatically treated as a sole proprietorship if you do business and register nothing else, and a sole proprietor can be held personally liable for the debts of the business. An LLC protects your personal assets in most instances (SBA).
- Tax ID. An EIN is free. The IRS issues it immediately when an online application is approved, and it warns against websites that charge for one (IRS).
- Bank account. Keep client money apart from your own from the first payment.
- Contract. One page on scope, price, payment terms and how either side can end the work.
This is not legal advice. An accountant or attorney in your state can confirm what applies to you.
A logo and a ten-page website can wait. One page that states the service, the client and the price is enough to open.
How long do the first clients take?
The first clients take longer than the setup. Plan for 3 to 6 months before agency income covers your bills. That range is our estimate, and no study stands behind it.
Most guides on how to start a marketing agency give client-finding one step out of ten. It deserves most of the plan.
The first clients of a new agency tend to come from people who already know your work. A former employer, a past freelance client, a friend who runs a business. Tell each of them what you now sell, to whom and at what price.
Cold outreach is slower, and one real campaign shows why. The agency It'sJustContent emailed 1,382 Dutch companies and got 5 positive replies, which is 0.36%. Those 5 replies became 3 sales calls and 0 clients. The account of that campaign, and of the test that followed, is in our study of 3,570 cold emails.
A positive reply is a conversation. A client comes several steps later.
How do you fill the pipeline in 90 days?
Work in four blocks of days. A pipeline is the list of businesses you are in conversation with, from first reply to signed contract. A full one on day 90 means conversations in progress and reply rates of your own to plan with. It does not mean a set number of signed clients.
| Days | Work | What you have at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 14 | Choose the service, the client and the price. Register the business. Write a one-page offer. | An offer you can say in two sentences |
| 15 to 30 | Tell your network. Review the websites of businesses that fit, keep the weakest fifth and note one specific problem for each. | A shortlist of 100 to 300 businesses |
| 31 to 75 | Contact the shortlist in two rounds. Answer every reply the same day. | Conversations and first calls |
| 76 to 90 | Count replies, calls and proposals. Keep what worked and change one thing. | Your own reply rates |
Two things decide how those 90 days go.
The list. In our study, businesses with the weakest 20% of websites replied positively about 3.2 times as often as a random sample of the rest. Selection did more than wording. Emails that named the site's problem got 2.35% positive replies against 1.60% for a generic email, and that gap was not statistically significant. So qualify by whatever your service fixes. An SEO agency looks for sites that search cannot find. A web design agency looks for sites that break on a phone.
The sequence. One email is easy to miss. In Leadodo, your Outbound Machine shows one way to space the steps. It runs six of them over 19 working days. A letter arrives on day 1, emails follow on days 4, 7 and 11, and LinkedIn on days 15 and 19. One round takes just under four weeks on the calendar. Start the second round two weeks after the first, and both end inside days 31 to 75. We explain why the letter goes first.
How many businesses do you need to contact?
You need to contact more businesses than feels reasonable, because fewer than 3 in 100 cold emails drew a positive reply in our study. The table applies its reply rates to 100 emails and to 300.
| List and message | Positive reply rate | Positive replies from 100 emails | From 300 emails |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earlier campaign by the agency It'sJustContent | 0.36% | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| Random sample of the other 80% of sites, study group A | 0.50% | 0.5 | 1.5 |
| Weakest 20% of sites, generic email | 1.60% | 1.6 | 4.8 |
| Weakest 20% of sites, email names the problem | 2.35% | 2.4 | 7.1 |
The last two columns are arithmetic, each rate multiplied by 100 and by 300.
Read it with three limits in mind. The study covered Dutch companies. It tested email only, so it says nothing about letters or LinkedIn. And the gap between the last two rows was not statistically significant.
Even so, the scale is clear. On those rates, 100 well-chosen businesses give about 2 positive replies by email, and 300 give 5 to 7. In the It'sJustContent campaign, 5 positive replies led to 3 calls and no client. That is why the plan pairs outreach with your network, and why round two starts while round one is still running.
The shortlist is the slow step. To keep the weakest fifth, you have to look at five times as many websites. In the It'sJustContent campaign, reviewing the 1,382 websites by hand would have taken about 184 hours, at about 8 minutes a site. At that pace a shortlist of 100 means 500 reviews and about 67 hours. A shortlist of 300 means 1,500 reviews and 200 hours. Lead generation software shortens that step, and Leadodo is one such tool. It finds businesses, scores their websites and runs outreach to the ones with the weakest sites. Your agency sends under its own name. You choose how much to review. You can review every letter and message before it goes, review a sample such as the first 100, or let your Outbound Machine send without review. For the wider system, read our guide to agency lead generation.
What do you do when a reply comes in?
Answer the same working day, book a call and move the business through fixed stages. Replies are the scarce part of the plan, so none should wait.
- Reply with two call times. Keep it to three lines.
- Ask before you pitch. On the call, learn how customers find the business today and what one new customer is worth to it.
- Send a one-page proposal within a day. Scope, price and start date.
- Follow up twice, a few days apart. Then mark the deal as lost and move on.
Track every business in a list of stages, from contacted to won or lost. Our guide to the sales pipeline shows a layout that fits an agency of one.
Questions
How much does it cost to start a marketing agency?
Little in cash, if you start alone from home. An EIN is free, and the other costs are state registration fees, software and your own living costs while income is at zero. Time is the larger cost, so count your runway in months before you start.
Can you start a marketing agency with no experience?
You can register one. Delivering results is harder. Do one service for an employer or for two or three low-priced clients first, so you have a result to show and a process that works.
How do you get the first client for a marketing agency?
Start with people who know your work, then contact a qualified list of local businesses. Open with one specific problem you found on that business's own website or search listing. Say what you saw, what it costs them and what you would do.
Do you need an LLC to start a marketing agency?
No. The SBA says you are automatically treated as a sole proprietorship if you do business without registering another structure. An LLC keeps your personal assets apart from the business in most instances. This is not legal advice.
How many clients does a new agency need?
Divide the monthly income you need by your average monthly fee. In a made-up example, $5,000 a month at a $1,250 retainer is 4 clients. Keep the number low enough that you can deliver well for each one.
Next step. See how Leadodo finds businesses, scores their websites and runs your Outbound Machine. See the features.
