While operating a business has its appeal, it also comes with challenges. Starting any business is hard work, but you can overcome each hurdle and grow a successful business with a plan and a well-defined strategy. During the initial stages of your startup, you should identify a need you intend to solve. You have a viable business idea if you pinpoint an unmet need and define how to solve it while making a profit.
A viable business idea should fulfil three essential principles:
- It should be something you love doing.
- It should be something you’re good at or willing to invest in learning.
- It should be something in demand.
To survive in business, every small or big startup needs an online presence to realize its goals. If you’re in the digital marketing sector, you need to consider how you can impact by selling your digital marketing services to willing buyers.
Below are some well-paying digital marketing startup ideas and how to leverage them to your advantage and start your own business.
1. Content Marketing Company
Technology has forced businesses to include digital marketing in their advertising strategies. Although traditional advertising is still in use, creating an online presence for a business is cost-effective, and increases reach. Due to this, demand for content marketing has grown over time as most companies need experts to help in their online brand awareness campaigns.
Researching the market is the first step to setting up a content marketing company. While you don’t necessarily need work-related experience when starting, you could benefit from online courses or mentorship programs. Networking and interacting with professionals in this sector will help you identify where to get clients.
To begin, you can approach companies and volunteer to work for them for free in exchange for reviews and recommendations. Approaching friends and family is also an excellent place to start, as they will bring you, customers, through referrals. You will be in charge of brand awareness campaigns and promotions as a content marketer. Using content to market products includes leveraging social media, emailing, and websites to your advantage. It also involves website designing and knowing how to utilize search engine optimization in your content.
2. App Development Agency
With evolving technology, businesses must have well-customized software applications to improve workflow efficiency. Companies are willing to invest in modern app development companies. If you’re good at coding, you can create an app that can enhance business workflows and earn a good reward.
3. Digital Marketing Analyst
A digital marketing analyst is a professional with vast experience in online marketing. They guide companies on how to market their products via different online digital platforms.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing involves earning a commission by referring a product or service by sharing a link online on a website, blog, or social media platform. As an affiliate, you earn a commission every time someone purchases through your affiliate link. There are plenty of marketplaces where you can register as an affiliate. There are four steps to affiliate marketing, and they include:
- Researching and finding appropriate products or services to promote.
- Registering and signing up as an affiliate partner.
- Get a referral promotion link and paste it on your blogs, social media platforms, or websites.
- Get a commission after every complete transaction.
Creating an affiliate program is quite complex and requires a lot of resources to run an affiliate tracking system and time to handle the procedure. However, most online stores and e-commerce websites like eBay, Amazon, or Alibaba have affiliate programs to which you can quickly sign up and earn through their affiliate links.
To excel as an affiliate marketer, you need to have a blog. If you already have one, choose products related to your blog’s theme and write honest reviews. This will attract visitors to your site, and you earn a commission if they decide to purchase through your link. E-commerce websites and online stores provide numerous products for sale. As a beginner, starting with an affiliate marketing network rather than a single merchant will give you more options in selecting products.
5. Become A Virtual Assistant
As a virtual assistant, you can manage a company’s digital marketing tasks, including social media, content creation, and strategizing and creating their brand awareness campaigns. One significant benefit of being a virtual assistant is that you can create your schedule and choose your clients.
6. Video Marketing Company
Videos are a consumer’s favorite type of content, as most people would rather watch a clip about a product or service than read or listen to it. Though TV ads are broadcast to millions, they’re rarely relevant to individuals forced to endure them. However, with modern targeting techniques, videos can be highly relevant as the right audience views them. By tailoring video content to a specific audience, you can boost your retention rate and achieve more with your videos. Apart from capturing attention and entertaining, video is an effective tool that you can use to lead your customers through your sales funnel.
Integrating video on landing pages can significantly increase the conversion rate, while integrating affiliate links on emails can improve the open rate. Besides raising brand awareness, companies should incorporate videos in every stage of the buyer’s journey. There are different types of videos, including brand videos, events, explainers, live animations, demos, and educational or disappearing videos, including Facebook or Instagram stories.
Before launching your video marketing business, you need to know your target audience and identify what you want to achieve with that video. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, getting people to sign up for a mailing list or increasing conversions, you must be clear with what you’re trying to achieve. Once you come up with a marketing idea, select the type of video you intend to create and, once ready, promote it online.
7. Digital PR Firm
A digital PR agency invests in software and technology to help companies maintain their brand’s reputation online. These firms track a company’s online presence to ensure no negativity can harm a company’s reputation.
8. Social Media Marketing Agency
Apart from socializing with family and friends, social media has become a cost-effective way to engage and interact with customers online. Social media has changed business practices as it accounts for many online sales. It has forced companies to change their advertising strategies and incorporate social media. Traditional marketing alone is no longer effective, allowing social media to fill the gap by establishing a more personal connection with customers.
As a freelance social media manager, you’ll handle brand social media pages by creating and uploading relevant content, engaging with customers and creating a following for companies or brands. To cut down on costs, most companies outsource social media tasks to freelancers who handle their online presence while they concentrate on the core business.
The sector is quite profitable due to the demand for social media experts. Even without experience, you can start and learn on the job. There are online courses on Udemy, SkillShare, Coursera or HubSpot Academy where you can benefit from high-rated digital marketing courses. It would be great if you worked hard to promote your services to increase visibility and get projects to work on. Social media marketing is a dynamic, ever-evolving field, so you’ll need to continually upgrade your skills to grow and retain your client base.
9. Affiliate Marketing Firms
Affiliate marketers are responsible for running online campaigns to generate traffic that leads to conversions. They receive payment once an advertisement receives traffic or the process leads to sales.
10. E-Commerce Marketing Company
As an e-commerce marketing firm, you must utilize the online spaces to market for your clients and maximize sales. With rising competition, many e-commerce businesses are turning to market firms to help them beat the increasing competition. An advantage of starting an e-commerce marketing business is that you can work from home while utilizing remote teams. You don’t necessarily need a physical office. You can perform tasks, minimize costs, and grow your brand through technology.
Although having prior SEO experience is an added advantage, you can gradually grow your digital marketing skills through short online courses. Another benefit is that the business is scalable, as you can start as an individual and hire remote teams as you grow.
11. Influencer Marketing Firm
Influencers have successfully created credibility and have a sizeable online following. They are so persuasive that their opinions and decision-making can influence their followers’ choices.
12. Telemarketing Agency
Telemarketing is a method of advertising where salesmen and women use the telephone to contact customers. It involves building an organization’s prospective client base, generating leads and creating brand awareness. It would be best if you had a good phone, headsets, a computer and a stable internet connection. Then, it would help if you decided whether your services will be for B2B or B2C businesses. Once you are clear about the services you intend to offer, you need to market widely via websites, social media and on the phone.
13. Mobile Marketing Agency
One way of setting up a mobile website is to utilize the automated systems currently offered by various companies, including WordPress and GoDaddy, which have automated systems that provide that service. Smartphones moved from expensive new technology to a regular part of everyday life. For website owners, this is an opportunity to capitalize and create a fantastic mobile experience. While website varies for individual websites, more than half of all web visitors are likely to view from a smartphone.
Other independent options create separate mobile websites that offer a similar service. These include Mobicanvas, Exact Hosting or Onswipe. Similarly, you can also integrate a mobile website redirect code onto your existing home page, which can assist in determining the device your visitor uses to access your website. As a mobile marketer, you can leverage mobile ad campaigns and help your clients expand, especially if they have physical locations for their businesses. Many mobile advertising channels, such as iAd from Apple, Google’s AdMob and Millennial Media, can guide how to utilize the service.
14. Drop Shipping Business
Drop shipping is a business used by e-commerce retailers that don’t stock the goods. If you love selling but get discouraged by looking for storage, drop shipping could be what you’re looking for. It is a kind of business where a retailer receives orders for products and sends the order to a manufacturer, who packs the goods and ships them to the client. As a beginner, you need to:
- Create an online store
- Find popular products to list on the store
- Market and drive traffic to the store
- Convert visitors to customers
15. Email Marketing Firm
An email marketing strategy can substantially impact a company’s ROI. Every business can benefit from a strategic email campaign. But, only some entrepreneurs have the skills to leverage this marketing option. As an expert in this field, you can market your services to potential clients and explain how your services will benefit them. There are many tools and software that can facilitate your email marketing campaigns. Some of the best include:
- Mailchimp
- HubSpot
- MailerLite
- ActiveCampaign
16. Social Media Marketing Firm
A social media marketing firm is responsible for creating ad campaigns for its clients on social media platforms to generate conversions.
17. Seo Strategy Firm
Just being online isn’t enough. You have to rank on search engines to ensure that you drive traffic and create awareness for your brand. To achieve this, many companies are turning to SEO specialists who can analyze, optimize and make their sites search-friendly. As an SEO expert, you must be conversant with and able to research keywords, key phrases, buyer intent, backlinks, or content ideas. You should be able to determine a keyword’s SEO difficulty, cost per click, paid difficulty, and total or search volume.
18. Link Building Agencies
Startups and low-ranking websites depend on link-building agencies to help them rank in search engines. A seasoned link-building expert offers high-quality links and assists them in ranking higher in search engines.
19. Publish An E-Book
Have you always dreamt of writing a book, but the expense involved put you off? Writing an eBook is a great option. You can eliminate printing expenses as all you need is a well-articulated finished piece that you can upload on Amazon and market widely.
You can choose to write about any topic that drives your passion. Whether it’s a how-to guide, poetry, fiction or a memoir, you can always share something you feel would benefit others. If you have digital marketing knowledge, share your experience and help an upcoming digital marketer avoid costly mistakes you’ve made in your career journey.
20. Messaging Service
A messaging consultancy firm targets users across various channels with targeted messaging. The message may be via email, social media, or phone.
21. Online Tutor
If you’ve always had a passion for teaching but felt the classroom was too intimidating, becoming an online tutor is a fantastic alternative. Whether you’re a skilled scientist, mathematician or Linguist, you can always impart knowledge to millions from the comfort of your home. If you are a professional, share your vast experience by developing online courses in your line of specialty. Work remotely as a digital marketing expert by helping businesses create solutions using technology.
22. Develop A Graphic Design Business
A graphic designing business can be a great possibility if you are a skilled artist with a keen eye for detail. Apart from creating advertisement images on billboards, flyers, business cards, logos, posters, or social media, you could also brand websites.
23. Start A Digital Marketing Youtube Channel
With consistency, determination and hard work, you can make money on YouTube by sharing information, tips or entertainment. It could be a Vlog, documentary, entertainment, or a platform where you share creative skills. With your digital marketing knowledge, you can drive traffic to your YouTube channel and reap huge rewards from advertisements, channel membership or shopping.
24. Create And Sell Stock Photos
Stock photography consists of taking pictures you can market and sell through a stock agency. These agencies purchase the rights to use the content for websites or marketing purposes. The agencies, in turn, sell the images to individuals who need to use them on their websites, social media pages or any other online channel that needs captivating photos to drive traffic. This is an excellent business option for anyone passionate about photography. Once the images are online, you’ll earn a commission every time someone downloads or purchases.
25. Market Research
For any business to thrive, you must understand the target audience, competition and market. A company must identify which marketing options are ideal for their business type and determine which advertising options resonate with their audience. Many companies need to gain the skills to compile these vital market research resources and are happy to outsource them to industry experts.
Your role as a market research analyst is to collect and analyze your customer’s business data. You may have to study the customer’s demographics, geographical location, interests, and purchasing habits. You may have to incorporate surveys in your client’s database using their website, email marketing service or on their social media business pages to maximize gathering vital information.
Conclusion
Expecting to see instant results after starting a business may be unrealistic. But, with patience and determination, you can create a company that can be rewarding and makes a great source of fulfillment. If one idea doesn’t work, don’t despair or give up. Pick yourself up and try again. If it fails, you can try something else. You’ll be surprised at the rewards you get by maintaining a positive attitude and adjusting your ideas to meet customer demands.
