Sponsored by

Hi, Internet friend!

You might not know this… 

…but if you have a blog that you’ve been regularly updating and have learned the ins and outs of successfully running and growing a blog, the leap from blogger to content marketing agency owner is not as far as you might think. 

In fact, that’s how I ended up starting my content marketing agency. 

Well, sort of. 

How I Turned My Blogging “Empire” Into a Content Marketing Agency 📈

When I left banking in 2015 to travel the world and start working for myself, a blog was one of the first things I started. It was about personal finance and investing, which I knew a lot about, having spent my 20s studying finance and working in the financial industry. 

While my first blog didn’t really end up making more than a few thousand dollars in total (most of which was from referral income from a single blog post that ranked on page one on Google), I learned a lot that would help me with the next blog I launched. 

My second blog, a niche Bitcoin media publication, made a lot more than the first, but I still didn’t make anywhere near enough to run it full-time. 

I was funding the blogs largely with what was left over each month from my freelance writing income, which enabled me to hire other writers to contribute to the blogs. In addition to having a small writing team working on both blogs, I also launched more niche blogs with the logic that if I have 5-10 blogs that make me a few thousand dollars each, I would have a viable digital media business to sustain me. 

Unfortunately, building several blogs at the same time with limited human and financial resources just wasn’t doable. 

At least not for me. 

Accepting this fact - probably a few years later than necessary - I decided to switch from the digital media holding company model to a content marketing agency model.

I already had the framework and experience needed to operate one, as I had freelanced for a handful of agencies prior, so I thought the team, and I could give this a try and probably make more money. 

And that’s exactly what happened. Instead of relying on irregular income from ads and sponsored content on my blogs, I was able to secure several retainer clients. 

After the initial testing phase to evaluate its feasibility and experiencing the usual growing pains, I essentially abandoned my blogs to focus full-time on running my content marketing agency.

That was a life-changing decision that paid off big time. 💰

Here’s How You Can Do It: Let’s Go Through the Steps! 

Enough about me. 

Back to you and your blog. 

If you have a blog within a specific niche, let’s say lifestyle, health & fitness, gardening, cooking, or even a blog telling personal stories and insights, you already have a portfolio of content you can share with prospective clients. That will already give you a leg up over other budding freelance writers/content marketers who don’t have anything to show for yet. 

But before you can get started with your agency, you need to choose a target market or niche. 

Step 1: Targeting a niche 🎯

If your blog focuses on a particular niche you are interested in, that’s also the niche where you will most likely find your first clients. 

After all, if you are an expert in gardening, you know where the hoes at! 😏

That will make it easier to acquire clients, as you already have expertise in this field that you can demonstrate, and it will help position you as an expert who can produce high-quality, engaging content.

Once you’ve chosen a niche, do some research on it to make sure there is demand for what you plan to offer. 

For example, if you are looking to help companies grow their website traffic by building out keyword-focused content that ranks on Google and drives organic traffic, you should check the search volumes of the main keywords in that niche to make sure there’s enough search demand for this SEO approach to make sense. 

Alternatively, you can use apps such as Google Trends or BuzzSumo for more insight into the niche you plan on targeting. 

Step 2: Get clear on your offer 📝

Once you have chosen a niche market you would like to target, you need to decide what kind of services you want to offer.

In the world of content marketing, there is a lot to choose from. You could offer content writing, copywriting, email marketing, SEO audits, video creation, and more. Start with the type of service(s) you feel the most comfortable with, knowing that you can deliver the client results. 

Step 3: Position your brand 😎

Once you are clear on your niche and what services you want to offer, you need to think about what you want your content marketing agency’s brand to be because your agency needs a personality. 

You can choose to be super-professional, which makes sense when targeting more conservative industries, or your brand could be more about being fun and creative, which makes more sense if you are offering more creative services and are targeting a less conservative niche. 

Step 4: Get your first client(s) 🧑

Sales is arguably the most important part of any business. Without sales, there is no revenue, and without revenue, you don’t have a business. 

While getting your first client(s) may seem like a daunting task, you will probably be able to find them within your network. That could be in person or on social media. 

The easiest way to get your first client (in my opinion) is to reach out to prospects and give them an excellent offer for a very good price. Of course, you want to make sure what you are charging makes the work worthwhile, but charging a little less with your first few “beta tester” clients won’t hurt as it will enable you to build up a portfolio of work quickly, which you can then leverage to get higher paying clients. 

Once you have your first few clients on board, you can increase your rates with every new client that comes in. 

Step 5: Scale 📈

Once you’ve onboarded a handful of clients and are probably already making more than you had initially expected, you will need to hire people to help your agency scale. 

Hiring people is an entirely new skill set you will need to learn if it’s not something you have done in the past. But the more you do it, the better you will get at it. 

Finding the right talent can really help you propel your agency to the next level in a shorter time than expected. Hiring the wrong people, however, can become costly. So take your time to find people who are a good fit and have the right experience. 

To help you grow your business, especially once the revenue has stabilized, you will probably also want to invest in software to help you streamline your internal processes. 

And that’s basically it! 

Of course, there is much more to say on how to start a content marketing agency, but these steps cover the most important basics. 

So, if you already have a blog and want to make the move to start a niche content marketing agency, it might just end up being easier than you think! 

And if you have any questions, let me know by replying to this newsletter. 😊

Interesting stuff happening in AI 🤖

AI is becoming part of our daily lives, and that definitely holds true when you’re running a marketing agency. Here are the most interesting AI stories I have come across recently. 

Microsoft Launched Copilot Pro 👨‍✈️

For a $20 subscription fee, Microsoft now enables you to use Copilot directly within its Microsoft Office apps. If you are a regular Microsoft Office user, this could come in very handy.

OpenAI Says Using Copyrighted Data Can’t Be Avoided When Training AI ⚙️

Honestly, I don’t see what the big fuss is when it comes to AI models using data that’s publicly available on the Internet. I mean, a Google search does that too, and no one’s complaining there. 

Meta Thinks AI Boosts Ad Spend ROI On Its Platform by Over 30% 👾

According to Meta’s global business group head, Nicola Mendelsohn, ads running on Meta that leverage AI witnessed an increase in ROAS of 32%. Using AI to help with ads is an excellent way to deploy the technology as a marketer. It makes setting up ads quicker and easier, and creating ad variations becomes much more efficient. 

Learn the art & science of shipping more winning ads

The problem: your team isn’t shipping enough winning creative to scale ad accounts. 

The solution: get your team to master the art and science of creative strategy with Thumbstop. 

Every Sunday, you’ll learn how to bridge the gap between media buying and creative, helping you ship more winning TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube ads.

You’ll learn:

⚡️ The Art: creativity cheat codes, trending ad formats backed by Motion data, and how to build creative performance teams the right way.

🔬 The Science: analytical skills that make marketers 10X more valuable, tales of scale & experimentation, and advanced creative analysis techniques.

Hit me up! 👋

When I am not writing the 28,303th best newsletter in the world, I run a content marketing agency, Rise Up Media, where I help innovative Bitcoin and financial technology companies reach their growth targets. 

Contact me at [email protected] or reply to this email if you’d like to work with me.