The Best Online Business to Start in 2022 (cheap and perfect for beginners)
So, you want to start a business online in 2022? There is one business model that stands above the rest for complete beginners while requiring very small upfront costs to get started. Let’s dig in!
The age of entrepreneurship has completely changed over the past few years. Gone are the days of needing massive upfront capital in order to get started (if you choose the right business, of course..), as are the days of needing to have an incredible and world altering idea.
Don’t get me wrong, we need the Elon Musk’s and the like to drive massive innovation and push humanity forward.. but most entrepreneurs have much simpler, or dare I say, modest goals.
We want to work for ourselves, we want to fire our bosses, and we want to make enough money at it to do whatever it is that we want to do instead of sitting at our desk all day working for someone else.
When it comes to the best online business to start in 2022, there are a ton of different options when it comes to being able to work completely remote and power a business with no more than a laptop or a phone (or tablet, if you are into that sort of thing). However, one stands out above the rest.
The best online business to start in 2022 is the SMMA / Social Media Marketing Agency model.
If you are not familiar with the term SMMA or Social Media Marketing Agency, it really is just that. It is a model where clients pay (quite handsomely) for you or your team to use social media to help them grow their business.
The reality of the world is that by simply knowing how to use Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or other social platforms — you know more than the average business owner. Not only that, those that are familiar with these platforms and how to use them are often desperate to find someone with the skills to handle this for them. Put simply, they want to run the business they started and keep their clients/customers/visitors/etc. happy. They don’t want to have to spend their days managing their social media, and are looking to outsource it to someone else. Finding an agency they can trust saves them time.
Why is The SMMA / Social Media Marketing Agency model the best online business to start in 2022?
It really comes down to a few key factors:
- Demand for the services is growing exponentially
- It requires almost no upfront investment to get started
- It requires no prior experience and is perfect for any age group
- It enables complete location independence and can be done completely remote requiring nothing more than a laptop and a phone
Let’s break these down individually to better understand how big of an opportunity this is for entrepreneurs.
- Demand for the services is growing exponentially — The number of businesses founded every year exponentially outpaces the growth of the social media marketing industry. This means that for every one agency that is founded, there are tens or even hundreds of net new businesses started every day. And this doesn’t include the millions of businesses that are already in existence. Over 90% of business owners say that they want to use social media to grow their business, they just aren’t sure how — or they lack the time. This has led to massive demand for social media marketing agencies, and has driven the cost of our services up significantly.
- It requires almost no upfront investment to get started — There are very few business models that do not require much of anything to get started. In order to start an agency, all that you need is a name, logo, website, business email, and to incorporate your business (you can even be a sole proprietor/sole trader, which is free to start!). This means that your total upfront costs could be less than $50 to get started and about $25 per month from there. There are almost no other businesses in the world that you can get started for this cheap and do from anywhere in the world
- It requires no prior experience and is perfect for any age group — I have seen successful agency owners from every age group. In our program, The SMMA Blueprint, we have seen students as young as 14 years old close clients for thousands of USD per month. We have seen retiree’s looking for additional low effort income do the same. Not only that, but if you know how to post to Facebook or Instagram, you literally know enough to get started in this business. The biggest value that we offer to our clients to begin with is time savings. Simply by posting and sharing content for them, you are giving them time back in their day and peace of mind that their brand is being taken care of on social media. They will pay handsomely for this and this alone!
- It enables complete location independence and can be done completely remote requiring nothing more than a laptop and a phone — What truly makes the SMMA / Social Media Marketing Agency model the best online business to start in 2022 is the fact that it enables complete and total location independence. If you dream of being a digital nomad and traveling the world running a business from your laptop, there is no better business to be operate than a social media marketing agency. I have personally been running an agency for over 5 years as of the time of writing this article, and have been working remote for almost 80% of the time in recent years. I haven’t had to meet a client in person for over 4 years (since we realized that there was no reason to!). Social media enables our clients to connect with customers from all over the world — regardless of where they are located — and it does the same for us and our clients!
How can I get started with the Social Media Marketing Agency / SMMA Business model?
One of the main reasons that the SMMA / Social Media Marketing Agency business model is the best business to start online in 2022 is that it is very simple to get started with it. You only need a few key things to get your business launched.
- You need to pick a name. I like to use the Shopify name generator to help me think of business names
- You need to create a website, get a domain (web address), and a business email address. Most website builders these days help you set all of these up at once — such as Wix.com, Squarespace.com, or others!
- You need to create a legal entity for your business. The easiest way to do this is to go to google.com and type in “How to start a business in [insert state, country, etc.].” You can also go the sole proprietor/sole trader route, which is free.
Once you are set up and ready with the above items, the best place to go next is to an online course that teaches you exactly how to get your business launched and generating income.
While the barrier to entry to the Social Media Marketing Agency / SMMA business model is extremely low, it is not nonexistent. The real value that a course or program can bring to you and your soon to be thriving business is time savings. The elimination of guesswork and also being able to provide consistent results for our clients.
A good course should focus on the following things:
- Basic fundamentals of starting and running your agency
- Teaching you simple easy to understand ways of acquiring clients paying you $1,000 — $10,000 per month (our average client today pays us $12,000 per month)
- Teaching you simple ways to provide services (social media management, advertising, email marketing, funnel building) to drive results for your clients so that they stick with you month after month
- Basic fundamentals of process and team building so that you can start scaling your agency as you find success
All of these topics and more are covered in my program, The SMMA Blueprint. Think of it as a cheat code that you can use to get your first clients in just a few short weeks!
The best time to start an online business was yesterday, the next best time is today! The world of online work has changed, and more and more people just like you are starting to make their way to success online. With the ease of getting started in the SMMA business, there has never been a better time to get started. See you out there!
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