How to Build a Million Dollar Marketing Agency? — Well, I Just Did It!
2,500 clients, 80 countries, 30 industries, 1200 reviews, and now 1,000,000.00 USD in revenue. Here’s how Zima Media did it.
Although 70% of Zima Media’s clients are in the US, we still get a chance to work with businesses from Norway, Nigeria, South Africa, Chile, New Zealand, Japan, and more.
We’re also lucky enough to have helped grow cool and unique businesses. They included a gorilla preservation project in Africa, local airlines, a museum of chocolate, online psychiatry & therapy office, innovative backyard chicken supplies, eco-conscious towels, and a Thai gin manufacturer.
One million in revenue might seem tiny for some businesses, considering that Apple makes more in an hour (90 seconds actually, I did the math 😀.) But it’s huge compared to many small agencies and businesses that are feeling economic difficulties, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
I wish I could say it was easy to reach this milestone.
It wasn’t.
Just like every small agency, we encountered various challenges, failed, and learned from our mistakes. But instead of giving up, we kept moving toward our goal. So, today, I decided to share some things that let us reach our first million, and hopefully, they’ll help you too.
Find the Right Business Model and Improve Your Offer
There are many ways to charge for your services:
- Create custom proposals to win over big brands
- Switch to an hourly fee
- Provide free audit to convert prospects
- Sell cheap, low margin but high volume products
- Go for a high-end industry
- Use a personal approach, etc
For Zima Media, we found that getting cash flow is critical. It means that upfront payment, even if it’s a smaller one, is still better than working for free and hoping to close a huge deal that might never happen.
Plus, we don’t want to be one of those marketing agencies that promise you the moon and don’t deliver. That’s why we don’t offer long-term contracts.
All our services are subscription-based, so people can sign up for our services for a month or two, see if it’s a good fit for them, and stay if they love the results we deliver. It means no long-term commitment for them, and happy clients as a win-win for us.
Offer a Transparent Service Scope
After working with over 2,500 businesses, we learned that having a well-defined scope for our services is crucial. All the accurate prices and service descriptions are publicly available on our website, which is sadly very rare in our industry. You can pick what you need à la carte without a need to speak with a salesperson.
We know how much time it takes us to work with clients to get some results, so we distribute the capacity to make all our clients happy. We also know when to say “no.” If our team members are busy with client work and cannot dedicate enough time to new prospects, we don’t take them as clients. For Zima Media, quality is much more important than quantity, and we’ll continue sticking to this approach.
We’re also learning and adjusting our service offers as we go to make them as perfect as possible. We always update things and improve our offer based on best industry practices, customer feedback, and marketing platform evolution.
Be Genuine and Honest
There are many gurus, marketing geniuses, and growth hackers out there who promise a lot and only show their clients what they want to see, without mentioning the cons. At Zima Media, we have a different policy.
We lost a lot of business because we wanted to be honest with results and expectations, but it paid off in the long term. We care about our clients and do what’s right for them. We don’t charge them when we know they are not ready to invest in marketing their business, don’t have realistic expectations or a decent website and brand.
And that’s okay.
Not all customers are right for you, and you aren’t suitable for all customers either. Get to know your leads, see if it’s a good match and if they’re people you’d want to deal with. On this one, you can trust your guts, believe me.
A red flag will be someone who doesn’t trust you and is always dissatisfied with your services no matter what you do. Such clients will only “eat” your time and disrupt your workflow. If you feel your prospect is trouble, it’s better to refuse to provide your services to them and save yourself unnecessary stress.
Try, Fail, Be Flexible, and Reinvent Yourself
We created a few businesses that failed before we established Zima Media. One of them was a data and software agency that let us discover that small businesses’ main struggle isn’t access to advanced analytics platforms but getting online traffic and revenue.
So, we switched to marketing and used our knowledge of data analysis and technology to help small businesses solve their problems. And that’s how Zima Media digital marketing agency was born.
But this time, we were smarter and proved the concept before investing lots of money in a dream business. As a result, we had clients before even having a real company. And it worked out perfectly fine for us.
Consider Cash Flow to Be More Important Than Revenue
Although getting money from banks and investors is good, you need to make sure you can actually make money to reimburse them. We are proud to be entirely self-funded and reinvest everything we can in our business.
Creating an online business nowadays demands less cash and risk, and it’s more accessible than ever. However, you still need to make smart decisions and have realistic expectations. For example, you can have strong sales, but if you don’t control your costs, taxes due, payment delays, or unexpected situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, you are out of business.
That’s why it’s always worth experimenting with different ideas and launching side projects that might bring you that extra cash flow and prevent your business from sinking. Also, never forget that your business is your baby, and investing in it is almost always a good idea.
Move Towards the Future of Work
We started Zima Media as a fully remote company. Our team members are from various parts of the world, and we haven’t met each other…yet. But being remote has win-win benefits for everyone.
Our employees are very independent and enjoy the beauty of a flexible lifestyle, aka being able to work from wherever their heart desires. We don’t care whether they’re working from home, coworking space, or bed as long as they do their job well.
Since we don’t have overhead expenses like renting an office space, electricity bills, commute, etc., we charge our clients reasonable prices. That’s why hiring a remote marketing agency like Zima Media is also a perk for our prospects who don’t need to cover the costs we’d have if we weren’t location-independent.
And of course, for us, founders, having a remote-first work culture and no geographic limit to find talent is beyond incredible. It lets us manage a company based on honesty and work with a team of eager self-learners who are always ready to help each other.
We might not have met in real life, but we feel like we’ve known each other forever. And if we do manage to get together one day, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be legendary.
Put People First
The life and blood of any business are its employees. Zima Media agency would have never been where it’s now without our precious employees. Big hurray for them, never forget that.
I always take care of bringing the best people to the team, help them grow, and also get out of the way so they can do their job well. We practice democracy in our company. We vote, and I often lose the vote, yet I always respect it.
And if I’m being honest, that’s great! My ideas might be great, but it doesn’t mean they’re better than anyone else’s. If my team wins, we all win. That’s why you should never underestimate investing in your employees as it will pay you back in one way or another.
Streamline Projects and Workflow
Consider my advice: automate and template as many processes and documents as possible. For example, at Zima Media, we run 5000 automations a month.
We don’t really like calls and meetings, so we try to use data, proven methods, and our time to do the job, aka making our customers money. That’s why we limit calls internally and with clients to avoid wasting time.
Don’t get me wrong, calls are still critical, but to a certain extent. For our team, calls are necessary for bonding, quick one-on-one growth and development sessions, brainstorming ideas, and address project-specific issues. However, we stay away from going over tasks and repeated updates during our video meetings.
As per external meetings, we do much fewer calls with clients than traditional agencies. We only connect with the clients to put a face behind the business, see how they feel, bond with them or solve critical issues faster.
It means we don’t do meetings just for the sake of a meeting. If we don’t have updates or any problems, we don’t waste time on unnecessary discussions. And if we need to make a few-minute update, we record a quick video screen share via Loom.
So, believe it or not, eliminating useless meetings might save your company a lot of time and money.
Build Your Brand and Trust Signals
It’s always hard to start getting clients without an established brand or numerous five-star reviews. Yet, it’s not impossible.
Start small and go from there. Yes, you might need to over-deliver in the beginning to get that trust and receive a positive review. But eventually, you’ll see that if you do your job well, clients will be coming back, recommending you to their friends and business partners, and be forever thankful for the results you brought them.
While you’re growing your business, make sure to ask for honest reviews, gather testimonials, and share unique case studies. And of course, don’t forget to mention all of them on your website.
Also, push your marketing efforts but don’t get carried away. Many agencies are too busy to work on their clients and thus lose them quickly. Remember that the relationship with your clients is significant. Once you prove to them you know what you’re doing, they’ll trust you with their business and won’t vanish into thin air.
Find a Partner That Complements Your Skills
I built Zima Media with my partner Mike Zima. He’s literally the Zima in Zima Media. Mike already had a functioning website zimamedia.com, so we did not reinvent the wheel and call the agency Zima Media.
We have been working together for five years now and have never met in person. We both truly believe in remote, decentralized work, and that’s how we always worked at the agency.
Mike is the entrepreneur, the go-getter, the idea guy, while I’m the boring MBA guy who creates the processes and builds the team. We have very different skill sets, but they’re a perfect match.
If you don’t want to be a solopreneur, find a co-founder who can take care of the business’s side where you lack strength and experience. They might help you grow the business faster, improve your skills, and learn something new every day.
Build a Network
For your business to thrive, you need to make partnerships and surround yourself with people who can support your business and help deliver extra services to your clients. For instance, we have a fantastic web developer partner who builds great websites and takes care of any technical issues our clients might have (yes, Dan, I’m talking about you.)
Finding the right accountants is also very important if you don’t want to slow down your growth (honestly, we still struggle with this one.)
And finally, consider collaborating with other entrepreneurs. For example, some of our clients have multiple businesses. We help them build and grow their business projects, and they keep supporting us by subscribing to more of our services.
What’s Next?
Reaching $1M in revenue is, of course, far from our end goal, yet it’s a significant milestone for us to celebrate and move forward.
Our next steps include giving back to the communities that will benefit from our services. This year, we plan to help 100 charities with their marketing needs for free, and we have already helped 22 incredible NPOs. So, if you’re a non-profit organization struggling to navigate the digital marketing world (or know one), you can apply for our Non-Profit Marketing Grant today.
Let’s do good together!
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