How I built a simple, one-man digital marketing agency and made $120,000 in 2022 working just 4 hours a week
With 90% margins, using free and cheap tools.
I'll roll out this three-part guide over the next week or so. Feel free to ask questions in the comments and I'll respond. I’ll also include them in some companion videos I’ll be making to help supplement the information in here.
Proof
I’m being ridiculously transparent about earnings here so you know I’m not just making this up like 99% of the other online gurus with a “special system”.
I started this project in April 2021. Notice that I never hit $10k a month until the end of 2022, when I started pouring on the marketing spend to drive business. Most of this came through Stripe and then another $20k through Paypal.
As you can see, this is real! I made $176k with a very simple offer:
Step 1: A simple offer
“I will run Facebook/Instagram ads for your business, deliver leads that those ads generate directly to your cell phone/email, setup basic automations for follow-ups to keep those leads hot, all for $750-$1000 a month to manage this”.
This offer isn’t rocket science, but it might as well be to the average client. In total, a client pays about $1600-2000 a month (your fee + approximately $30-50 a day in ad spend) but they should make back much more. More on this later.
Step 2: Choose a niche
The key here is that this simple offer packs a punch when used to market a high margin, “niche” business. In the experiment that I mentioned above, I chose medspas — basically cosmetic products for rich women and men. These high-end spas perform lip injections, IV infusions, lipo-type stuff, testosterone replacement, and even breast augmentations. Don’t go after broke niches. There isn’t a lot of margin in the restaurant or barber business - you want to market to businesses with high margins, where each new customer is worth multiples of the cost of the ads you run.
You can pick any niche/industry, it doesn’t really matter, but it’s better if you have some experience with it. Maybe you know a couple of plastic surgeons, or you’ve gone to the chiropractor your whole life, those are good starts. I chose med spas and IV clinics because I enjoyed going to the IV bar in my area and I got to know a few med spa owners. This background helped me to speak their language.
To reiterate, pick a specific product/service in that industry that has a good margin and that the business owner wants to sell more of. This will help you craft your “marketing sentence”. For me, the pitch started with “I help med spas sell more IV infusion patients” but it eventually evolved into “I help plastic surgeons get more breast augmentation patients” once I learned that IV infusion patients were only worth $100 bucks per appointment. I focused on breast augmentation because that’s what ended up making me the most money:
Picking a niche allowed me to avoid being one of a million wannabe “marketing agencies” doing “SEO and content” or a “Facebook ads agency” - I confidently positioned myself in the market as a “breast augmentation marketer” to a plastic surgeon.
Step 3: What you need to get started and talk to your first potential client in under 7 days
Here’s how to get started, in instruction form. I’ll point out mistakes I’ve made, and I’ll get back to exactly what I did with exact ads and results in the next newsletters.
3a. Think of a domain name - anything will do. You can actually use Chat-GPT to help you brainstorm names / domains for a business:
3b. Head over to namesilo.com or namecheap.com to buy the domain. You don’t need to set up your site right now, but you’ll want to want to think about getting a google email setup - not a gmail, but an actual G Suite/Workspace - it’s $6 bucks a month and worth it for all the extras. People get a little bit sketched out by Gmail accounts so I suggest a Google Workspace account to keep things organized and build a decent-looking reputation online.
3c. Now that you have an email address and a domain, let’s get rolling with a logo and a Facebook page. We can wait on the website for right now. Go to Canva.com to make a logo and make versions for your Facebook profile and background. You can just type into Canva “Facebook ad” or “Instagram ad” and you’ll get the right sizes.
3d. Now that you have all the assets ready for the Facebook page, set up your Facebook/Meta Business Manager account, which is different from your standard Facebook profile account.
Chat-GPT actually explains how to set this up pretty well, but I’m also happy to help people walk through this if you just book a call on my calendar.
Setting up a Facebook Business Manager account is simple and can be done in a few steps. Here's a step-by-step guide:
Go to Facebook Business Manager: Visit the Facebook Business Manager website at
https://business.facebook.com/
If you're not logged into your personal Facebook account, you'll need to log in.
Create a new account: Click on the "Create Account" button in the top right corner of the page.
Fill in your details: Enter your business name, your name, and your work email address. Click "Next" to continue.
Provide business information: Fill in the required details about your business, including your business's website, address, and phone number. Click "Next" to proceed.
Confirm your email: Facebook will send a confirmation email to the email address you provided. Open the email and click on the confirmation link to verify your email address. If you don't see the email, check your spam folder or click "Resend Email" on the confirmation page.
Add your Facebook Page and Ad Account: Once your email is confirmed, you can add your Facebook Page and Ad Account. If you don't have a Facebook Page, click on "Create a new Page" and follow the prompts. If you don't have an Ad Account, you can create one by clicking on "Create a new ad account" and following the steps.
Add people and assign roles: Invite your team members to join your Business Manager and assign them roles (e.g., admin, editor, advertiser, or analyst) based on their responsibilities. You can do this by clicking on "Add People" and entering their email addresses.
Connect other business assets: You can also connect other business assets such as Instagram accounts, WhatsApp accounts, or product catalogs by clicking on the corresponding options in the Business Manager.
Customize your Business Manager: You can now customize your Business Manager settings, such as notifications, security settings, and preferences by clicking on "Business Settings" in the top right corner.
Once you've completed these steps, you'll have successfully set up your Facebook Business Manager account. From here, you can manage your Facebook Page, Ad Account, and other assets in one centralized location.
3e. Now that you have a functional Google Mail account, Facebook page and Business Manager, set up your email signature too.
3f. Now it’s time to create your Calendly. This is how you’re going to book calls with potential clients. Calendly also has great built-in automations and workflows to send follow-up emails and reminders so you don’t suffer no-show appointments. I’d start with the professional package with the monthly option.
You can integrate your Calendly with your new Google Calendar connected to your new Google email account and set up a couple of follow-up emails and confirmation/reminder emails from your email but automated and sent through Calendly. I’ll walk through this in a video soon, but you can also book a free call with me and I’ll go through it with you now.
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