How to Start a Branding Agency from Scratch: Complete Guide
Branding is what businesses need today to attract customers.
Brand means a business identity. It includes logos, content strategy, and other things that define your business.
And if you are good at this branding stuff, this post is just for you. It will help you learn how to start a branding agency from scratch.
And I might add, it is not easy to set up a branding agency in this market situation. However, it is not impossible either. Just follow this post.
What is a Branding Agency?
Before learning how to start a branding agency, let’s understand what a branding agency is.
A branding agency is an agency that handles work related to a business brand creation.
The main work of an agency is to use marketing and advertising strategies to build their client’s unique brand.
A brand manager steps into several roles. For instance, they create content, tagline, or logo to separate a business from others. In short, they are responsible for all the marketing stuff.
The branding agencies offer complete branding services at competitive rates. They even provide specific services to clients who don’t want full branding solutions.
Top Services That Branding Agencies Offer
Branding agencies offer a series of services to a brand image. They target different marketing and advertising areas to help businesses.
So, before you explore how to start a branding agency, ensure you have the resources to provide the following services:
Brand planning
Not every business is clear about its brand identity. Some are just new and clueless about this concept.
In that case, you have to help them find their brand voice. Then, you can run market analysis and understand the business industry to develop a custom branding plan.
Moreover, a branding plan cannot fit all shoes. Therefore, you must create a branding strategy for a business after understanding its unique needs.
Content marketing strategies
Content is the King. And a branding master. Your content creation and marketing strategies can help to build a reliable brand image.
According to the Contently report, 61% of people are more likely to purchase from businesses that share unique content.
Plus, content marketing helps to rank your website on search engines and reach more people.
Thus, you must offer content marketing solutions to your branding clients.
Designing solutions
A brand is a visual component. From a business logo to a website, everything is part of branding.
Thus, you have to offer various design solutions to your clients, like:
- Graphics designing
- Photography
- Illustrations
- Social media content, etc.
Here’s How to Start a Branding Agency in 7 Easy Steps
Do you want to build a successful branding agency? Do you want an agency that can beat top branding agencies?
Then, you have to plan and strategize. Finally, you must prepare a proper roadmap to start a branding agency.
And here, I present a step-by-step guide on how to start a branding agency today:
Step 1. Work on initial business plan
A clear business plan is essential to give a strong foundation to your business.
Having a well-written and detailed business plan can guide you to discover uncertainties.
Plus, a plan can show you the right direction whenever you are stuck while setting up your business.
So, in how to start a branding business series, I suggest you plan these things first:
Costing
How much is it going to cost to set up a branding business?
The answer is a lot.
Based on your agency size and business model, you have to invest in several things, like:
- Rent or buy an office space
- Technical support like computers, software, and other design tools
- Furniture and fixture
- Payroll, insurance, etc.
Target Market
A clear idea about your target market will help you build your own business brand.
You can design the right marketing and advertising strategies knowing your audience.
For instance, if your target market is B2B, you must build a professional company image and focus on marketing portals like LinkedIn.
On the contrary, when you are targeting B2C or B2D, you must plan different marketing strategies.
I will here recommend you create your ideal buyer persona. Fictional characterization of your potential customers can help you better understand your target market.
Pricing Structure
Now, this is an important section. How much you charge your clients will decide your revenue and market base.
Fewer customers will use your services if your service prices are too high. On the other hand, low costs can reflect in your revenues.
Thus, you should run a market analysis to see how much your competitors charge for branding services.
Based on that, you can set your service charges. Moreover, I suggest keeping your rates a bit moderate as you are just starting things.
Besides this, you have to also decide whether you want to provide fixed-price services or based on an hourly rate.
Most clients prefer fixed-price services as it gives them an idea about how much they have to spend on their branding. Therefore, they can better manage their budget with fixed prices.
However, I will recommend you offer flexible prices to your customers. This way, you can attract more customers to your new branding business.
Step 2. Define legal framework
After defining your business plan, you need to work on the legal framework of your company. First, it is important to register your company for taxation and legal purposes.
You have several options to register your company. For example, you can register as a limited liability company, corporate organization, sole enterprise, etc.
However, limited liability and corporate organization setup are perfect for branding agencies.
In both legal frameworks, you can protect your personal assets.
Once you register as a limited liability company, you and your company will become two separate identities. This way, your company’s liabilities will not impact your personal finances.
To set up a limited liability company, you should check details with the Secretary of State‘s website. You can also hire a legal consultant to help set up a legit branding agency.
Step 3. Get essential certificates and licenses
Another important step in how to start a branding agency guide is getting all the essential certificates and licenses.
Before you invite clients to book your branding services, you should first get all the essential licenses to run your business.
For this purpose, you should connect with your local business authority to know what licenses are essential to running a small business in your locality.
Moreover, you can hire a professional business consultant to help you find all the essential documents to start your business.
Besides this, you should ensure that your team members possess specific certifications to provide branding services.
For example, your SEO guy must have certifications from reputable portals like Google, Semrush, etc.
Step 4. Get the right tools
There are several tools and software that branding agencies need to get before starting their operations.
Some tools are specific to certain tasks, and some are more generic that every business needs to run their operations.
The most important software that every business needs today is project and client management software.
Agencies have to work on several projects and deal with different clients at the same time. Every client is equally important for a branding agency.
Therefore, you need to get the best project and time management software to provide real-time services to different clients.
There is no need to get two different software here. You can simply use Kosmo to obtain both client and project management solutions.
This software allows you to run different projects and monitor task sessions.
It can also help you send invoices, receive payments, and create contacts for clients.
Besides this, you can create branded documents, and so much more with the software.
The best part is it is an affordable tool. You can get a free version for up to 2 clients. After that, you can upgrade to an unlimited version for only $9 per month.
Besides the project management software, branding agencies need several other creative tools to provide different services to their clients. For example:
- Content management software
- Social media scheduling software
- Customer relationship management software
- Graphic designing software
- Content creation software and so on
Step 5. Create your own brand
Branding is the most important step for a branding agency to set up its operations.
If your company doesn’t have a unique brand identity, how will you convince other people to hire you for their brand building?
So, use your branding knowledge to customize a unique brand identity for your company.
To do so, you should first start with creating a business website.
You should use a consistent color palette, content tone, and graphics to create a brand voice throughout your website.
After that, you can head over to social media platforms and start producing content suitable to your brand message.
Here, use the brand-specific color, content, and your business logo to create a consistent brand image.
Step 6. Hire your people
Creating a business plan is not a one-person job. It requires different technical and creative professionals to build a branding agency.
So, you should create a list of professionals that you need to provide your selected services.
Most branding companies hire the following professionals:
- Account managers work with different clients and share project details with them.
- Creative directors handle all the creative operations related to brand building, like visual designing, content creation, etc.
- Copywriters help to create content suitable to build a brand image.
- Graphic designers work on creating visual elements for branding purposes.
- Marketing strategists, photographers, advertisers, and others work in a branding company.
Based on the services that you plan to provide, you can hire the right staff members to provide the services.
While hiring candidates for your new business, ensure they are passionate and good learners.
Don’t just focus on degrees and experiences while hiring employees. That’s because sometimes passion is more important in creative fields than academic knowledge.
Step 7. Sort business insurances
Most new business owners ignore this step while starting their business. And that’s their biggest mistake.
So, you should not make the same mistake and get essential business insurance before starting your branding agency.
This will protect your business and keep you away from several uncertainties.
I suggest you start with General Liability Insurance. It covers all the basic liabilities that small business owners have to deal with.
This will protect your business assets and keep your business growing despite uncertainties in the market.
Another important insurance that you should get is Workers’ Compensation Insurance. This insurance policy comes in handy when you have to compensate your workers for workplace liabilities.
Conclusion: How to Start a Branding Agency?
You can now set up a new branding agency from scratch. You have learned all about starting a branding agency with limited resources.
All you need is a business plan, tool, and strategy to start your company.
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