How to start a Creative Agency
If you research how to build a creative agency you will likely find a recurring step system that often starts with picking a niche and ending with marketing and excellent service. In this article, we will discuss a different approach that begins with providing excellent service, discovering a niche, and in the process, building a creative agency. Before discussing steps to develop your own creative agency, it is important to define what exactly a creative agency even is!
What is a Creative Agency?
Surprisingly, a creative agency can come in all different forms, shapes, and sizes. They typically offer services to clients that may include graphic design, branding, advertising, marketing, web design and development, copywriting, content creation, social media management, video production, and other creative and artistic services. Creative agencies combine creative and strategic thinking to assist clients with solutions to captivate, engage, build brand awareness, and contribute to the overall success of that client’s business. When starting a creative agency, it is important to understand the wide range of services that can be offered because you will likely need to start with one or two services to gain experience and a competitive edge.
What are the steps to building a creative agency?
Step 1: Provide excellent service.
If you are looking to start a full fledge creative agency, chances are you are already currently providing at least one service whether that be photography, videography, marketing, or a consulting service. If you are not, then this should be your first step. However, if you are already providing one of these services then it is important to make sure that the current service you are already providing has been iterated and improved to the point where you are competing with the best in your area. We recommend that you are constantly surveying your clients to better understand how you can provide better services.
Step 2: Network and Relationships
From day one, you should be working to build relationships. The quickest way to building relationships and referrals is to give away value. For instance, if you know that you want to head in a direction of commercial food photography, actively be reaching out to brands in that industry that align with your interests and offer free services in exchange for feedback and referrals. If you are constantly looking to reach new heights within the creative industry, giving away value before receiving is an activity that will always be a part of your networking strategy.
Step 3: Marketing your Agency
If you do Step 2 well enough, you will not have to hyper-focus on marketing. Marketing your agency does not mean dumping loads of money into paid advertisements either. The first step within marketing any business is determining purpose that connects a brand internally and externally. If you wish to understand more about this process, check out this Power of Confidence in branding bit on our about page.
Step 4: Discovering Focus
If you have done the first 3 steps for a long enough time (and we are talking at the very least, 2 years) then you are likely beginning to figure out what you are good at and where you want the direction of the business to go. At this point, you can begin narrowing your focus and specialties. Niching is important, but testing the waters for years and actually understanding where you can provide the best value and gain the most fulfillment is #1 on the ranking of importance.
Step 5: Persistence and development
Building a creative agency is the same as building any other business in the sense that it takes a lot of time and persistence. Just like you cannot expect to know exactly what your niche is on day one of starting the agency, you also cannot expect to master any creative process without 10,000 hours of direct focus. If you are wanting to build a creative agency, go into the process with the mindset that it will be 10 years before you see larger movement.
Is this the only route to building a creative agency?
Of course not. Many agencies choose a specific niche first and go on to build successful agencies. We can only speak from our experience this far and we have found that providing incredible service in whatever you currently offer will help leverage developing towards and learning where your agency should go in the future. In the end, get started providing any service so that you begin the process of learning what you are good at and where you will take it.