Thinking of how to start an AI marketing agency but don’t know how to go about it?
You are not alone.
88% of digital marketers expect AI technology to help them serve their customers better and stay competitive.
But then, about 72% of non-AI marketers don’t know how to implement AI.
And that’s because starting a marketing agency with AI automating many processes and relieving your marketing team of the work of tedious data analysis routines can take some getting used to.
All of that will involve getting conversant with specific AI tools for a certain service you offer, and that will require your marketing team to be willing to embrace and find a way around the ensuing challenges.
No doubt, you are already familiar with what an AI marketing agency is, and if not, this article here will be of great help.
With that in mind, let’s take a deep dive into the process of setting up an AI marketing agency.
Let’s start with understanding AI’s place in marketing.
Understanding AI in Marketing
To better understand the role of AI in marketing, let’s define what it is exactly and acquaint ourselves with its broad applications.
AI by itself is a set of technologies like Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, et cetera, that simulate human intelligence. In other words, AI consists of models and algorithms that make machines smart, according to Marketing AI Institute founder Paul Roetzer in an interview with Kevin Walsh, product manager of machine learning at HubSpot.
In the context of digital marketing, AI is used to process and analyze vast datasets, uncovering insights, patterns, and relationships that might otherwise remain hidden.
These insights are then used to deliver hyper-personalized experiences for individual customers in a process known as customer segmentation. Highly targeted email campaigns are a prime example of this application of AI in action.
AI in marketing is also helping to automate and streamline content creation processes, and it powers chatbots that augment human support teams in customer support services.
Besides all this, AI predictive analysis capabilities mean businesses of all sorts can rely on its ability to analyze decades of data on customer purchase behaviors and market trends to help these establishments predict future customer preferences, anticipate their behavior, and spot what might likely happen in the industry landscape before it happens.
All of that is just scratching the surface of what AI agencies can leverage AI for in the process of facilitating their client’s marketing strategies. The article What is an AI Marketing Agency? covers AI use cases in marketing much more extensively.
Planning and Preparation
In this section, get the hang of the preliminary steps to take to lay the foundation for building your AI marketing agency with a sense of direction and purpose.
Market Research and Niche Selection
In a HubSpot interview with Marketing AI Institute founder Paul Roetzer the AI-savvy founder emphasized that AI isn’t a panacea for all marketing problems.
This means that when trying to form an AI marketing agency, you should start with finding viable use cases for AI and figure out what AI functions (e.g., customer service, risk assessment, et cetera) and industries (e.g., banking, finance, e.t.c.) your AI marketing agency will fit in.
Then do market research to identify existing key challenges for your industry.
Want to know how an AI marketing agency can serve the needs of specific industries? Check out this article.
Competitor analysis
While market research—which also includes market demand research—exposes you to a potential customer pool, competitor analysis lays the groundwork for making your offerings truly stand out.
The first step in this stage is to single out the competition that closely mirrors your current product line or service and that currently has a foothold in your target market segment.
Also, look out for your competitors’ market shares, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as indirect or secondary competitors who exert an indirect impact on your success.
Team Building
It goes without saying that a strong AI-savvy team is indispensable to your success as an AI marketing agency. This team should be composed of top talent who know tech and the market well.
One of the vital steps toward pulling this kind of team together would be to hire talent with experience in a particular area of marketing and advertising, such as SEO or content creation. This squad should also be knowledgeable in a certain industry your marketing agency will be serving.
That way, you ensure that these members of your AI marketing team will be able to provide creative ideas to refine or complement whatever output your AI agents or platforms generate.
These people should be willing to get immersed in AI tools and platforms, care about data and its quality, have strong math skills, be willing to embrace change and take on new AI-driven capabilities (such as utilizing AI for real-time market trends analysis or leveraging AI for deep social analysis).
Business Plan Development
Your business plan is a comprehensive breakdown of what your AI marketing agency is all about and the process you will follow to achieve your goals.
It defines your marketing strategies and highlights how you will take advantage of the existing business landscape through effective market and competitor analysis.
A well-written business plan like the one that follows the template here can help you secure funding, build credibility that attracts top-tier talent, and ultimately lay the groundwork for dynamic operating systems and processes that fuel growth.
Setting Up the Agency
Now that you have laid a solid basis for your AI marketing agency to thrive, learn how to start building it one AI tool and one service at a time.
Infrastructure and Tools
As you inch closer to launching your AI marketing agency, it’s time to start acquiring the infrastructure and the AI tools that will enable you to effectively leverage artificial intelligence technologies in your agency’s marketing strategies and services.
Specifically, this refers to the hardware, such as workstations, servers, GPUs, etc., used for training and deploying AI models.
AI tools are software, such as AI/ML platforms for building and deploying machine learning models and AI-powered marketing platforms like the ones listed in AiforEveryone.
Establishing an online presence (website, social media) is also a non-negotiable part of setting up your AI marketing agency for success. It is one of the earliest steps to take. In fact, delaying this step could render all of your hard work void as no one’s going to discover you if you stay hidden.
So, right off the bat, consider setting up a professional website optimized for both desktop and mobile. Use it as your public address system on the internet, highlighting your AI-driven services, case studies, testimonials, and, in general, what you do better than your competitors.
Also, use LinkedIn to share thought-leadership content that gives data storytelling, industry analysis, counter-narrative opinions, and the earned secrets you have gleaned from your experience in AI marketing.
Service Offerings
In this stage, you get to choose what services your AI marketing agency will offer. It’s up to you to decide whether you will cater to all aspects of digital marketing or pick just a few to specialize for a start.
In any case, communicating your specialty clearly will let your customers know what to expect from you, and what they are paying for.
There are several services you can offer as an AI marketer ranging from AI-driven SEO to data analytics and more. Check this article for a more comprehensive listing of services you can offer as an AI marketing agency.
Then take your legal infrastructure very seriously as this sets you on the right path to stay informed on and comply with national and international regulations and data protection laws on privacy matters involving AI.
Marketing and Client Acquisition
You may have done a great job of clearly differentiating yourself from the competition, but how do you flaunt that to the world? This section will uncover that.
Branding and Positioning
Branding and positioning are how you set up your brand’s image in the eyes of your audience and potential customers. It’s everything you do to project yourself as an authority in the context of AI marketing.
You will need a strong branding and positioning strategy to carve out your unique identity and competitive advantage, and it all starts with market research to gather exhaustive insights into your target audience’s demographics, online behaviors, etc.
Then, your brand’s identity comes in with a mission and vision statement that blends your brand’s value and personality, followed by your brand’s positioning strategy, such as product differentiation or unmatched customer service.
Don’t forget to also tell a compelling brand story to engage with your audience on an emotional level.
Lead Generation Strategies
Generating leads isn’t something you can leave to chance or have as an afterthought as it is indispensable to converting curious visitors into paying customers.
Also keep in mind that every lead is a potential opportunity for repeat business and long-lasting, fruitful connections. Not to also talk about the fact that lead generation sustains your competitiveness and helps you get better at satisfying your client’s needs.
For effective lead generation to take place, your agency website must be optimized for desktop and mobile. It must also offer a smooth user experience with fast load times and fluid responsiveness.
Video content is a must as well as a lot of people patronize a brand after watching a video. Don’t overlook gated content either—resources that you give in exchange for your visitor’s contact information.
Also, employ outbound (the aforementioned tactics are inbound) lead generation strategies like creating YouTube videos and engaging with your target audience on social media.
And, of course, you can always count on some of the best AI tools to assist you in the process of generating quality leads.
Sales and Pitching
Your AI marketing agency is basically set up to meet the needs of clients, but that doesn’t mean they will automatically flock to you like thirsty camels to a watering hole.
One key thing to note here is that as clients become more knowledgeable about what to expect from a marketing agency, the more you will need to up your sales pitch game.
One way to achieve that is by combining data-driven insights into your client’s challenges, competitors, and goals with creative strategies like developing buyer’s personas for your ideal clients.
Then present a tailored digital marketing strategy that might include (according to their needs) improving their search rankings by targeting high-value keywords, or proposing a social media strategy that aligns with their brand voice and goals.
Case studies and testimonials from past, satisfied clients will also provide the social proof you need to convince new prospects of your expertise. Check out this article for how to go about that.
Networking
When done intentionally, networking can help position you as a problem solver, one with whom people and agencies in your space can form meaningful business connections. Connecting with various business-oriented minds can lead to helpful partnerships and opportunities to land more client offers.
Another benefit networking guarantees you is the ability to stay up to date with advances in the AI space and be armed with relevant information to keep pace with the ever-changing world of AI.
Challenges and Considerations
Finally, here are some speed bumps to avoid to make sure that your AI marketing agency doesn’t suffer from the disadvantages that AI implementation can bring.
Data privacy and security
Data privacy and security are two of the biggest concerns that should weigh on the minds of every AI marketing agency. If you are thinking of starting an AI marketing agency, give deep thought to how your agency will avoid infringing on your customers’ data rights and secure whatever data it collects.
The challenge becomes more frightening when you consider that AI technologies aren’t built with a strong focus on privacy.
Also, with the way personal gadgets, from smartphones to home assistants, armed with all kinds of sensors and trackers, have become a ubiquitous part of our lives, the AI systems on them could collect all kinds of private data from your customers without their knowledge. From there comes the risk of collecting extensive data beyond what is necessary for strictly marketing purposes.
The challenge of data security comes from the fact that marketing databases are huge repositories of consumer data and, as such, are irresistible treasure chests for hackers and other bad actors. You can see why you will need to invest in the most robust data protection systems you can lay your hands on to prevent data breaches and preserve your clients’ trust in you.
Integration with existing systems
As an AI marketing agency, a large part of your concerns will be integrating AI solutions with the SaaS platforms you provide to your clients, and while that kind of pairing can provide unprecedented benefits in the form of a streamlined, personalized user experience amongst other benefits, you will have to grapple with the tasks of finding quality data to feed these AI systems.
You will also have to contend with the challenge of finding talent in the form of data scientists to implement AI-powered solutions without affecting existing SaaS platforms.
Ethical implications
Transparency around AI usage should be highly encouraged among AI marketing agencies as their clients need to know how brands use the data they collect to deliver personalized experiences to these clients. These will at least, help them to make informed choices about their interactions with the marketing agencies.
With transparency concerns come accountability worries too. As AI systems pervade brand-customer relations through chatbots and automated responses, it can become harder for customers to distinguish between AI-generated and human replies. This uncertainty only breeds further discontent when a customer’s specific needs are only half-addressed or ignored altogether.
Conclusion: Essential steps to establishing an AI marketing agency
Starting a successful AI marketing agency is not easy and is certainly not a small achievement.
And it’s not like putting AI at the front of your brand name will automatically send big clients your way. Nor will it give you superpowers to instantly solve all the problems of your marketing clients.
The secret lies in exhaustively exploring the unique customer behaviors and preferences of your clients in the context of the wider landscape of ever-changing market conditions and business climates.
Then, you will be able to zero in on just how you can implement AI technologies to solve specific business challenges and achieve goals that are part of the larger roadmap of your client’s success.
Starting an AI marketing agency is just the beginning, though. How do you play the long-term game and sustain or even accelerate your progress? Find out in this article how to run a marketing agency using AI.