In order to launch a successful business like Magic Agency, or any other creative agency, and turn it profitable in a short period of time, there are three main aspects that you need to focus on. One, the need for the set creative agency, as in, the market for it. Two, the resources for it, as in, the people who are going to make it work. And three, the thing that will set you apart from your competition.
5 months ago, I launched “Magic Agency”. This is a creative agency for the Romanian market, focusing on developing websites with WordPress that look and work flawlessly. We take care of the entire thing, from domain names to hosting, platform, pages and content, blogging, marketing, paid and organic advertising, campaigns, launching, the whole set. It turned profitable within a month.
Why? Because it checked all of the three above mentioned boxes: the need, the resources, and the setting apart from competitors. In this article, I’ll take you on a step-by-step journey about how Magic Agency came to be, why it worked the way it did, and how we managed to turn it profitable in record time. Beware, this might be a long post!
In this guide:
Magic Agency, name and story
I got my first deck of playing cards at age 10. It was a small fortune back then, being shipped from the USA via airmail. But it was still the best purchase a 10-year-old could make. 18 years later, my passion for magic and illusions turned out to be the perfect background and theme for a creative agency. With magic being such an amazing, mysterious topic, it fit my idea of a web development business perfectly.
This is how Magic Agency came to life. And this is how I’ve branded the entire thing, a creative agency based on the magic of the web, linked with the magic of card tricks and illusions. Do you want a new website for your business? We can have it online in days, just like magic! And the rest is just, well, trial and error, lots of coffee and sleepless nights, doubt, the usual schnitzel!
My WordPress background
My high-school graduation project was about creating your own website using WordPress. I got an A+ on that and it was the only time my teacher actually congratulated me. After that diploma, which proved to be useless, but not 100% useless, I got into WordPress and started working on my own blog and many other websites. I’ve created over 100 sites on the platform since then.
I think my best performing site is my local news one, Lugojeanul, which covers events and stories in my hometown. This site is almost 8 years old, yet it’s still the most important source of information for the nearly 50.000 inhabitants of the city. Countless other sites in fields such as the media, real estate, beauty, guides, blogs, furniture, acting, you name it, came afterwards.
The team behind Magic Agency
It’s a small team we have here at Magic Agency, but that’s because we’re still a “boutique” agency. We don’t need a lot of people since we’re only working on about 1-3 websites a month. There’s me, and I’m doing about 60% of the work right now, including development, design, theme implementation, bugs, content, everything. Then there’s my colleague who’s on taxes.
I just got a friend on board to take care of the blog part of our website since I’m all for SEO and creating organic client funnels towards our services. She’s doing great and delivered the first articles. Besides them, I’m also working on a freelancing basis with a designer and a full-time programmer, just for those sites that are a little more advanced than the usual WordPress implementation.
Creating Magic Agency
All right, you’re here for the actual implementation of the idea of Magic Agency into the creative agency it is today. So background and story aside, here’s how I’ve actually done it, starting with a mission, a website, launching, grabbing the first few clients (yes, I know what word I’m using, and you’ll see why in a bit) delivering the first few projects, advertising, profits, and the rest.
Step 1: A magical mission
Any good company starts with a mission, which derives from a need. In my small town, the need for a creative agency has been present forever. Why wouldn’t you start this years ago then, you might ask? Lack of time. But now, when I’ve grown enough to be able to manage my time properly, I can accommodate at least a few hours a day for the agency alone. What is the mission?
The mission of Magic Agency is to create a fast, reliable, good looking and functional website for the small and medium-sized businesses in a small 50.000-people town and surrounding areas. Yes, we’ve now had clients from all over the country, but when we launched, that was our boutique agency status. You call us, and then you are online in days. Just like magic!
Step 2: The website
The first step towards creating a web development agency was to make our own website. And surely, since we’re exclusive with WordPress, we used the same platform and created a simple website anyone could use. It was up in about two weeks and only set us back around $100, including hosting. It’s not much, but we aimed for simplicity and ease of use, and we got it.
Step 3: Launching day
Most people think that once your website is live, that’s that. Clients just come flocking in and drowning you with orders and requests. Well, surprise surprise, that wasn’t the case. Launching your product or service is as important as doing a great job at creating it. On our launch day, which was February 1st, we let everybody know that we’re up and running. EVERYONE.
We messaged our friends asking for a like or two (yes, you can do that with friends you’re talking to at least once a week, it’s okay!) and emailed the entire list of contacts, then posted about our launch on our social media, the local media and everywhere else. And sure enough, hours later on our launch day, we’ve managed to get our very first client. So… launch day: important!
Step 4: Our first few clients
The very first client of “Magic Agency” came to us on launch day. She was a woman in dire need of a website for her beauty salon. Within days, we had a pre-site ready for her, and then just turned it into exactly what she wanted it to be. Months later, the site is doing good and started to drive new clients through the doors of the salon. Then we designed a real estate website, which was a tad more complex, challenging, but very rewarding when ready.
Step 5: Never leave a card unturned
The most important thing we’ve learned so far is that the client needs to be 120% satisfied with the final product. Even when they say they are 100% good with the site, you need to step up and ask them again if they’re sure there’s not 20% left for them to check and improve. This is why it’s important to never leave any “card in the deck” unturned. All issues can be solved.
The ones that can’t be solved are the ones you don’t know about. And when you find out about them, weeks later, in forms of complaints through other people, it’s too late. The client has moved on and, although it would’ve taken you 5 minutes to solve the issue, the lack of communication has made it so that they’re unhappy and so they won’t push your services to their friends. The best promotion you can have is through word-of-mouth, in this business.
Step 6: Promoting our services
We’ve so far been lucky enough to not require any paid ads for our agency. It’s all about organically raising the traffic on our site and social media channels for now. And so far, we’ve been able to withstand the schedule of posting on Facebook and Instagram once a week, as well as stories and comments on other days. And now posting on our blog twice a month. Besides that, we’ve spent about $50 on advertising, but the results were not great.
Step 7: Profitability margins
We turned profitable from an initial investment of $500 in the first month (actually first two weeks) scoring our first three clients, who’ve paid for services worth $2.245. Since then, over the past 4 months or so, we’ve managed to score two large clients worth thousands of USD, as well as 5 other smaller clients who’ve asked for content, design, or other web services.
The initial investment was returned at least 10 times by now, and in terms of spendings, Magic Agency has barely needed any advertisement (we did some test runs of some ads, but never actually needed to do so for lack of clients, for example) which means that besides the website’s expenses (domains, themes, hosting) and taxes, most money was profit for us.
Step 8: Growth
In terms of growing, so far we’re good with this level of work and stability. We’re still a boutique (I love that word, I’m sorry for overusing it!) agency, so we’re enjoying the slow, natural growth without doing more than promoting our own content with our base of clients, word-of-mouth, and the other free stuff. In terms of growth, Magic Agency is on a light, slow, but steady incline.
Step 9: Expanding our market’s area
Speaking of expansion, we’re set to turn Magic Agency into a national deal. We’ve landed our first deal from Bucharest for a sunglasses website, but we also want to grab more medium and high-paying customers for our little creative den. We will focus on delivering the best product possible and relying on blog posts, reviews, and our portfolio for slow, steady growth.
Step 10: The future of Magic Agency
Magic Agency will never grow into a full-blown creative agency. We love it as a small, boutique (there it is again, that word!) agency catering to small and medium clients, and sometimes larger ones if we decide to go further for some. We will, but we’ll never go overboard. Why? Because being small or medium-sized in terms of business is fun, comfortable, and profitable.
Why try to expand into something much more when the current affairs work wonderfully?
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Hei, just a quick thing before you leave:
First, nice of you to read thus far, it means that you’ve enjoyed my writing!
I’m not here to ask you for any likes, shares, or comments, although that would be cool of you! Instead, I’m offering you a chance to have an even better piece, sort of like this one, but better, written for you by a content creator. That would be me! Check out my Services, Portfolio and Testimonials pages for details. And then shoot me an email at the address you’ll find on the Contact page.
If you’re a freelancer like me and are confused about learning how to make money online, especially through writing but also programming, design, or social media management, you can buy my book. It’s called “From 0 To $2543 A Month With A Crappy Laptop – The Freelancing Course From A Self-Made Content Creator Boss” and you can find it on Amazon at 50% off!
