Let’s Do This

Starting Up A Digital Marketing Agency

Starting Up

What made us go with a start up as a form of investment?

The Niche

We needed something to change a saturated market. A twist on traditional digital marketing.

Scaling

How we took a small team, and made it compete on international levels.

The Exit Strategy

We set out what we wanted to achieve, now we had to maximise our returns.

Overview

Our flagship investment came as a start-up. A company that was originally just a small concept, that we personally grew into a full digital marketing agency. It is not traditional for Private Equity firms to start-up companies, in fact, it probably couldn’t be classed as a Private Equity deal as it falls so far outside of the lines. That’s just what we do here at Amadea, ignore labels and focus on goals. This flagship investment will always be one that we look back fondly on, it was our very first investment and we’re so proud of what we achieved. 

With only £5000 pledged from one single investor (the CEO), a digital marketing agency by the name of HAD Digital LTD was born. We knew a digital marketing agency in the South of England was a tough space to navigate, and we also believe in not trying to be something that we’re not. Naturally, a team of two couldn’t really go around saying that they were a fully-fledged digital marketing agency, nor did they want to. So we had to come up with an offering which allowed us to be transparent but also provide a USP. 

Project

Start-Up, Private Investment

Company

HAD Digital

What We Did

Digital Marketing & Business Development

Starting Up

The USP we chose for HAD Digital was ‘freelancers, that can provide agency-level support to marketing agencies, allowing them to white-label our services and pass them off as their own’. What did agency-level support mean? Well, simply put it meant that we can provide a back-up team to marketing agencies. 

Most freelancers operate as a single individual. If they get ill, or want to take some downtime, or can’t work for whatever reason, this leaves their clients with no quick and easy solution (unless they have backup plans in place). This is where HAD Digital came in. By having a team with one single account manager to handle all of the communication bet HAD and the agency, the agency still gets the ‘freelancer’ feeling that they’re working with a single individual when the reality is they’re being supported by an entire team. If the account manager were unable to make it to work, another team member would instantly swap in who has already been working closely with the marketing projects. This meant, that the client (the marketing agency) no longer had to brief new contractors on projects, it’s all handled by HAD Digital. 

The Niche

Instant Account Manager Replacement

If the account manager (acting as a freelancer) was ill or wanted to take some downtime, then the marketing agency wouldn’t be affected. Another member of the team will automatically switch in.

Skillset Diversification

With a wider team supporting the account manager, it means that there are numerous skill sets available. Now a marketing agency doesn’t have to go anywhere else to find the right person to fulfill a project’s needs.

White Labeling

HAD Digital essentially allows Marketing Agencies to completely use our team as theirs. In fact, there’s a client of HAD’s that operated as its own marketing agency, whereas HAD was covering all of the proposal writing, account management, strategising and execution of the client’s marketing.

Agency Rates – Freelancer Pricing

By not investing in office locations, keeping the team small, and optimising our workflows we were able to keep a competitive pricing to what you would expect to pay a freelancer. That way we weren’t outbidding ourselves when pitching for business.

Marketing Approach

HAD was able to pitch for businesses as a Freelancer, which are much easier opportunities to find online than regular marketing contracts, which tend to be inbound.

Scaling Plan

SEO Strategy

Rank at the top of Google in line with the SEO Strategy to ensure that HAD Digital appears for ‘Digital Marketing Freelancer’ search terms, or similar.

01

PPC Strategy

Bid on certain keywords within certain niches where prospects would be looking for specific ‘experts’ that can deal with digital marketing in their niche.

02

Reach out to prospects

Agency clients would always be posting whether they were looking for a freelancer. Keeping our eyes peeled on the internet HAD can analyse for postings of agencies looking for freelancers. HAD could not do this if it were a traditional marketing agency.

03

Using a rinse-and-repeat method across the board with all of these growth strategies HAD Digital managed to scale to six figures within a year, and employed a total team of 8. To this day (16/10/2023), HAD Digital provides a marketing agency service that is rare to find. Offering marketing agency standard service at freelancer rates to individual businesses, and a freelancer service like no other to marketing agencies. 

The Exit Strategy

As time went on, we realised that with the growth in our Forex division, we would need to adjust a private equity portfolio to account for more passive incomes. Streamlining the amount of time we could realistically put into scaling businesses.

Fortunately, the stakeholders in HAD were very interested in acquiring the full 100% so we sold the portion of the company that we owned for £60,000.

Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.

ROI

2021
50%
2022
1200%
2023
1440%
2023
Successfully Sold in April 2023

Clients Worked With