You’ve probably heard it before:
“Marketing agencies charge too much — I can do it myself!”
Sure you can. You can also fix your own transmission, build your own roof, and perform your own dental work. But should you?
Small and local service business owners are some of the smartest, hardest-working people on Earth. But marketing isn’t about effort — it’s about talent, time, tools, testing, and tech. It’s a full-time job (actually, several).
So, if you still think doing your own marketing sounds easy, here’s your simple, 21-step guide to building your own fully functional, data-driven, ROI-producing, content-generating, lead-tracking marketing system.
No big deal, right? 😉
🧩 PART 1: STRATEGY — The “Just Think About It” Phase
1️⃣ Identify Your Target Audience
Who are you selling to? Everyone? Wrong answer.
You need to define exactly who your best customers are — their needs, their income level, their pain points, and what keeps them up at night. The more specific, the better. Marketing to “everyone” means reaching no one.
2️⃣ Define Your Brand and Offerings
What makes your business different? Why should someone pick you instead of your competitor who’s been around longer and has 400 Google reviews?
You’ll need a crystal-clear value proposition, visual identity, and consistent voice across all platforms.
3️⃣ Set Your Goals
“Get more leads” isn’t a goal — it’s a wish.
Your goals need to be measurable: cost per lead, number of conversions, return on ad spend, etc. And yes, you’ll need a system to track all that (we’ll get there 👀).
4️⃣ Choose a Territory to Target
Unless you have a national brand, hyperlocal is your friend. Pick your best cities, zip codes, or service areas.
Pro tip: small geographic focus = lower ad costs and higher relevance.
5️⃣ Research Competitors’ Efforts
You’ll need to stalk your competitors. What keywords are they bidding on? What kind of content are they producing? What ads are they running? (Hint: this step alone can take hours.)
6️⃣ Find the Right Channels
Google Ads, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, SEO, blogs, email…
You only need to pick all the right ones and learn their individual ad policies, targeting tools, and optimization algorithms. Easy.
7️⃣ Create a Timeline and Budget
Now decide how much money and time you’ll burn through each month before realizing it’s harder than you thought.
You’ll need at least a 90-day plan to collect enough data to make smart adjustments.
💻 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT — The “Now You Actually Have to Build Stuff” Phase
8️⃣ Refine Your Brand
Design a professional logo, finalize your color palette, and make sure your branding looks great on everything from a billboard to a smartphone.
Consistency builds trust — and trust converts.
9️⃣ Update Your Website
Your website needs to be fast, mobile-friendly, SEO-optimized, and designed to convert traffic into leads.
That means forms, call tracking, analytics, and CTAs everywhere. And yes, all that requires plugins, integrations, and actual design skill.
🔟 Get a CRM to Store Data
A CRM helps you store and track every lead. Without one, your marketing data goes into the void.
If you’ve ever lost a lead because you “forgot to call them back,” you need this yesterday.
1️⃣1️⃣ Find the Right Team
You’ll need a designer, developer, ad manager, copywriter, SEO specialist, and someone to run the data and reporting.
Or… you could just hire one agency that already has all those people. 🤷♂️
1️⃣2️⃣ Connect Everything
Your website, ads, forms, CRM, and analytics all need to talk to each other.
If you’ve ever yelled at your computer while trying to make Google Tag Manager work, you know this step is pure fun.
1️⃣3️⃣ Integrate Reporting Tools
To know what’s working, you’ll need dashboards, call tracking, and data visualizations.
We recommend a live reporting dashboard that pulls data from multiple sources.
If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is.
1️⃣4️⃣ Build Your Ads and Launch
Finally, the fun part — creating ads! 🎨
Except you’ll need to write headlines, test visuals, split-test CTAs, and track performance. Launch day is just step one of a thousand.
🚀 PART 3: EXECUTION — The “Now You Have to Do It Forever” Phase
1️⃣5️⃣ Monitor the Campaigns
Daily. Because the internet never sleeps.
You’ll need to watch for performance dips, budget overspending, or platform policy changes.
1️⃣6️⃣ Track Call and Entry Sources
You need to know which ad or keyword triggered every call or form.
Without it, you’ll never know what’s driving your ROI.
1️⃣7️⃣ Be Responsive to Leads
Someone filled out your form or called? Great. Now call them back within five minutes or they’ll call your competitor.
1️⃣8️⃣ Report the Performance
Create monthly reports that explain what’s working, what’s not, and where your money went.
Spoiler: your clients (or you) will want this in a pretty dashboard, not a spreadsheet.
1️⃣9️⃣ Evaluate the Findings
Look for trends, wins, and failures. Adjust accordingly.
If you’re not comfortable living inside Google Analytics or Ads Manager, this part might feel like reading ancient Greek.
2️⃣0️⃣ Continuously Optimize It All
Change ad copy, tweak targeting, test landing pages, refine keywords — endlessly.
Because what worked yesterday might flop today.
2️⃣1️⃣ Document Your Processes
Every good marketer documents what worked so they can repeat it.
If you make it this far, congratulations — you’re already running your own small agency.
🧃 The Takeaway: Marketing Looks Easy, Until You Actually Do It
There you go — 21 easy steps to build your own marketing empire.
Totally simple, right? Just a few hundred hours, a dozen software subscriptions, a team of specialists, and a caffeine addiction later — you’re basically us.
Jokes aside, this is exactly what a real agency does for you every day:
- We build the strategy.
- We manage the systems.
- We optimize constantly.
- And we make it look easy.
So, if you’ve made it through this list and thought, “Wow, that sounds like a lot of work”…
You’re absolutely right.
👉 Hire us instead.
We’ll handle all 21 steps — and make sure your marketing doesn’t suck.
