Starting a media company is hard and really challenging.
It’s endless working hours, frustration, uncertainty, repeated failure, hundreds of outreaches, and tons of rejections. But if you do make it work, the outcome is very rewarding. In the US, the average annual pay for the media industry is 120,163/yr.
However, for you to run a digital media company full-time and make a living out of this, you must come prepared with proper planning, a clear vision, and ultimately be willing to put in the hard work.
In this guide, we will show you step-by-step how to start a profitable media company, what it takes to get started, and which tools you can use to streamline your business.
TL;DR – Starting a Media Company in 10 Steps
Short on time? Here is a snapshot of the steps that we have covered in this blog:
- Define Your Niche
- Create a Business Plan
- Legal Formation and Registration
- Build a Team
- Develop Your Platform
- Content Creation
- Marketing and Audience Building
- Monetization
- Analyze and Optimize
- Scale Your Business
Executing all these steps as a first-time agency owner is often challenging enough to demotivate most entrepreneurs. With Prospecting On Demand, you get hands-on guidance and support by joining any of our three dedicated programs (and grow your agency to 6 or even 7 figures).
Benefits of Starting a Media Company
Starting a media company comes with several benefits. Some include:
- Minimal experience required: You can start a media agency without prior experience, certification, or qualification. It’s only you and your desire to achieve.
- Unlimited income potential: How much you can make is entirely up to you. The higher your business skills and the more time/hard work you put into your agency, the more you’ll make.
- Flexibility: You get to put as many hours as needed into building something you’re genuinely proud of.
- Independence and autonomy: You’re your own boss. You can decide how and when you work, set goals independently, implement your own strategies, and focus on things that matter to you and your audience.
- Make a positive impact: There are tons of amazing influencers out there using media to impact society positively.
- Scalable: Easily transferable skills. Armed with the right skills, you can start a podcast, a YouTube channel, or anything else to reach a wider audience.
Types of Media Companies
Per definition, a media company is any type of business that produces and shares content with a specific audience using diverse channels. You can divide media into two main categories: digital and traditional.
Digital media refers to any information shared online through digital devices. This includes:
- Websites and Blogs
- Social media
- Podcasts
- Streaming platforms (audio or video)
- Webinars
- Advertisement
Traditional media, on the other hand, is generally centralized and communicates to a mass anonymous audience using any outlet other than the Internet. Think:
- Magazine
- Newspaper
- Billboard
- TV
- Radio
- Direct mail
What Does a Media Company Do? Services Explained
A media company exists for one primary goal — to produce and share content with an already established audience. The goal is not just to entertain or inform but to foster meaningful relationships with potential customers and build a sense of community around a brand.
As a media agency, you will generally have a content creation process in place. You will decide what to produce, when, for whom, at which frequency, and where to publish it.
So, you can offer services like:
- Content marketing: You can help clients establish an audience with content to help increase brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.
- Video production: Whether animated videos, explainer videos, broadcast videos, or anything else, this usually includes handling end-to-end video production – from raw footage to the final product.
- Search engine optimization services: You can help build online authority for brands and increase leads and revenue through SEO strategies.
- Digital advertising: You can also offer display advertisements, social media ads, search engine marketing (SEM), native ads, video ads, and PPC ads.
Media Company Examples
Here are some examples of media companies.
1. Fox Corporation
Fox Corporation mainly focuses on News and Sports. The company’s operational assets include Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations, Fox News Media, Fox Sports Media Group, and Tuning Streaming Service. It’s one of the most influential media conglomerates in the United States.
2. Marketing School Podcast
This is a marketing podcast. Neil Patel and Eric Siu bring you daily actionable digital marketing lessons they’ve learned throughout the years of their marketing careers.
3. Google
Google is another great example of a media company. They are the leader in the online search marketplace worldwide. As Google states, “Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” They offer services such as digital advertising, cloud computing, and software.
How to Build a Media Company in 10 Steps
The journey of building a media company can be full of potential for creativity and influence. Let’s look at a step-by-step path to take your vision from concept to reality.
1. Define Your Niche
Defining your niche is about finding the focus of your business and the problem it helps solve. For example, if you choose to be an agency (create media for clients), consider the following questions:
- Who do you want to sell to?
- Is it SaaS, education, retail, or real estate?
- Why should they even consider buying your services?
- What challenges are they facing that you can help solve?
This is what will eventually help you build a loyal customer base and a brand around your product/services.
You should conduct your own market research to identify what products people are already using and identify where there are service gaps your business can fill.
2. Create a Business Plan
A business plan details your company’s goals and how you plan to achieve them. At Prospecting On Demand, our mentorship programs help you crack the code on all this and more to scale your agency to 6 (even 7) figures.
The key elements of a business plan include:
- Executive business summary
- Product and services description
- Market overview
- Marketing strategy
- Organization and management
You can choose between a traditional plan (more detailed plan) or a lean startup plan (which only features key elements).
3. Legal Formation and Registration
Before starting your media company, you must register your business and make it official. Most media companies choose LLC as their business structure. It’s usually simple and inexpensive to form, and it can offer a flexible management and ownership structure.
Next, you must register your business with the IRS and get your employer identification number (EIN). You can then use your EIN to open a business account and hire employees.
Feel free to visit this legal encyclopedia to learn more.
4. Build a Team
When starting out, you’ll have to do everything by yourself—from planning, producing, distributing, outreaching, and measuring success to managing your finances. But as your business grows, so will your audience’s needs.
You’ll need to build a team and outsource basic tasks like content creation, publishing, and accounting. This will free up time for you to focus on new revenue streams to scale your business and maximize your profit.
5. Develop Your Platform
A platform is where people come to learn about your company, product, and services. You want to choose a platform that aligns with your business goals and that your audience already uses. Consider social media, streaming, a website, or a mobile app.
Your platform should include your brand’s story, a clear value proposition, a detailed product description, a way to contact you, and customer testimonials.
6. Content Creation
Each piece of content you produce needs to go through five general steps:
- Ideation
- Planning
- Creation
- Editing
- Publishing
‘Great’ content is valuable, clear, user-centered, and concise. Here are a few tips to follow to create content that drives business results:
- Create content with a clear goal and your audience in mind
- Keep an editorial calendar
- Repurpose your content regularly
- Establish your brand voice
- Be consistent across channels
7. Marketing and Audience Building
There are several ways to promote your content, such as SEO, social media, email newsletters, paid ads, online communities, being a guest on a podcast, events, meet-ups, and more. You can either outsource to a dedicated marketing agency or do it yourself. It’s up to you.
In theory, building an audience is simple — you just need to start posting valuable content. But to build a loyal audience, you need to trade consistency. You need to be able to do the doing without obsessing over the results of your doing and commit to it over time.
8. Monetization
With a digital media company, you can generate revenue in different ways. You can do affiliate marketing, sponsored content, display ads, or offer membership and subscription. You can also establish your media company as a service-based company where people pay for your services.
9. Analyze and Optimize
This process is important because it’s going to tell you how you can better help your audience, what they expect from you, as well as the type of content that resonates well with them.
So, just like any other good marketing practice, you need to analyze your marketing efforts, see what’s working and what’s not, identify areas of improvement, and then optimize for your future campaigns.
10. Scale Your Business
As you start growing, the demand for your service will do so as well. The best way to scale your media business is to expand your reach to attract a larger audience and generate more revenue. Or sell the same thing to a more qualified audience.
To do that, you need to:
- Build a strong team
- Go upmarket
- Widen your niche
- Offer adjacent services
- Work on strategic partnerships
- Be consistent
- Rinse and repeat
Investment Requirements to Get Started
You don’t need a considerable investment when getting started. You can even start for free and scale as you grow.
Here are some essential investments to take into consideration:
- Content creation tools: $8-$60/mo. Most of them offer free plans as well.
- Website hosting: $2-$15/ mo for shared hosting and $80-$500/mo for dedicated hosting.
- Domain name: $10-$20/yr on average.
- Marketing & Advertising: You can start organically, and the paid ads option may range from $50-$500+/mo.
- Podcasts: $100-$5000/mo on average.
Do keep in mind that this is just to give you an idea of what it would take to start a media company. Ultimately, the investment required may vary depending on the type of media service you want to offer.
How Can I Attract and Retain Talent?
You need to become obsessed with employee experience to attract and retain talent. 76% of employees would look for better opportunities if they don’t feel valued. And a good onboarding leads to 69% of them staying for at least 3 years.
Here are some ways you can use to bring in talent.
- Build a comprehensive employee benefits package
- Offer a competitive salary
- Recognize your employees
- Provide growth opportunities
- Build a company culture
- Provide a meaningful work environment
You need to ask yourself what it feels like to work for your company.
- How are new members treated by their coworkers?
- How are they treated by their management and leadership?
- Do you care enough? Do you celebrate people?
Essential Technology and Tools
The specific tools you’ll need may vary depending on the services you offer, but generally you’ll need:
- Social media marketing tools (Keyhole, Quu, Hootsuite, etc.)
- Graphic design tools (Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, Canva, etc.),
- Content creation tool (Jasper, Grammarly, InShot, etc.)
- Email marketing tools(MailChimp, ActiveCampaigns, etc.),
- SEO tools (Ahrefs, Mangools, KWFinder, etc.),
- Project management tool (Wrikek, Zoho, Asana, etc.)
Conclusion
Two words define long-term success in the media industry: relevance and consistency. Use these 10 steps as the basic foundation for starting your media company. Just remember, there are no shortcuts to success. It takes time, effort, and consistency. Get comfortable doing uncomfortable things, and you’ll eventually see success.
That is precisely what we help you with at Prospecting On Demand with our three programs – Elite, Scale7, and Core. Depending on where you are in your journey and what your goals are, we will help you unlock impact-driven marketing that adds an additional $100k to your bottom line.