Starting a social media marketing consulting firm

I suggest creating mini-packages based on the services you provide and with a separate monthly management fee at 2 to 4 levels (project management, account management, analytics management all together fee–the analytics management assumes you provide insights vs. information from the analytics). I would try to stay away from strictly hourly, but my fee schedule would likely be based around a loose version of what I thought I was worth so that if a client asked me, I could provide an estimate.

Likely small business verticals:
1) Real estate
2) Lawyers
3) Recruiters
4) Financial services
5) Consultants (Speakers, Trainers, Consultants, etc…)
6) Creatives/Marketers
7) Wedding Photographers/Wedding Vertical

8) Plumbers

9) Doctors
Each has a separate strategy that seems to apply to it. I would obviously try to focus on the 2 or 3 that made the most sense from a strategy and passion perspective.

Social Media & Digital Marketing Firm Business Model (Version 1):
* Content Strategy
* Online PR/Blogger Relations
* Content Creation
* Listening strategy (including analytics)

Social Media Firm & Digital Marketing Business Model (Version 2):
* Landing page to list-bait and/or Sale page that converts
* Email content (aka autoresponder)
* Listening strategy (including analytics and CRM)

Social Media Firm & Digital Marketing Business Model (Version 3: More options):
* Training/Educational programs (WordPress, online copywriting, community building,  Linked In, B2B strategies, collaboration & productivity, time management, video, podcasting, linkbait strategies, etc..)
* Social media for internal communications and other functions
* Other online marketing functions & integration with offline campaigns

I think charging one fee doesn’t quite make sense unless you speak to a specific industry you are serving, because thats when you can really understand what the specific value proposition & ROI is.

Benchmarking versus firms can be helpful, but a solo practitioner is really providing a different service is 95% of cases intellectual capital wise. Although its certainly nice to be able to say that these five small business firms charge X, while I charge Y–suggesting to potential clients that the alternatives are more expensive.