The Action of Agency Positioning
Identifying your agency’s niche is not the hard part of positioning. The hard part is taking that knowledge and turning it into something meaningful and real.
Your agency started out as an idea. A kernel in your brain of what could eventually be. But at some point, you moved it out of your brain into the real world. That may have been pitching a potential business partner, sketching out a website, writing out a business plan, etc.
The point is, you took that idea and made it into a thing.
That was the most important step. Taking that idea out of your brain and formalizing it in some way. As soon as you made that decision, the chances of success shot way up.
When it comes to your agency’s niche, your positioning, what makes you different - it’s the same thing. You can have the idea in your head but until you take action to make that concept a reality, put it out there publicly in a clear way, it means nothing.
If you’re ready to take that step and carve out a niche for your agency, here are the three things you need to do first:
Ask an outsider to for their opinion
You may think that you already serve a niche and have positioned your agency well in the market. If so, you have nothing to fear. Ask a few people outside of the firm (or ask us!) to review two things: your website and your top competitors' websites. Ask them to spend no more than five minutes answering these questions:
Who is our target audience (be as specific as possible)?
What problems does our agency solve?
What makes our agency different from our competition?
If you’ve positioned yourself well and have a clear message, it shouldn’t take that long for someone to answer all these questions clearly, with specificity, and in the way you want.
But if you’re like most of us, you’ll get some polite and positive answers that are incredibly vague.
Then you move to step #2.
2. Write down who you don’t serve
It’s uncomfortable to put up boundaries around our work and our market. It means saying no. It means passing on opportunities. But chances are, you’re already passing on some work and know the types of clients you want to avoid. Start there.
Create a bulleted list of non-desirable client characteristics. That might look something like this:
Types of clients that are not a good fit for your agency:
Companies still trying to find product market fit
B2B companies (you are exclusively B2C focused)
Companies that want to be cheap about investing in brand
Companies looking for overnight results
Etc…
These characteristics will be unique to your firm but, as you can see, should include a mix of hard (industry, size, etc.) and soft (values, style, etc.) traits.
Tip: Don’t be afraid to post this on your website, include in your “contact us” forms, and anywhere else potential clients live. Clients with listed characteristics only waste your time and listing these somewhere encourages good client behavior.
3. Create your Magic Message
Now that you’ve thought about the clients you don’t want to work with (that list is longer than you thought, right?), start thinking about the best clients you’ve served in the past and the dream clients of the future.
What problems are they facing?
How does your agency solve those problems?
What are the outcomes they’re expecting?
WIth that thinking in hand, start creating your firm’s Magic Message.
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Positioning your firm is an active game. If you’re being passive, you’re not even playing yet.
