Standing Out From the Crowd
One humid evening in late May I attended an agency networking event an hour from my house. About 30 of us, all agency leaders, were mingling in the lobby of a very cool production studio and the introductions were flowing. After about 45-minutes we moved into an event space where our host welcomed us and began listing all the agencies in attendance.
That’s when it hit me. The difference between the introductions we just shared in conversation and the laundry list of introductions we were now hearing.
Each agency name was followed by a brief description:
…a creative digital agency
…a brand identity agency
…a digital & brand strategy agency
…a creative agency
…a media strategy agency
…a digital marketing agency
…a digital experience agency
Gulp.
The guy sitting next to me literally leaned over and said, “this is like an advertisement for better positioning”.
I couldn’t agree more.
And look, I realize the guy giving the introductions just combed everyone’s website and made a quick list. These are bound to sound similar.
But at the same time, how do you think potential clients create their agency lists?
Exactly. It’s one person combing everyone’s website and making a quick list.
So the question is, what are we going to do about it?
What to do with your positioning
I’ve written about agency positioning before and have gotten into specific details, but the reality is that your positioning can’t just be something that you explain during introductions at a networking event. It needs to permeate into every aspect of your firm.
A worthy goal? Make sure someone researching your firm can’t write a one sentence description that sounds like every other agency.
A practical approach to doing that means breaking down the pull through of your positioning - how it spreads across your agency.
I’m sure this exists somewhere, but I haven’t seen it before so I’m going to put my version out there. If it feels like I’m stealing your stuff, send me receipts and I’ll link to it.
There’s a pyramid for agency growth and positioning pull through. I don’t mean that in a fancy diagram type way (clearly, with my handiwork below) but in an actual structural way. There are building blocks that go on the bottom and need to be there for the blocks above them to rest on.
Positioning
Positioning is the basis for agency growth. Simply put, positioning informs everything else. It sets your targets - who you serve and how you serve them. It could be horizontal or it could be vertical. Setting your positioning is easy for some firms and hard for others - it depends on how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how easy it is for you to say “no” and get specific. If you’re struggling with positioning, we can help.
But this post isn’t about setting positioning, so much as it’s about what to do with that positioning. Read here and here for more thoughts about defining a market position.
Messaging
The biggest mistake typically happens here, at the second level. We set a positioning and promptly disregard it or immediately start to make exceptions as we develop messaging. However, for all intents and purposes, your messaging is your positioning. It’s the version of your positioning that the outside world sees. Potential clients didn’t do the workshop or strategy session with you, all they see is the pithy one-liner on your website that leads to the “strategic brand design agency” descriptions.
This is the hardest part of the entire exercise - and the most important. It takes the most guts. It is not the time for compromise. My best advice? Create a simple messaging guide stating who you serve, what they want, why they can’t get it, and how you can help. Use this guide to inform every piece of public-facing copy out there.
Strategy
Level three, the strategy level is where things can start to accelerate and get fun or become extremely messy.
Unfortunately, if you haven’t pulled your positioning through to your messaging, creating a growth strategy is going to be difficult. You’re going to get stuck trying to answer the same questions you struggled with earlier as you devise a plan to attract leads.
However, if you have made a commitment to position-informed messaging, creating a strategy is a breeze. Specific, expert-backed positioning has a clearly addressable target audience, so defining a strategy to reach that audience becomes intuitive. It’s simply a matter of determining how your firm is best set up to do it (content creation, outbound email, events, etc.).
You may not nail it on the first take, but this strategy level is where you can start to iterate.
When you’re remodeling a house you rarely lay a new foundation. Similarly, resist the temptation to rethink your positioning and messaging. If you’ve built a strong base, the problem is typically in how you’re bringing that expertise to bear (your strategy and tactics).
Tactics
The tip of the pyramid is how you’re going to actually generate warm leads for your agency. Your strategy might outline an approach to content creation, but your tactics are how you’re actually going to execute on those details. It’s the most tedious level and the one you’re probably going to have to update and refine the most.
In reality, most agency principals don’t have time to worry about the tactics. Other than a very specific area of ownership (perhaps it’s speaking at events or writing a monthly piece of thought leadership), they shouldn’t. This is work that should be delegated to an internal team member or outsourced to a firm like ours to test, repeat, test, repeat…
One thing to keep in mind here - and something that is the responsibility of agency leadership - just because it’s tedious doesn’t mean it shouldn’t clearly reflect your positioning even at the tactical level. Email subject lines, podcast boilerplate, event abstracts - all of these things matter and are an opportunity to cement your expertise.
As they say, how you do anything is how you do everything - make sure it’s being done well and conveys exactly who you are and why you’re different.
