Having a clear position helps your agency own a relevant space in the mind of your potential customers. Having the right positioning will convert many of your prospects into customers. This leads to the next point, which is, what should your agency offer: a single service, a few services or as many services as it can?
An agency that is a generalist provides all or most services in marketing and communication, for example, the making and distribution of press releases, social media campaigns, content, design, SEO, SEM, etc.. At the other side of the spectrum would be an agency that provides only one or very few services. This agency would have a horizontal positioning, that is, they specialize by service and not by customer.
The advantages of having a horizontal positioning are:
- Fewer conflicts of interest and a broader spectrum of customers to choose from since you can sell your services to any customer interested in that service.
- You can work with larger customers seeking a specialized agency in what you do.
- You can connect and associate with other agencies that also have a horizontal positioning which offer services that do not compete with yours.
- You can be a true expert in that service and provide much more value to a company seeking a specialist in that service.
If you are considering being specialized by service, keep in mind:
- That there are enough potential customers who value hiring an agency specialized in what you do. Think about if there is a strong relationship between this service and other services you do not offer, that is, if another agency offered an additional service to what you do which is highly related, would it be able to get better results than you?
- That you have a way to “find” these customers, that is, if you know they exist but do not know who they are or where to find them, you may end up in trouble.
If your agency is specialized in more than one service, look for a common position that includes the different services and is very relevant to your audience. For example, it would make little sense to specialize in press releases and web development, since it is difficult to link the two services under a common positioning that provides value to a customer. It would make much more sense positioning an agency that does content marketing and social media, since one service builds upon the other one.
All is not white or black, also look for the grays. It is not either be specialized only in one service or offer them all. Offer those services that make sense to your ideal customers and build upon your positioning.
If your agency offers many services, some of them unrelated, there are other options that can help you differentiate from other agencies, for example, specialization by industry or vertical positioning. A good example of vertical positioning is the case I shared a few days ago of the agency that had specialized in helping dentists get new customers online.
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