-performing marketing agencies should focus on the importance of focus

In , my previous article, I discussed why creative marketing teams should break away from outdated operating models in order to ensure their longevity. This framework outlined five steps to create a high-performing company.

• Proposition – Aligning and concentrating the efforts of your marketing agency or in-house agency with a focussed vision, positioning strategy, and value proposition.
• Principles – Unifying people through a common set of operating principles that guide them in how to collaborate, communicate, lead, and make decisions in work.
• People – Aligning organization structure, staffing, and professional development opportunities in order to deliver vision, strategy, and value proposition.
• Process – Use lightweight processes and tools to achieve nimble working methods.
• Performance – Analyzing, improving and measuring the efficiency of your agency or firm.

This article will discuss “Proposition” and why it is important to align your organization’s efforts using a focused vision and positioning strategy. You can also use my course to get started.

Building your foundation for focus

Today, there is no barrier to starting a creative marketing company. Talented individuals are starting their own businesses or joining matchmaking and talent communities. There are many marketing and creative service providers flooding the market.

CMOs are also bringing in increasing numbers of work within the company. Many in-house production studios have evolved and become better-known as agencies and in-house production companies.

Your organization must be a leader in -focused expertise to thrive in this environment. This is the only way to stand out from the crowd of similarity.

Marketing clients prefer to work with “best-in class” partners who have a narrow and deep understanding of the industry, rather than offering a wide range of low-value services. We are no longer able to provide all types of services for all clients.

It’s difficult to offer a broad range of services today. It is costly, inefficient, and leads to chaotic operating environments.

Focus: This is how it scales. You can:

• Concentrate your resources on a cohesive strategy.
• You can quickly improve your staff’s skills, your services, and your internal working methods by focusing on a single or a few solutions.
• Because they offer the same service areas, you can deploy people’s expertise to a large client base.
• It is easy to maintain alignment between strategy and operating model, as well as day-to-day decision making.

Your organization will be more productive and easier if you are able to focus. Focus can help you produce more work which will improve your ability to recruit, retain and motivate employees.

Develop a differentiated positioning strategy that is focused and distinctive

Creative marketing agencies that succeed align their resources around a specific and differentiated positioning strategy are successful. They focus on their core competencies and the things they excel at while outsourcing or shedding other distracting or costly capabilities.

They are able to enjoy a wide range of benefits.

• For creative marketing agencies:
  • For the ideal client, you need to have a clear criteria.
  • You are playing to your strengths, which results in a higher win rate in new business.
  • Pricing power that is stronger
  • Reduced costs
  • Higher margins
  • You will have a better understanding of how to spend your time, money, and resources.
  • Clients looking for your expertise are open to a wider geographic market.
  • There are fewer competitors who can do what you can.
• For agencies in-house:
  • Clarity about which internal clients are your best at serving
  • Client alignment is stronger about when and how you work with your team.
  • It is easier to find opportunities to work with higher-value projects.
  • Clients and stakeholders will be more trusting of you.
  • Most likely to be considered a strategic partner.
  • Reduce agency-wide expenses
  • More funding and support for staffing and tools
  • There is less competition and overlap with other firms.

Charting your course for the future

These are the four questions that will help you develop a unique positioning strategy.

1. Who is our greatest customer? Which markets and audiences are we most familiar with?

Determining a successful positioning strategy requires understanding and clearly defining your ideal client — the clients you are best suited for.

This involves looking at your experience in different market segments, business models, and audiences, depending on who you have served.

This may be a good way to identify:

• Your product or service category that you are good at.
• You should choose the best distribution and delivery channels.
• You know the best internal and external stakeholders.
• You know more about the types of markets and audiences you serve than anyone.
• Which brands are best for you.

Example of a creative marketing company

Agency Sacks defines its who to be “affluent customers.” They are able to influence the affluent by knowing the best audience.

Example of an in-house agency

ESPN’s CreativeWorks defines their who are sports fans. This makes perfect sense.

2. What is our core competency? Which areas are we truly the best-in class?

It is important to go beyond the ability to identify and discover what you can do better in a reliable, distinctive way.

Take a look at:

• Your team might have unique skills.
• You know the best communication channels.
• Contacts with customers who are most familiar to you during the customer journey
• Unique strategic assets you own.
• Your clients will always seek out your results.
• You can provide benefits repeatedly.

These are two different ways to look at the same question. We often find patterns by breaking down services into different skills or abilities. We can then reorganize them to tell an engaging story about your true strengths.

Exemple

Tribe has refocused their what on internal communications. They also work with their who – the best audience they know is the employees of national and global brands.

3. What is it that makes us different in our thinking? Are there any different approaches or philosophies that we use?

This is how you determine the values, beliefs, and standards that your agency uses to serve clients and make day-to-day decisions. It also involves the unique approaches you use to solve client problems.

Consider:

• These are the beliefs and philosophies that drive your work.
• Your methods and approaches
• Your “firsts” as well as major organizational milestones.
• Access to specialized resources.
• Your views on organizational structure, design and work environment.

These questions might appeal to creative marketing agencies and in-house agencies. This requires less effort and sacrifice than basing your strategy around the who, what question. However, it is not a good strategy to go easy.

Few organizations have a unique approach or philosophy to their work.

Exemple

TBWA is a prime example of a positioning strategy that relies on the question How. The company is the king of disruption. TBWA is the only agency that can claim to be the “Disruption Company”. They have created tools, disruption workshops, disruption days, and four books about the subject.

4. Why did we even exist? What is our purpose?

The most successful marketing agencies have a compelling reason to exist. They don’t allow the market, competition, or financials to dictate their reasons for existence.

What is the driving force behind your organization? Your purpose should be at the core of your organization’s identity.

Why is so difficult to answer. These are some ways to help you define your calling.

• What is our purpose beyond making money?
• What would motivate our employees to volunteer if they were volunteers?
• What are the things that we will do forever?
• What are the things that we won’t do?
• What are we supposed to preach?
• What are we up against?
• What are we fighting for?
• What would you want to accomplish if you knew that failure was impossible?

Exemple

Common Good’s Why is important? Because it makes happiness and health accessible to everyone, they are fighting for brands who share this goal.

Another example of an in-house agency positioning

In-house agencies will position themselves based on the people they know best. This will include their brand and their customer base. Some examples include:

• BBC Creative
• Anheuser Busch’s Draftline
• Google’s Creative Lab 5 and their Brand Studio EMEA

Many agencies in-house design their services to be full-service.

The question is still important because it can be used as a way to communicate what type of creative work an agency in-house is most suited to do. Are you more skilled in production or creative strategy?

Unfortunately, there are no in-house agencies that can answer why or how in a unique way on a publicly available website. Please share any examples.

Next steps towards becoming a highly-performing marketing agency

You can create a positioning strategy for your organization by answering the above questions. This will help you to create your operating model and bring your plan to life.

The post Why focus matters for high-performing marketing agencies was first published on MarTech.