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How to craft an agency positioning that stands out

new business strategy Apr 23, 2021

Often Marketing Directors complain that all agencies say the same thing and there’s little to differentiate one agency over another.

"Your positioning statement or elevator pitch needs to stand out, it should be unique and above all tell the customer exactly what you do."

Having a clear positioning will help you set yourself apart from the competition and attract the best possible clients.

Agency Positioning for New Business Development

Read below for my 5 key steps that you should follow when crafting your agency positioning.

1. Understand why you exist?

Go back to the beginning to understand why the agency was set up. Even though this may have been some years ago and the agency may have evolved massively since then you still need to understand why you exist. What is the purpose of the agency and what are you striving to achieve? Is it to create award-winning work, is it to make a difference to the environment or is it to impact on a client’s bottom line for example? There tends to be reasons why agencies exist beyond generating profits. Understand these reasons, speak to the founders, agency heads and other employees to hear their thoughts and opinions and write these down.

2. Understand your audience?

It’s not just about the kind of clients you have worked with in the past or your dream list clients. You need to understand who your best client is, the one that has both inspired your team and generated profits. What are their characteristics – considering their size, their turnover, where they are in their life cycle, the team you work with, the challenges they face.

What kind of companies do you like working with the most and where you can do the best work? Think about those companies and understand what their challenges and pain points are.

3. Understand what you do?

Often it’s helpful to look at all your previous clients and list out your work in a grid by sector and by discipline to help you see where your strengths are.  Are there any areas where you excel in?  What is the one thing that threads all your work together that’s better than other agencies? How do you provide value to your clients? What areas of work does the creative team like working on the most and what areas are the most profitable? Often, unfortunately, they aren’t the same and so you will need to find that balance. Are there any areas of your work or services that you offer that are unique or innovative or different from your competitors?

4. Why do clients work with you and why should someone else want to work with you?

How do you work with clients and how do you make their job easier? What processes do you follow, is there anything unique about your approach, what is your culture and what things do you stand for? What are your values and guiding principles? It may help to ask some of your clients these questions – questions like why they chose you and why they continue to work with you.

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5. What is the one problem you can solve?

Understanding your audience is about understanding what their challenges are and how you can solve them. When crafting your agency positioning make sure it has your audience in mind. When crafting your agency positioning make sure it has your audience in mind. It needs to be about them and the problem they have that you can solve.

Once you have worked through the above questions, summarise it into one simple positioning statement. Avoid using agency jargon, keep the language simple. Bring it all together into a statement that says what you do, who you do it for, why you do it and how. Share it with the agency and get feedback and then live and breathe your positioning. Make sure your website, how you work, and all your communications reflect this positioning.

GRAB MY FREE AGENCY POSITIONING TEMPLATE

If you are working on your agency positioning and would benefit from some external feedback, feel free to message me and I’ll happily give you my thoughts. I’d love to help.

 Grab your free copy to my New Business Campaign Plan for Agencies: https://www.lucysnellonline.com/p/free-plan

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