7 Tips for How to Differentiate Your Agency for Competitive Advantage

There’s no question that competition in the digital marketing world is fierce today.

Old and new marketing agencies are scrambling to keep up with client demands, new technology, and evolving services that are changing the face of advertising and marketing.

Not knowing how to move past all the noise and get noticed, however, can be a challenge, but don’t lose heart.

With dedication, commitment, and a desire for digital transformation, you can accomplish your goals, grow your business, and stand out from the crowd.

In this post, learn everything you need to know on how to differentiate your agency.

Why Should Your Agency Stand Out?

Competition among marketing agencies expands beyond borders these days.

As a result, the noise can confuse, frustrate and overwhelm potential customers. In turn, they are looking for an agency to stand out and capture their attention, even rescue them from the chaos and make their decision easier.

With this double challenge of competition and client demand, your agency needs to find a way to cut through that deafening noise and get noticed. 

To do so, you’ll need to make your approach and offerings uniquely your own and highly attractive and beneficial to potential clients.

In other words, you’ll need to differentiate yourself. By doing so, you can:

• Attract and acquire new clients.
• Increase referrals and recommendations to your agency.
• Fill the needs of certain industries requiring specialized marketing services.
• Build trust and authority.

Differentiation provides a way to present yourself to prospects, showing what value you can provide and convincing them to hire you.

What are Potential Clients Looking for When Choosing an Agency?

When choosing an agency, potential customers take several factors into consideration.

Knowing what these factors are and how you can focus in on them provides a way for you to stand out.

These factors often include:

Goal Achievement and Outcomes

How can your agency assist the client in achieving objectives, goals, and desired outcomes? 

Find a way to clearly and confidently inform clients of the steps your marketing agency will strategically take to accomplish what they wish to achieve.

Availability and Project Timelines

How soon can your agency get to the client’s needs? Do you require weeks or months to complete a project or provide desired deliverables? 

Timing is crucial to clients, and they want to know you’re on board with what they need when they need it.

Pricing Options

Pricing is an essential factor for prospective clients when determining which agency to go with for their marketing needs. 

Make sure your pricing is transparent and easily accessible on your website so prospects won’t become frustrated and move on. 

Express and justify why any of your prices are higher than competitors. If lower than the competition, let them know why, such as your efficiency rate, use of valuable technology, or particular expertise.

Assurance of Team Makeup and Type of Collaboration

How will the client interact with your agency? Will you assign a project manager or point of contact for each client? How many team members will be involved and what will they add to the process? 

Clarify the benefits of your type of team make-up and also collaboration efforts.

Essentially, potential clients want to know you can meet their needs successfully and efficiently and that they can trust your agency explicitly to always have their best interests at hand.

In other words, ensure you give them solid reasons to choose you.

How to Differentiate Your Agency? 7 Steps to Follow

Differentiation of your agency is a competitive strategy that can provide beneficial results and often refers to specialization.

This specializing approach often frightens agencies today. Many prefer to try serving all the needs of a client so they won’t go elsewhere. Yet, trying to be a jack-of-all-trades to your clients can often lead to less successful results.

To gain competitive advantage, Harvard business professor, director, author, and influential thinker Michael Porter devised what he refers to as the “Three Generic Strategies.” 

These three strategies include incorporating lower costs, differentiated services, and a unique focus. Claim what you do best and specialize as a way to differentiate your agency.

To help you differentiate further, consider the following methods to use.

1. Define and Target the Right Audience

At the foundation of everything you do is your defined audience or ideal customer profiles.

Knowing who your target audience is will allow you to filter your focus on the type of issues and pain points your potential clients have and ways to alleviate or solve them.

Start by drilling down to find your ideal client, such as identifying:

• Whether you are focusing on large or small business owners.
• Your ideal clients are knowledgeable about digital marketing and automation already or come with determined objectives.
• Clients are looking for a collaborative type relationship or choose to hand it all off to an agency and not be involved in the day-to-day operations or processes.

2. Find the Best Tools

Today you have access to more tools than ever to help your marketing agency excel.

Don’t shy away from the current and evolving digital technology. Instead, make it your friend and find the best tools available.

Examples to consider incorporating into your marketing strategies include:

• Agency project management tools, such as Monday, Slack, and Basecamp.
• Content creation and marketing tools, like Ion Interactive and BuzzSumo.
• Client reporting tools, such as Whatagraph and RavenTools.
• SEO reporting tools, including Google Analytics and SEMrush.

Streamline your processes, increase efficiency in reporting, and more by adding the best tools to your marketing efforts.

3. Rely on Data Analysis

Data is a valuable asset in determining what works and what doesn’t when it comes to marketing results.

With data analysis, you can show clients how their marketing is progressing and show actual ROI.

No need to panic if you’re not already familiar with how to conduct beneficial data analysis in the digital marketing world. You can take the time to train select team members or hire or contract with a specialist.

To help you understand what is involved, here are the different types of data analysis available.

Descriptive Analytics

This type of analytics shows you what is actually occurring, such as the number of downloads of your whitepaper or eBook, how many pageviews the client’s blog receives, and the number of shares, comments, and likes of social media posts.

Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics go deeper, explaining why something occurred. For example, you can conduct A/B tests on different landing pages to find out that one element was preferred over another.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics focuses on past data in order to provide future predictions.

Specialized data analysis

You can dig deeper by considering the benefits of specialized data analysis, which may include the use of Google Analytics or analyzing Facebook Advertising efforts.

4. Stay Flexible and Unique in Your Pricing Structure

Pricing is by far one of the most important factors potential clients look at when choosing an agency. 

They are seeking transparency and potential for successful outcomes by interacting with your agency.

Determine what pricing structures will work best for you and make each one unique. Use just a few or a combination of all of the following:

• Project-based
• Hourly
• Performance-based
• Value-based
• Retainer

To differentiate yourself, you not only need to focus on your pricing options but also stay flexible to attract and meet the demands and preferences of your clients.

5. Build Authority

Building authority is a fundamental way to differentiate your agency and show potential clients they can trust you and what you can do for them.

You can accomplish this in a number of ways, including:

• Build specific expertise.
• Highlight any recognized awards.
• Share industry and public recognition and visibility achieved in magazines, trade publications, or websites.
• List out prestigious clients.
• Showcase the length of your experience.
• Showcase a recognized leader or team.

6. Stay Current with Tech Trends

Digital technology continues to evolve, so staying current on the latest trends and capabilities is crucial to making you stand out among your competitors.

With these trends, you can discover even more ways to differentiate your agency and the services you offer.

Areas to keep watch over include:

• Social media marketing and advertising techniques.
• Artificial intelligence for data gathering and automation efforts.
• Internet privacy technology.
• Augmented reality in marketing.

Continue to learn as you go also, staying up-to-date on what’s available in digital technology and the trends that are dominating. Then, use this to your advantage and let your clients and prospects know how advanced your services are.

7. Provide Unique Client Experience

The client experience can win over prospects and bring current clients back for more of what you can offer.

Providing a unique client experience, then, is a prime way to differentiate your agency even further.

Show that you understand the unique pain points of your customers.

Provide educational content for your clients so they can learn what marketing strategies can best benefit them.

Create a collaboration strategy that speaks to their needs and makes it easy for them to keep in touch and follow along with your strategy if they like.

Be available to meet with them when they have questions, concerns, or want to add services.

Above all else, remain transparent in all you do when it comes to your clients.

Wrap Up

Differentiating your agency today is the way to gain a competitive advantage and attract and win more clients. The more distinct you make your services, pricing options, and customer experience, the more you’ll stand out.

Tools abound to help you reach your goals, and staying aware of technology trends will help keep you steps ahead of the competition.

Ready to learn a way to attract clients and get them excited about what your agency has to offer? 

Streamline your content production and management with Rock’s Content Cloud. With this product bundle, you’ll have in hand all the tools necessary to create engaging content that ultimately results in increased conversions.

Get ready to skyrocket your agency!