Many marketing agencies believe that casting a wide net will land more clients. However, this tactic can actually slow your growth. A smarter approach is to focus on a specialty and become a niche marketing agency.
Niche marketing narrows your target market to a segment within a demographic, service, or industry. Being really specific about what you do and who you serve is a game-changer. Here’s why specializing in a niche will grow your marketing agency faster.
Establishes your authority
Generic marketing agencies try to be everything to everybody. This may work for large agencies that have the resources to provide a broad range of services. It doesn’t work as well for smaller agencies.
If you run a full-service agency, you risk over-promising and under-delivering. Being stretched too thin can affect the quality of your work and clients will notice. As cliche as it sounds, a jack of all trades is a master of none.
Focusing on a niche lets you gain a deep understanding of the audience, industry, and all the nuances of that market. This elevates you to the level of expert. Choose one area of marketing, like social media marketing, or narrow your target market to only small businesses. Market segmentation can target things such as age (teenagers or millennials), groups (pet owners or moms with toddlers), or industry (real estate or wineries). Who better to market to a specific niche than someone with expert knowledge of that market?
Less competition
If you run a Google search for ”marketing agencies”, you’ll get an astounding 375 million results. With so many marketing agencies out there, competing in an oversaturated market is tough. Picking a niche drastically cuts down on competition.
Roofing Marketing Pros is a digital marketing agency that targets roofing companies. Not general contractors, plumbers, electricians or anyone else in the construction industry — just roofing. A search for roofing marketing agencies returned 6.5 million results, a fraction of the initial 375 million. And guess who was right at the top of page one — Roofing Marketing Pros!
Marketing your agency becomes easier
When you cover a broad spectrum of services, marketing your agency becomes more complicated. You’ll need to produce different messages for different services. This can be tricky and you could end up with a confusing or diluted message.
When you choose one specialty, attracting the right clients is easier. This works especially well online. When you use online advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook ads, you can run campaigns with very specific keywords.
Let’s say you have a background in the restaurant industry and you start a digital marketing agency that focuses on restaurant marketing. When you run online campaigns, you can select better keywords that increase the chance of your ad being seen by restaurant owners. Rather than using a broad-based keyword like “digital marketing agency”, you can use keywords like “restaurant marketing agency” or “online marketing for restaurants”.
Your clients will spread the word
If your niche is highly specific or unusual, word will spread organically. Here’s an example. Leading Good is a niche marketing agency that helps nonprofit organizations market more effectively to donors. The nonprofit sector is very connected. They network and collaborate with one another and often share information and resources. When one organization discovers a marketing agency that understands the challenges nonprofits face and with a proven track record in fundraising, word will quickly spread across the sector.
You’ll adjust to emerging trends faster
It wasn’t that long ago that retailers relied heavily on above-the-line advertising like print, radio and TV advertising to draw customers. Then came the digital revolution and consumers started to shop online. As eCommerce took off, retailers had to quickly set up shop online as well.
Technology changes fast and brands need to adjust quickly. Every industry also has new trends that emerge. Marketing strategies that work well today may not have the same impact 10 years from now. Focusing on a niche means you’ll have a finger on the pulse. When you hear of a new trend, you’ll be able to adjust your client’s marketing accordingly, giving them an advantage over competitors.
Profits will increase
Why does a medical specialist charge more than a family doctor? Because of their expertise in a certain type of healthcare. Niche marketing agencies can turn bigger profits because clients are willing to pay more for their expertise. You can scale your business much faster by specializing in a niche.
Companies are allocating larger budgets for online marketing. Digital ad spend is already surpassing traditional advertising and this trend is set to continue. According to Maryville University, digital marketing spend is expected to rise to $335 billion by 2020. That’s a lot of money that companies want to spend wisely. They’ll be more inclined to pay a niche marketing specialist with a grasp of their type of business than a generalist agency.
