Is Your Agency Unique?

"Looking for a ragtag band of creative + strategic radicals... every agency site I go on makes me facepalm."

That was the start of a post on LinkedIn by Stuart Parkinson that generated 83,266 views in about a month and has since had around 200,000 hits. If you work at an advertising agency, digital agency, or design firm, that should hurt, mainly because you probably know it is 100% true.

I talk to agencies and design firms every single day at Agency Spotter. We have almost 14,000 agency portfolios in our marketplace. We assess websites, client reviews, and all sorts of data as we build transparency across the industry and help connect brands and agencies around the world.

Essentially, we are an agency's biggest fans. We want to celebrate how unique agencies are and help marketing decision makers from companies with budget find agencies for what they are great at.

Want to know the biggest problem the trillion dollar marketing services industry has? Differentiation.

On the surface, the vast majority of agencies don't sound very unique. This sea of sameness (is it laziness?) on the part of agency principles, managing directors, creative directors, and everyone else in a position to make a change is hurting your agency and the marketing industry as a whole. If you think you're immune or your agency partner has their business together, it happens all the way across the largest agencies and down to the smallest ones.

Hypothesis: Agency leadership do not realize the millions of dollars in deals they are losing to their competitors.

Some of the larger agencies seem to have actually stopped trying to differentiate, removing written content that talks about what they do in any certain terms. They focus on visuals and assume you know what they are great at or don't want to tell you what they are great at.

In a digital world, this seems entirely contrary to what you would expect, it feels like someone said "let's make it harder for people to do business with us." That would be fine if we didn't hear that many of those same agencies are struggling.

Agencies are missing deals

That is the reality, plain and simple. The reason the industry continues to see a proliferation of new agencies entering and succeeding is that existing agencies are missing lots of deals.

We see it every day at Agency Spotter. In the old agency world, agencies didn't have to work on differentiation very often, if ever. There were dramatically fewer agencies 20 years ago. It was a purely relationship driven deal flow. Now, with more than 500,000 agencies worldwide, differentiation should be on the top of every agency's priority list on regular basis.

The few agencies who have decided to use differentiation are snatching business from the jaws of the slow moving, established agencies.

We are not just talking about small deals and project work either. Agency of Record searches and annual deals north of $5 million are going to smaller upstarts and anti-agency agencies like never before. Quarter million and half a million dollar projects are also falling off the radar of those who do not differentiate.

So, what reasons do agencies give on why they haven't differentiated?

1. We are just too busy
2. We are working on rebranding ourselves, our website, etc.

Those sound legitimate, right? Wrong. Here's why.

Both of those should be temporary states. Agencies are not too busy the whole year long. A rebrand or website redesign should not last a year or more. But, that is what we see happen.

So, what is going on here? Why isn't it a priority? Is it internal decision paralysis?

Help us celebrate the unique

Marketers everywhere want to find your agency for what you are amazing at. At Agency Spotter, we want to help you stand out and shine for everything you and your team do. Give us the ammo. Make sure your website looks great, update your agency portfolio, project work and ask a client to review you on Agency Spotter too.

20,000 users a month are looking for you on Agency Spotter. More than 100,000 hear about amazing agencies through our social media outreach each month. We would even love for you to make it into a top agency report.

Help us, help you.

Stand out. Be unique.

About Agency Spotter

Agency Spotter is a b2b marketplace that connects marketing decision makers with agencies across advertising, design, digital, and 38 marketing services. Attracting small, medium, and global enterprises, Agency Spotter is the global source for marketing agencies and is growing daily.

Agency Spotter's website and iPhone app help map the marketing services industry landscape, making it easy to use more information, like verified client reviews, to build a shortlist and select the right agency partner. For more information or to search for your next digital agency partner, visit agencyspotter.com.