It’s a growing trend for marketing agencies to niche down in order to best serve a growing agency. It sounds enticing to you the company to look for a marketing agency that is niched to your industry but is that the best option? There are ways to niche down that help both parties involved! Let’s talk about the ways you can niche down. You can niche down by industry or you can niche down by service line.  In our opinion niching down by industry can be a negative to a client.  Let’s talk about the difference between the two.

By Industry:

When a marketing agency niches down by industry they have chosen to only work with clients who are in a certain industry. This might be because they enjoy marketing for a certain industry, have a passion for it or it’s profitable.  If there is a passion for an industry they are going to be the true heart behind the marketing for you.  Either way, we feel if you are a niche or not you have to believe in what you are marketing for. So we are not quite sure this is an advantage.

The second reason is you are in a profitable industry and that is why your industry was chosen.  This means your industry can support having larger marketing budgets.  Everyone needs marketing but some industries lend a hand in being able to afford more money to work with.  More money to work with means it’s easier to perform marketing tactics as there is more money for retainer fees and ad spending.  

The third less known reason might be because of the available market.  They have decided to niche so they chose an industry that is wide and broad and gives more opportunities for them as an agency.

Some marketing agencies might niche down in B2B vs B2C, which is very broad but does have some unique marketing aspects to them. We’re not sure it’s unique enough to call yourself an expert in B2B vs B2C. Within these categories, there is also “wholesale marketing” and e-commerce marketing”.

By Service Line:

The other way an agency might niche down is by a certain service line within marketing.  There are lots and lots of marketing types and they are not all needed in every case. So having a marketing team that is say heavy into ads (also known as an advertising agency) can specialize (no matter what the ad platform is) in how to drive qualified traffic to the website.  They might also have another specialty that lends to say ads such as creating landing pages or email funnels to take someone down a marketing funnel.  It’s very difficult for any marketing agency especially on the marketing side to not be involved in all parts of the funnel.

There are other types of marketing such as video marketing or website building that lend its self to only needing to know certain parts, somewhat.  Take video marketing, for instance, a marketing agency might understand every aspect of building a compelling video, but if they don’t under how to use the video to market then they could build videos that won’t help the marketing funnel.

We see this with website companies too, we feel there are actually three parts to building a website, development, design, and SEO. The developer understands the technology setup, coding, and more.  While the designer makes it look pretty. Finally, the SEO side of it ensures the website is set up with the best SEO technique in mind.  SEO is a long game but the development of a website needs to structurally be built to work for SEO. So even a website development company needs several other experts on the bench.

Now that we have talked about the different ways an agency can niche down. Let’s talk about their advantages and disadvantages of them.

When a marketing agency niches by industry the advantage is that they know your industry well as they have markets for your industry before.  You don’t lose valuable time explaining your industry.  The marketing agency also has advantages in that they know what works and doesn’t work.  You are not the genie pig, however, digital marketing strategies are evolving so quickly that almost everyone runs into running new marketing strategies. The disadvantage here is how is your marketing strategy unique. If the same strategy is being implemented every time you are not unique in anyone’s view, the search engines, or your potential client.  This is especially troublesome if you are in the same area as your competitor.  In search engines especially and even on social media launching the same content is a very bad idea.

We see this as a negative, the main reason that marketing companies are pushed into niches is so they can scale.  When processes are the same across the board it creates efficiencies and knowledge in how to do these things. It is true they might have a passion for your industry so you might get lucky there! But we feel that most companies need a lot of the same things with some variations by industry. So motive plays into why someone is niching is it for you or them? 

When someone is used to working in just one industry or niche type of marketing, how agile are they? In digital marketing things are constantly changing and if you are niched you don’t exactly like change.  You are looking for consistency and repeatable processes.  So when the internet throws you an audible you might panic a little bit.  Those who like a variation type of industries love the change and mix up to keep their brain fresh and creative! They are able to bring strategies from other industries into yours and mix it up a little bit with something new!

Another thing to consider is whether your marketing agency is bored. While it is profitable for the agency owner, the ones running the campaign might be bored. When a creative person is having to do the same type of creative over and over they tend to get bored.  This is also true of strategies looking at data.  You really want your marketing team to be fresh and challenged.  A marketing agency that likes to be challenged thrives in digital marketing because it’s always changing and challenging

We might be biased because of how we niche, but we think a marketing agency who are niched in marketing disciplines is the true winner.  They know their craft well but understand the other parts of the funnel.  They work well with other team members, whether that is on your company’s team or another making agencies.  You hire them because they have a skill set that you need and they are niched enough to know it very well. We feel there is an advantage to knowing different industries and being able to do your marketing craft across multiple industries to mix and match strategies.  This is where we feel marketing agencies and you win!

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