While it’s great to offer clients many different services, trying to be everything to everyone isn’t always the best approach if you are trying to grow your business.
Especially in the digital marketing world, it’s crucial that your agency changes with the times. It’s important that you find a way to stand out among the thousands of other agencies offering similar services.
Picking a niche is one way to help your agency stand apart from the pack – and it can help grow your agency faster.
There are a few approaches to picking a niche for your agency.
For one, you could choose a specific industry to target, such as restaurants or real estate businesses. Another approach is to focus on a particular geography, such as your hometown or state.
Many agencies also choose to specialize in a specific service, such as SEO or PR, and focus on becoming the best in that field. What matters most is that you pinpoint your strengths and use them to your advantage.
Here’s how focusing on a niche can help your agency, and a few tips for success after you pick one.
Helps create your unique selling point (USP)
If your agency is just starting out, focusing on a niche to market your services to will help your team develop its unique selling point (USP).
Your team can begin branding itself as the go-to experts in your specific industry, geography, or service.
What’s more, after you start working with a few clients in your niche, you can create case studies, client testimonials, and other marketing materials showcasing your successes and solidifying your USP.
Helps your agency develop repeatable processes
Focusing on a niche can help your agency develop repeatable internal processes.
Once you prove that specific tasks or processes work well, it becomes far easier to repeat tasks over and over for each new client if they all belong to a similar industry or you are offering them all the same services.
By streamlining your internal processes, your team can work together more efficiently, and ultimately, you’ll be able to boost your customer retention and profitability.
Helps you understand your competitors
When you focus on a niche, it becomes easier to monitor your competition, understand which services they offer, and explain to potential customers why your agency is better.
For example, you can use specific examples of your campaigns within a potential client’s niche to target their pain points and win them over.
How to pick the right niche for your agency
The most common way to select a niche is to focus on a vertical, such as an industry, service, or a particular location.
After you decide on a niche, here are a few steps to keep in mind before you build out your offerings.
Define your buyer persona(s)
You can’t become a leader in a specific niche if you can’t define your ideal client.
Whether you are just starting out or refining your agency’s strategy, take the time to outline what your ideal customer looks like, their pain points, how they are solving their problems currently. Then see where your services fit into that.
Know your competition
Researching the top agencies in your niche and understanding what they have to offer will go a long way when it comes to communicating to potential clients how your services are different and better.
After you decide on a niche, monitor your competitors’ efforts using Google Alerts or Mention so you can stay one step ahead.
Determine the long-term potential
Finally, consider whether or not there is long-term potential for growth in the specific industry, service, or geographic location you choose.
For example, will it be possible for you to provide marketing services to every real estate firm in your city or will you run into non-compete issues? If you plan to work with only cryptocurrency companies, will your agency be able to handle the market ups and downs as the technology continues to evolve?
If you want to grow your agency, your niche should also have the potential to grow.
Focusing on a specific niche has many benefits for agencies of all sizes.
Not only does it give your agency a competitive advantage, but it can help you be more profitable by retaining your clients longer as well.
