How to Differentiate Your Agency in a Way that Matters to Clients

Earlier this month I attended a conference with of a couple hundred digital agency owners to share what works and what doesn’t in the pursuit of a thriving agency. At some point during a session on business development, a remark was made about tactics used to differentiate an agency. The tactics, I remember thinking, were relatively superficial and it got me pondering the complex, at times emotional, debate about how agencies should differentiate themselves from the competition.

First, because it can carry negative connotations, let me clarify that I’m using the word “superficial” simply to describe an external or outward quality.

Superficial qualities that differentiate an agency would include its visual and verbal personality, the interior design of the office space, the number of dogs wandering around, morale-building activities like “Pizza Fridays”, or the personal interests of well-rounded employees.

These qualities are valid and useful differentiators, as long as you use them in the right way. They’re useful mental shortcuts for your clients. They reinforce a perception and weave a narrative.

But they don’t necessarily furnish prospective clients with the deeper evidence they need to select you over another agency. That heavy lifting is more appropriate to what I’ll call material differentiators.

Material differentiators are foundational and speak directly to the problem your prospective client wants you to solve. They include:

• The services your agency excels at providing (note that this is not everything you can do, or even everything you could do; just what you’re best at)

• Intellectual capital in the form of knowledge and insights about your clients and their industries

• Innovations you’ve developed to enhance systems and processes

• Your professional point of view

• Agency values vis a vis how they serve to make your agency better at what it does

• The clients you choose to work with—and how you decide

When you communicate material differentiators effectively, you help the client reduce the risk and uncertainty inherent in hiring a new agency. And that makes it much easier for them to select you versus a competitor.

It makes logical sense, doesn’t it? And yet I see agencies over-rely on the superficial stuff. Why?

Perhaps because it’s easier. Defining material differentiators requires time, consideration and hard choices. It forces you to pick a lane and then to commit to a plan for not only staying in that lane but being the lane leader.

But if you do the hard work, you’re usually rewarded with a set of meaningful differences you can leverage to pursue the right clients and win business from them.

This doesn’t mean the superficial differentiators go away. In fact, you’ll find you can use them more effectively. Superficial differentiators are stronger when they’re supporting material differentiators.

In other words, Pizza Fridays by itself isn’t the story; it’s a supporting plot point that describes or reinforces something else, like how you motivate or retain your employees. And that contributes to a bigger story about the stability of your business or your ability to attract the best talent. That’s what matters more to clients.

Here’s a real-world example of superficial differentiation in service of deeper, more material differentiation.

Bob Greenberg, the founder of R/GA (as well as my former boss), stuck with a signature look for more than two decades. His all-black or blue attire, beret, round glasses and hairstyle get attention, but it’s part of a bigger story about the R/GA brand. That story is one of design-inspired utility, modernity, focus, and forging a unique path. It’s highly unlikely that the world’s biggest brands hire R/GA because of Bob’s look, but it offers a visual short-cut for the CMOs of those brands and they’re likely to remember the agency because of it.

How are you differentiating your agency? Are you over-relying on superficial qualities to tell your story? Or are they outward manifestations of material differences that make you a better choice for your ideal clients?

Here’s a simple exercise you can do with your leadership team to find out.

Ask them to generate a list of twenty qualities that differentiate the agency from its peers. Have them do this individually or in teams of two or three (don’t make this a big group debate) and ask them to follow one simple ground rule: while the qualities can range from serious to frivolous (as frivolous as needed to get to a total of twenty), they must be demonstrably different.

For instance, a collaborative approach does not differentiate you from other agencies.

When I do this exercise with my clients as part of a larger positioning workshop, I find that the first five or so are easy to identify. The next ten, however, can be agonizing (this is where the allowance for frivolity can help).

And then, something magical happens. The teams push through a mental barrier and what I often find is the last five or so that get listed are important, relevant, essential, material differentiators.

When the lists are complete, come back together as a group to analyze them. First, eliminate duplicates as well as the most ridiculous items. Next, circle the ones that speak to you clearly as the truth. Finally, sort them into two categories: material and superficial.

Which ones create the foundation for the story you want to tell? Which are simply the outward manifestations of that story in action?