Should you pick a niche for your marketing agency?

 

To niche or not to niche.

Many marketers believe that selecting an industry niche for your marketing agency can help consolidate your understanding of it, while some claim you should branch off into similar industries.

Out of 100 digital marketing agencies that we spoke to, around 40 claimed to niche into one industry while the remaining have three or more verticals that they work with.

As Covid-19 affected certain industries,  many digital agencies had to rethink their entire strategy of betting on niches as these sectors were hesitant to spend on digital marketing. Agencies that stood firm during Covid shared one thing in common; they have around 3 industries that they work with. In particular, agencies within healthcare and healthcare recruitment saw a significant rise in advertising spend.

Luxury travel and hospitality took the biggest hit and left many agencies with very little in terms of a backup plan.

E-commerce took centre stage as retail businesses scrambled to become digitised to keep up, many retail & e-commerce focused agencies had such an increase in service requests that they’ve had to decline new clients.

Although it looks like we’re coming out of this into the “new normal”, getting stuck in survival mode is a bad strategy for getting through circumstances like Covid. There are other factors to consider for digital marketing agencies. It’s always good to find new ways to carry out marketing in this new era and keep up with trends.

What are the pros/cons of picking an industry niche for your marketing agency?

Pros

• Understand the industry better (a master of one).
• No learning curve.
• Powerful thought leadership.
• Potential referrals to new clients (word-of-mouth being the best marketing channel).

COns

• No backup options should the industry struggle.
• Unable to take on new clients from other industries.
• Without due diligence, going into a narrow industry seems easy but big players may dominate these already.

What are the top 3 reasons for selecting an industry niche for your marketing agency?

Expertise and Knowledge: By specializing in one industry, a marketing agency can develop a deep understanding of the industry’s trends, challenges, and unique marketing needs. This knowledge and expertise can help the agency create more effective marketing strategies that are tailored to the industry’s specific needs and can produce better results for their clients.

Reputation and Credibility: When a marketing agency focuses on one industry, they can build a reputation and credibility within that industry. This can lead to increased trust from potential clients and referrals, as well as the ability to establish themselves as thought leaders within the industry.

Efficiency and Productivity: When a marketing agency specializes in one industry, they can streamline their processes and tools to better serve clients within that industry. This can lead to increased efficiency and productivity, as well as the ability to develop more effective and targeted marketing campaigns in a shorter amount of time.

What actually matters;

 

From our experience and the agencies that we work with; selecting a service that you’re agency is good at is more important than worrying about picking an industry niche for your marketing agency.

Some agencies that are just starting out will find it quite difficult to gain traction quickly, so they require a level of resourcefulness in marketing themselves frugally – niching it up won’t really move the needle much.

Clients don’t tend to look for full-service agencies unless they’re large corporations/enterprise-level. On the other hand, SME clients are much more likely to (quite literally) search for agencies that just do the particular service that they’re after, whether it’s PPC/paid advertising or social media marketing.

If you’re an SEO or content marketing agency, you’ve probably noticed a rise in new business or requests from prospects as these particular services have seen a huge increase since 2021. If not, we’ve built a marketplace for you to find some tasty new business – WorkWyse.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t provide lots of services; full-service agencies can and do work well too.

TL;DR: Most digital marketing agencies are divided on this. Instead of picking an industry to work with, a service focus can work much better.