There is a simple change that most agency websites desperately need.
Agencies every day are working hard to help their clients succeed. Unfortunately, many agency executives fail to apply many fundamental brand marketing principles to their own agency brand.
What is that critical needed change to their website that can impact the website’s effectiveness?
A change most agency websites need
The missing piece is what branding experts refer to as a “frame of reference”.
Just what kind of agency are they positioning? Many agencies forget about this critical element of brand positioning when it comes to their own brand.
And this important gap results in agencies missing out on business opportunities daily.
In classic brand positioning work, the two core elements are captured by defining “the type of product or service” being positioned and “what makes the product or service special”?
We call the type of product or service the brand’s “frame of reference”. It’s a point of commonality, identifying which group of products or services the brand should be compared to. To illustrate that notion, Mercer Island Group partner Robin Boehler likes to use granola as an example (as she wrote about here). Where would you find granola in a supermarket? In the cereal aisle, of course. While granola can serve a multitude of other purposes from being a baking ingredient to a snack to a dessert topping, its primary usage is as cereal. And therefore, you will find it in the cereal section. This definition is critical. It helps consumers find the product and helps them compare it to similar products.
And just as important as a frame of reference is to a consumer product, it may be even more important to agencies. There are thousands of agencies for prospects to possibly consider. Yet agency prospects typically have very, very low unaided awareness of agency brands. When they search for agencies to consider, they generally start by defining the “type” of agency they need – the frame of reference. They are, as Robin likes to say, choosing agencies from the right section in the agency supermarket.
There are a number of commonly accepted frames of reference for different types of agencies. Some examples include:
- Creative agency
- Media Agency
- PR agency
- Full-service advertising agency
- Digital marketing agency
- Shopper agency
- Brand design agency
- Social agency
- Influencer agency
Remember, this is not the part of the agency’s positioning that makes it distinctive and special. Rather, it is the point of commonality that helps prospects find the agency.
In our experience at Mercer Island Group, a minority of agencies have a clear frame of reference readily apparent on their homepage “above the fold”.
We revisited a recent agency review we led for a CPG brand to see how common it was for the agencies to have readily visible frames of reference. Of the top rated 36 agencies (per the client’s needs assessment), we found that only one-third of the agencies had a clearly evident frame of reference.
This wasn’t a problem for the Mercer Island Group team. We know the agency field well as we manage numerous agency searches every year, actively track thousands of agencies, have a giant database and will speak with any agency that raises its hand.
But most agency searches are run by clients. And what do they find when they search agency websites? Most agency websites simply do not clearly identify the type of agency on their homepage. And a prospect often won’t take the time to try and figure out what your agency does if it is not readily obvious. They are on a mission. They already have a full-time job and don’t have time to explore.
Unconvinced?
Try this test: choose an agency (almost any agency!) and go to their website. Does the agency clearly identify on the homepage, above the fold, its frame of reference? My guess is that if you randomly try five agencies, only one or two will have a clearly identified frame of reference. That is a shame, for the agency and its prospects.
When positioning your agency to be distinctive and stand out, be sure to also clearly identify the type of agency. You want your agency compared to other agencies and you want to choose what you are compared to!
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.