When you are starting new business, potential clients often ask: what is your area of expertise? We always say: marketing. Variety is key to a growing company, and getting caught in a silo of expertise can sometimes kill business, and new business, quicker than a twitter tweet. As long as your team is creative, flexible and has a strong research base, your limit is only the one you cast for yourself.
Think of marketing as the specialty; the industry is only the playground.
When I mention specialty, I don’t mean specialized digital agencies. This is not a specialty, as I have said before in an article I wrote titled ‘Lots of Ammo‘. Modern agencies have to have classic techniques and a well integrated digital front. For this, I mean industry-specific clientele – such as pharmaceuticals, food services, or apparel.
There is no reason not to mix it up. Integrating digital even makes this train of thought more obvious. It is like a basket weaver trying to sell a basket – he knows a lot about the industry and the product because he is specialized, but his interests are too steep, and he doesn’t know how to talk about baskets in anything but an intricate way. In order to sell it to the masses, in order to get an appeal, you have to have that intuition. Agencies that are too steeped in one industry will begin to get a single/narrow focus, and creativity could be slighted. If your agency constantly exercises in different terrains, you are flexing different muscles, working different cells. The result? A varied agency is a fit agency.
Being the outsider constantly invited in, you have one more leg up – you are still in tune with the outsider!