How to give your agency value proposition some fizz

Recently, I’ve been sharing how I help agencies make the move from generalist (‘we do everything for anyone’) to specialist (‘we do this thing, for this type of client’).

We’ve looked at defining a narrower audience for your offering and how to create a more relevant proposition as a result. Now it’s time to bring that proposition to life; to make it sing and entice your target audience to act.

The template I shared last time is useful in bringing together the component parts of your proposition. However, it’s formulaic. And, if you’re like most agencies, you’ll probably fall into the trap of using familiar and tired language.

Take my advice on board with a small pinch of salt

Now, before I go on, a caveat. I am NOT a qualified copywriter. I write. I have a certain style. I read books and articles on how to get better. Every so often, I’ll come up with a great turn of phrase or sentence (or so I’m told). But copywriting doesn’t always come naturally or easily.

However, if you’ve read anything I’ve written on agency positioning, you’ll know I have a strong point of view on language. Agency land is plagued with jargon; words and phrases that are overused, obvious or irrelevant: ‘full-service’, ‘award-winning’, ‘data-driven’, ‘honest’, ‘innovative’, ‘integrated’, ‘results-focused’ and ‘passionate’, to name but a few.

Fortunately, people way more qualified than me agree:

“Jargon is the hallmark of a pretentious ass”

…said a certain Mr David Ogilvy way back in 1982. Almost 40 years later, the amount of waffle and guff is worse than ever.

It’s not easy to cut out the jargon completely. But if you don’t give it a go, you might spend a load of time on your value proposition only to end up where you started; sounding like everyone else.

That’s why your choice of language is key. So, here are a few things to consider when trying to inject your value proposition with a bit of fizz:

Write in the way you speak

I guess we lean on jargon because of its familiarity. It’s easy (and therefore comforting) to use the same language as everyone else on our websites and in our proposals. There are also certain technical terms that are unavoidable.

But listen (I mean really listen) to the conversations amongst your team and especially with your clients. Is jargon that prevalent in everyday conversation? I’m guessing not.

So why not write in the same way as you speak. Use colloquial, conversational language.

Find a non-obvious way of saying the obvious

It isn’t just the language of agencies that is overused and tired. In my opinion, it’s also the language of business: ‘sales’, ‘revenue’, ‘growth’, ‘market share’. Yawn. Maybe I just spend too much time looking at agency websites, but those words just don’t compute with me anymore.

Can they be avoided? In certain instances, I think so. For example, when working with a performance agency on their positioning, we realised that the majority of their clients are second or third in their markets. They are challengers to the main player.

It would have been easy to go with the obvious and stick ‘sales’ and ‘market share’ in their proposition. But then I remembered something one of their clients said to me; “we’re looking to close the gap on Brand X. We know we will never overtake them, but we want to make their life difficult.”

‘Close the gap’…what a wonderful way of succinctly expressing what any challenger brand is trying to do. So, their one-liner ended up as…

‘We help challenger brands close the gap on the leading players in their markets’

It’s much more emotive than sales, revenue and market share, wouldn’t you agree?

This shows how important it is to speak to your clients during the process of repositioning. They are the ones (hopefully) experiencing the benefits and impact of your work. Take note of the language they use and reflect it back in your proposition where it makes sense.

Inject some personality

When you read aloud the copy on an agency’s website, it creates an immediate impression. An agency might come across as formal, light-hearted, upbeat, confident, sincere, adventurous, easy-going, positive, humble, principled or cheerful.

Consider how you want your agency to be perceived by the outside world and especially by your target audience. For example, I tend to be quite self-deprecating. I can also be a touch sarcastic. These elements of my personality come out in my proposition and writing. It makes it authentic.

Spend some time coming up with four or five adjectives to describe the personality of your agency and reflect these in your language and tone.

Go all George Orwell on your copy

In his essay, Politics and the English Language (1946), George Orwell criticised the ‘ugly and inaccurate’ written English of his time. He went on to outline six rules to remedy the situation:

1)   Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2)   Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3)   If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4)   Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5)   Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6)   Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Besides our shared distaste for jargon, I particularly like points 2) and 3). They encourage you to create a succinct value proposition that gets to the point and is easily understood.

What next?

In its purest form, your value proposition is an internal statement. It provides clarity on why you exist and what you intend to make happen for your target audience.

Externally, it forms the basis for your website copy, presentations, social media profiles, directory listings, press releases, email footers and so on. Therefore, I find the most useful next step is to use the value proposition statement to create a messaging template containing an elevator pitch, one-liner and (possibly) a tag line.

Let’s take a quick look at each of these:

The elevator pitch

If you had 30 seconds in a lift (sorry, I’m English) with your dream client, what would you say about your agency to pique their interest? That’s the principle of an elevator pitch.

I prefer the idea that you have just 10 seconds because it forces you to cut out the waffle. Anyone listening to a 30-second elevator pitch would die of boredom before they reached the top floor.

If we go back to our value proposition template, trim it down to include just the following:

We work with…(markets / audiences)

…helping them to…(problems / opportunities)

…that…(benefits / outcomes)

Deliberately avoid talking about your services. Why? Firstly, because a good elevator pitch should create a sense of intrigue. It doesn’t give everything away. It should lead to a question; “that sounds interesting, how do you do that then?”

Secondly, if you mention your services too soon, you’ll be too quickly pigeon-holed (“oh god, not another bloody SEO agency”).

And thirdly, because your services matter much less than you might think.

One-liner

Your one-liner is a slimmed-down version of the elevator pitch, the sort of thing that might be used as the headline copy on your website or in your email footer. For example, mine is:

Helping digital agencies craft a winning approach to business development.

Tag line or slogan

Shorter again, this is a few words to express your agency’s philosophy; the sort of thing that would sit underneath your logo. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is McCann’s ‘Truth well told’.

Be really careful with this. The world is littered with crappy tag lines. I came across this useful article that that lists the tagline of 700 global agencies. You can make your own mind up as to which are good, bad or indifferent.

Lastly, play a game of buzzword bingo

Before you sign it all off, have another look over your statements. How many times do any of the words and phrases in this article pop up? Down a drink for every one you find.

In all seriousness, it’s hard to avoid the language of agencies and business entirely. But, if you follow the advice above, you’ll get pretty close. And come the end, your agency will stand out simply by avoiding the same industry lingo that thousands of others have fallen prey to.

You’ll also find language that is authentic to your agency’s culture. And by listening to your clients, more relevant to their aspirations.

And if you still can’t get rid of the jargon and want someone to cast a (very) critical eye over it all, give me a shout.

How to craft your agency proposition

I’ve talked a lot this year about the importance of agency positioning. Or, more specifically, how agency land is plagued with inward-looking, broad-brush and cliché-ridden positioning.

But rather than continue my assault on your ‘passionate, full-service and award-winning agency’, I thought it high time I provide some actual advice on how to fix the problem. It’s the least I could do, right?

I started by exploring the difference between positioning and your proposition. I argued that for your proposition to be relevant and enticing, you firstly need to define a narrower audience for your agency offering. I then explored some creative ways you can go about doing this.

So, with your target audience nailed, and a better understanding of where your expertise is best applied, you’re ready to start work on your proposition.

But before you put pen to paper, you’ve got some more thinking to do.

Dialling down the ‘we’

Far too many agency websites come across as narcissistic and boastful. It’s all ‘we, ‘our’ and ‘us’.

A good proposition is the opposite. It dials down the ‘we’, whilst dialling up what really matters to your target audience. It demonstrates your understanding of the problems they face or the opportunities they are looking to exploit. It succinctly talks about your expertise and offering only in this context. And it is outcome orientated, highlighting the positive impact you have on the people, companies and markets you serve.

This means looking at things from the perspective of your target audience. To get you started, here are a few questions to ponder:

What is your target audience trying to do? What does success look like?

What is standing in their way? What problems are they facing? 

What is happening in their market? Are there opportunities they are looking to exploit?

How would you describe the mindset or attitude of the people you work with?

What will the client have after working with you? What is the tangible impact of your work? 

How do you want people to feel when they work with you? 

Of course, there is no better way to understand the aspirations, needs and concerns of your target audience than actually talking to them. I’m going to assume you have some clients on the books that fit your newly defined audience, so ask them…

What made you decide to work with us? What was the specific problem you wanted to fix at the time?

How would you describe the experience of working with us? 

How does this compare with other agencies you’ve worked with?

In your role, what are you trying to do? How have we helped you to meet those goals?

What problems have we been able to help you address? 

What are the most important benefits you’ve experienced as a result of working with us? 

Have you experienced any unexpected advantages as a result of our work together?

From experience, you will probably find this to be more fruitful when you use an independent third party to ask the questions. A client is likely to be more open and honest, especially if the responses are also anonymised.

Bringing it all together

As you combine your thinking with input from clients you should start to see some patterns – recurring themes, words and phrases.

And with that, you are (finally) ready to start writing your first draft proposition. It might be useful to use a template like the one below. At this stage, don’t worry about it being somewhat formulaic. This is simply a way of bringing together the component parts. It’s unlikely it will ever be used in quite such a robotic way.

Instead, as it evolves in style, tone and language, it will act as the basis for all manner of outward-facing communication; from your website to proposals and everything in between.

AGENCY is…(type of agency)

Working with…(markets / audiences)

Helping them to…(problems / opportunities)

By delivering…(products / services)

…that…(benefits / outcomes)

….because…(purpose / belief / perspective)

Let’s take a slightly closer look at each of these:

Type of agency

Personally, I don’t think it matters too much whether you describe your agency as marketing, digital, creative, media or otherwise (as long as it’s not ‘full-service’). However, buyers tend to pigeon-hole agencies by discipline so it’s worth thinking about. But don’t obsess over it, especially as the lines between disciplines have become somewhat blurry in recent years.

Markets / audiences

Fairly obvious but critically important. Be as specific as you can. ‘Brands’ is too broad. Use adjectives to narrow the type of brands you work with.

Problems / opportunities

This is ultimately what a client is buying from you; your expertise and how it is applied to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity. Your services are just the vehicle to get them from where they are now to where they want to be. Hence, this part of the proposition takes precedence over any mention of your services.

Products / services

Now you can talk about what you actually do. This shouldn’t be a long list of services. For some, this would create a proposition of biblical proportions. Instead, it is a brief summary, ideally demonstrating how your thinking or approach to delivering those services is particularly relevant to your audience.

Benefits / outcomes

Again, the more specific the better. If your clients see average growth of 50% inside 12 months, include this. But also consider the individual here if you can – how do you make people feel?

It’s likely there is a multitude of benefits a client will experience by working with you. For the purposes of your proposition, I’d consolidate these to three; those that are going to appeal to a number of different stakeholders.

Purpose / belief / perspective

This is a big topic in its own right.

Whilst I believe every agency has a ‘why’ (a purpose or reason for existing), I’m not always convinced it will resonate with the buyer. For example, it is admirable that you started your agency having become disillusioned with a previous employer. But is this relevant to your target audience? How much will they really care?

An alternative to purpose is to state a belief or offer a perspective related to the target audience. For example, when it comes to how agencies and clients seek to worth together, I believe there are too many ingrained behaviours, processes and dated methods that ultimately benefit neither party. I, therefore, encourage agencies to challenge the conventional way of doing things. This is not necessarily my purpose or ‘why’. However, if an agency owner agrees with my thinking, they are more likely to want to find out how I can help them.

Just to complicate the issue

While your proposition sets the tone for how you communicate with your target audience, it doesn’t mean you should stick to it rigidly. In all likelihood, you will need to engage and influence a number of different people in any one organisation. This means you will need to tweak your proposition accordingly. For example, the benefits or outcomes a Managing Director will care about will be different from those of an eCommerce Manager.

I, therefore, like to think of a proposition as having layers. Your overall proposition (what you say on your homepage, for example), needs to broadly appeal to all stakeholders. But as you reach out and converse with different stakeholders, elements of the proposition will need to be made more specific according to the goals, desires, problems, concerns and motivations of individual buyers. This is where creating some simple personas can really help.

How to get creative when defining an audience for your agency offering

Recently, I explored the difference between positioning and proposition.

As a brief reminder, the former is the process by which you define what you do, how you do it and, most importantly, for who. The proposition is how you package this up. It’s an expression of the problems you solve, the tangible impact of your work and the experience you provide.

It, therefore, stands to reason that positioning comes before proposition. You cannot craft a highly relevant and enticing proposition if you don’t first define your ‘who’.

And by ‘who’, I mean being specific. When you claim to work with “businesses of all shapes and sizes, across all industries” it is nigh on impossible to craft a proposition that will appeal to all of them. I’ve never been on a dating website (I met my wife in a nightclub, the old-fashioned way). But I doubt the guy who says “I’ll go out for a drink with anyone” gets many takers.

The irony of broad positioning

Herein lies the problem. When you’re trying to speak to everyone in this way, you’re not actually talking to anyone in particular. So, whilst the intention is to be attractive to everyone, you end up not being particularly relevant or enticing to anybody.

So, if you accept the need to better define your ‘who’ (and be specific in doing so), how do you actually go about doing it? How do you start on the journey from generalist (“we work with anyone”) to specialist (“we only work with….”)?

Find your mojo by getting over your FOMO

Firstly, you’ve got to be willing to change. This means getting over your fear of missing out. That voice that says, “but if we say we only work with these clients, it means we can’t work with those ones”…yes, that one. Ignore it. The gains that come with focus far outweigh the drawbacks (assuming you don’t narrow your focus too far, of course).

Secondly, don’t assume the market for agency services can only be broken down by recognised sector categories, such as retail, banking or travel. Defining your audience vertically might be the way to go. But beyond this, the market for agency services can be sliced and diced in numerous ways (horizontally). This where you can get creative. When you look at clients, past and present, there are bound to be common traits, themes or patterns, for example:

Are your clients typically start-ups, challenger brands or businesses ‘on the wrong side of 50’ in need of a reboot? 

Are your clients looking to achieve a similar goal? And I don’t mean sales or growth. That’s obvious. Is there something more specific, such as businesses looking to turn over their first million?

Are your clients facing similar challenges, such as getting new products to market or entering new territories? 

What about brand attributes, such as luxury or leisure?

Do you find yourself working with certain job roles, such as founders, entrepreneurs or eCommerce managers?

Are your clients looking to engage a specific demographic, such as the under 30’s or over 60’s?

Or, what about attitude, outlook or way of thinking? Are they innovators or disruptors, for example?

When you look beyond sectors, there are all kinds of possibilities. So, get your senior team get together, lock yourself in a room with coffee and Haribo, and consider the following:

When, how and why did we start the agency? What was our motivation at the time?

When is our agency at its very best? 

What work do we enjoy the most? Where do we get our energy?

When is our team at their most motivated and happiest?  

What does our ideal client look like? 

Thinking about all the clients we have ever worked with, where have we had the most success? What made these clients so great to work with? 

How many of our clients would we happily fire tomorrow if we could? Why?

Of those that are left, are there any common themes or threads that tie them together? 

These are by no means exhaustive. A well-run workshop will inevitably yield further questions and some healthy debate. But they should be enough to get things started.

The power of clarity

Once you define your audience, the impact can be transformational. Clarity comes with focus. Try coming up with a sales and marketing plan with the aim of targeting everyone. Now try doing it when you’re targeting a specific segment (be that vertical or horizontal).

Try saying ‘no’ to a prospect when you have no framework by which to do so. Now try doing it when you are crystal clear in what your ideal client looks like.

Try charging a premium for your services when there is no discernible difference between your agency and the other ten around the corner. Now try doing it when you can demonstrate how your expert knowledge of a specific audience leads to better outcomes.

I’ve worked with a number of clients who have made the move from generalist to specialist; who have narrowed their focus. Never once have they regretted it.

After all, the world doesn’t need another agency doing anything for anybody. But there is always a place for an agency solving a specific problem for a specific audience segment.

Positioning. Proposition. What’s the difference?

When it comes to agencies and business development, the topic of positioning gets a lot of attention. And quite right too. Because if business development was a pyramid, positioning would be its foundation. It sets the sales and marketing agenda.

However, ‘positioning’ is often used interchangeably with ‘proposition’ or ‘value proposition’. Having done this myself, I’ve recently been pondering the difference. This is my take.

Simply put, positioning is what you do, how you do it and, most importantly, for who. It combines your expertise, experience, interests, beliefs and values to create a point of difference or a specialisation. Done well, positioning leaves an impression; words, images or feelings that come to mind when one thinks about your agency:

“Ah, they’re the people that do great video for car brands…”

“Yes, they specialise in helping start-ups make their first million…”

“Yeah, I know those guys, they help FMCG brands tap into younger audiences…”

The proposition (or value proposition) is how you package this up so it resonates with the audience you are trying to talk to. It’s a clear, compelling and credible expression of the experience a prospect will receive by working with you. It might, for example, articulate the problems they face, how your expertise can help solve them, and the outcomes they care most about.

It’s rather like marriage. Positioning is deciding who you are going to spend the rest of your life with. The proposition is how you go about posing the big question, in the hope your future spouse says ‘yes’.

It stands to reason that crafting a focused (and therefore attractive) proposition will be more difficult if you don’t first work on positioning, in particular defining your audience. Only then can you answer the kind of questions that are critical to shaping your proposition, for example:

What are companies operating in this space trying to do? 

What opportunities are they looking to exploit? 

What is standing in their way? 

Who is our main point of contact? 

How would we describe their mindset, attitude or outlook? 

How are they being measured?

Trying to answer these questions when you “work with anyone” is all but impossible. Imagine trying to come up with the perfect marriage proposal before you’ve actually decided who you are going to ask.

This is probably why so many agencies end up with a proposition that is inward-looking (“check out our awards”) and riddled with clichés masquerading as points of difference (“results-focused”, “transparent” and “passionate”, for example).

If you want to craft a better proposition, start with positioning. The two go hand in hand but one very much precedes the other.

What do you think? I’m often wrong (ask my wife) so if you think I’ve missed the mark, hit me up with your thoughts.