Prospects seek out marketing providers for their expertise.
Stop selling your services, that’s not what prospects are buying.
There are two things that prospects want to buy:
- Prospects buy a SOLUTION to a problem. Prospects buy your service only because they believe it will solve their problems and give them positive results. If they don’t know what problems you can solve and the results you deliver, it’s not likely they’ll buy your service.
- Prospects buy YOU. After identifying the problem they want solved, prospects make a decision on who they will choose to solve it for them. Don’t focus on selling your services. Instead, provide content, communications and conversations where the focus is on your understanding of their problems.
For over ten years I’ve prescribed creating a niche for agency new business and have helped create a positioning of expertise for over 300 agency principals.
Here’s an example of an agency owner who is doing it the right way:
Ernie Perich has been the President and Creative Director at Perich Advertising + Design for over 30 years. He started the firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan when he was 28 years old.
Perich is a small agency with a staff of 35. It’s a typical agency with a diverse portfolio of clients, but Ernie has recently carved out a niche focusing on automotive OEM suppliers. The agency is located in the heart of automotive country and they have a lot of work in this category. There are hundreds of prospects in this category within an hours drive of the agency.
A niche blog helps small to midsize agencies develop awareness and appeal quickly with a specific target audience to gain more frequent and larger new business opportunities.
Ernie is willing to focus on such a narrow category because his niche blog lives offsite. It isn’t incorporated into the agency’s website. It won’t create any confusion with his current clients or negate new business opportunities outside of this category.
Perich Advertising + Design will continue get to new clients from personal networks and referrals as it has over the past 30 years. But, by carving out a narrow niche, Ernie now has these added benefits:
- He has a program in place that will provide a more consistent flow of leads and the possibility of gaining much larger accounts without RFPs and pitches.
- It will be easier to build an online community of prospects with a more clearly defined target.
- He can gain a positioning of expertise within this category quickly. Expertise is what prospects are looking for and they’re willing to pay a premium.
- He has the ability to keep “top of mind awareness” 24/7 without having to rely on using interruption tactics such as cold calling.
- Developing content for his audience provides him with the professional enrichment needed to truly know his prospects challenges, objectives and be able to educate and communicate solutions.
- Even though Ernie has a large population of automotive OEM suppliers within his market this narrow focus provides the potential for national and international new business opportunities. It gives prospects, well outside of his market, a reason to want to do business with him.
- A measureable new business program that is easy to refine and improve.
A niche blog like Ernie’s, offers the smaller agency owners acceptable conditions to be highly focused on a specific prospect and fly their differentiated flag proudly without fear of missing “other” opportunities.
Ernie Perich’s blog: 0 to 60 Branding: Marketing and advertising insights for automotive suppliers
Connect with Ernie:
Email me at michael@michaelgass.com if you have questions or you’d like an overview of my program. I’d be glad to also include a copy of my guide, Seven Steps for Fueling New Business Through Social Media.
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