How to beat the big agencies
You have the people, the processes, the experience and the case studies. Your agency’s reputation and revenue are on the rise. And you’re in the mix to win exciting brands alongside the bigger agency names and even the network players. But deep down you know that brand’s probably gonna go with the safe option, rather than roll the dice on a smaller agency like you. Well, fuck that. You absolutely can beat them by tipping the odds in your favour, as long as you don’t play them at their own game.
Bigger ain’t necessarily better
Sure, you can’t outspend the old guard or trade on your decades of Mad Men heritage but you can outsmart them. Because despite what you think, brands can be tempted away from their comfort zones - but not if you play by the same rules. You need to make what you’ve got work harder so you’re not seen as a wildcard outsider, but actually the cool cat amongst the dull, grey pigeons.
Although you look up to those big agencies in awe, they have huge flaws you can exploit. The trick is being bold enough to shine a light on these shortcomings and call them out. Don’t assume bigger always equals better. Today’s brands are more open to working with small and mid-sized agencies who offer them something beyond the boundaries of the big agency roster. Many of the big shops can be bloated, bureaucratic, and, well… bang average. They trade on their reputation, client roster, and gravitational pull rather than moving to the market with a well-positioned, highly-differentiated, boldly-opinionated proposition. If you’re willing to make big strategic decisions and push beyond the beige, buzzword bullshit many big players rely on, you can earn the edge.
Leverage your size advantages and you’ll increase your potential for big client wins. Of course, nothing’s cast-iron guaranteed but this is about tipping the odds in your favour, pitching your strengths against their weaknesses. Remember, making these shifts is a big program of work that needs senior stakeholder buy-in and strong leadership from day dot. Be prepared to invest time, headspace, and money to make these changes happen and hold. But keep sight of the end game here; to win work from big agencies where you know you could deliver better for the brand. So here’s some ideas on how to use your size to your strategic advantage…
Narrow your space by being the specialists
Most big agencies have pretty generic positioning in as much as they offer a broad range of services to a broad range of clients. While they see this as a commercial advantage, many brands can be tempted away by the offer of either sector or service specialism. Sure, specialization is a huge decision that’s never to be taken lightly but it’s the most obvious lever to pull to gain an instant strategic edge over bigger shops. The theory is simple; by focusing on the client’s specific world and needs you’re seen as the better fit.
Of course, logic dictates you have to pick which of these specialisms you play in. And this means sometimes you rule yourself out of the running. But when it’s the right kind of brand, you start from a position of authority and power whereas the big agencies are left showing their generic shop window and hoping the client sees something they like. Similarly, the more you can narrow the category you play in, the more a prospect can see you’re a good fit for a brief or project they’re looking to hire against. Going head-to-head with the big-name agencies as a generalist is a slippery slope. They have the resources to win this battle nine times out of ten. Fight smarter, not harder.
Sell the story that smaller is smarter
You’re David, they’re Goliath. You’re new, they’re old. You’re agile, they’re bulky. When you know you’re going up against bigger agencies, why not sell in the narrative that their huge size is their big disadvantage. The temptation is to just focus on your agency (and hopefully the prospect) but the smart play is to downplay and discredit your bigger competition.
Many agency leaders feel uncomfortable being negative, ever, about anything. But the reality is that you can call out bigger agencies as a faceless collective, rather than naming them individually. In your comms or pitch, call out the size difference and meet the prospect’s concerns head on. Tell them you’re proud to be smaller and sell them the benefits of this. Explain all the upsides of choosing your agency over the big shops, and don’t water it down. Show how the world’s changed and that smaller agencies can be any brand’s advantage.
The flipside of this approach is to prove to prospects that you have pretty much the same processes, results, people, structure and outlook as your bigger competitors. You’re just much leaner and more able to be reactive and proactive when it comes to the client’s needs. Be wary of selling yourself as cheaper because of this though. Lean and agile can be misconstrued as being less expensive, but you should hold firm on your prices and margins to match the major players out there. If you think underselling your work will win you more pitches, you’ll likely find it has the opposite effect of making you feel less premium and desirable.
Swerve generic messaging and get specific
A lot of big agencies end up with generic and largely meaningless messaging that neither attracts in or filters out. They rely on the latest buzzwords to catch the brand’s attention. Expect lofty but empty statements about impacting the future, transformation, or navigating today’s connected ecosystem. All very grand in tone but so wide in scope they could apply to almost anything.
This is your opportunity to be much more specific with your messaging. You may feel it’s symptomatic of being smaller, but solving a prospect’s specific problem will resonate much better than claiming to solve them all. Make sure your messaging is about the prospect, not your agency. Speak to how their business, brand and life will be better as a result of your work together. Be specific about it, avoiding the temptation to sell every benefit at once. Appeal to the emotional, not just the rational. Talk about how they’ll feel, not just what you’ll do.
This may sound simple and obvious but bigger agencies rarely take risks with their messaging, offering up the same word soup as every other shop their size. If you can paint a more visceral, real and recognisable picture for a prospect, you’ll be remembered above the buzzword bingo.
Make your senior people more available
Most agencies have great senior people. And big agencies have big hitters with big CVs. Their problem is that once the work’s won and the project begins many of these major faces melt away. The senior talent that sold the client in the first place steps away to go sell in the next one. In their place steps a mid or junior team to see the work through, leaving some brands feeling like they’ve been victim to a bait-and-switch hustle.
Senior folk at brands love to work with senior folk at agencies. If you’re able to offer more access to the A-team than the big agencies, then you have a solid selling point to lean into and leverage. Of course be wary of over promising and leaving your senior team at a brand’s beck and call but sell that expertise, consultancy and relationship as a key difference that bigger agencies will struggle to live up to.
Have a strong opinion and stand by it
As agencies get bigger, their outlook and opinion tends to be more risk-averse. That’s why many talk about how the world is changing, or how creativity is important, or how brand is vital. And sure, while they might believe these kinds of statements, so does pretty much everyone else out there. They’re opinions, but not divisive ones. Drawing a bigger line in the sand is your chance to be the wrong fit for some brands, but a brilliant fit for others.
Your opinion, belief, perspective (or whatever you call it) can center around a few possible subjects. It might be about your ideal client’s problem, your industry, or even wider society. The lens is up to you, but whatever you have an opinion about it should be distinctive, divisive, and have evidence to back it up. For example, you might be a web agency that has a strong opinion that web builds shouldn’t be off-shored and that the best results come from people being in the room together. Or you might be a branding agency that believes their work should always be tested and validated instead of just signed off subjectively. Or maybe you believe the exact opposite of this and think unbridled creativity should win over metrics and measurement.
The substance of this opinion is on you to find, frame and put front and center. The key point is that bigger agencies rarely want to piss anyone off, so this is an opportunity to hold firm to what you believe and hope the prospect feels the same as you. Of course, some won’t and you have to accept that and consider it a potential bullet dodged. But head into that pitch, put out that marketing, and take a stand for something. Don’t hide it at the end of a 115 slide deck or as a closing remark after an hour of waffling. It should be the beating heart of what your agency’s all about, because this kind of powerful flag-planting is hard for big shops to achieve credibly without losing valuable clients. Step up, stand for something, and stand out.
Don’t hide all the detail behind a new-biz wall
Big agencies have to be cagey because of corporate espionage and commercial pressures. This means a prospect has to send an enquiry then jump through a series of meetings and discovery calls just to understand the agency, process, deliverables and costs etc. For some, this is just business as usual and fully expected. But you have the luxury of being able to make most of this information easily accessible and visible immediately. This means prospects can mentally put you into the mix without having to go through a huge sales process. Of course, there’s an argument that says it’s better to spend more time with the prospect to understand their needs and to nurture the relationship. But making details available early needn’t stop this, it just means less time educating and explaining and more time chatting, listening and building rapport.
This doesn’t mean you need to publicize your prices. In fact, that’s less likely to help you outmaneuver the big agencies. But details around process, deliverables, and approach can be available early to give prospects a deeper understanding and sense of what it’ll be like to work with you. And beyond the specifics themselves, this is your chance to flex your tone of voice and build trust and rapport immediately. You don’t have to hem yourself in with packages and products (although this can work when done well) but talking a prospect through what they can expect to happen, and what types of things they can expect to receive, can be a smart strategy that big agencies will be reluctant to try.
Be braver with your agency’s brand
Look at most big agency websites and you’ll find they look smart, slick and simple but rarely do they take any risks. Of course, they want to present a premium feel so they steer away from anything too colorful or controversial. But your agency’s brand can afford to push harder by being bigger, bolder and braver in how it looks, sounds and acts.
As a smaller agency, you can be more playful and free with your brand. It shouldn’t cross the line into silliness that makes you seem small again, but many brands want agencies to show their creativity rather than just claim it. So do something experimental with your logo, explore some new tech or technique for your website, and mess with the traditions that old agencies rely on. The temptation can be to mirror what the league above do with their brand; monochrome, Helvetica, and paired-back but they can all begin to blend into the background. Capturing attention with something crazier and cooler can mean you start from an advantage when trying to win that bigger brand.
As a founder, owner or senior agency leader, your personal brand can be a huge advantage. Whereas senior folk at big agencies move around more frequently, you’re more likely to be with your own agency for longer. This means it’s simpler for you to build longer-term relationships and to become an established voice in your world. Your job is to champion the agency and its advantages wherever possible; eg. social media, speaking gigs, and networking events.
Market your agency like a maverick
Bigger agencies have the reputation and the relationships to help them generate leads and win big brand work. It’s likely you don’t - yet. Big agencies market themselves more subtly and often through more prestige-building tactics such as big awards entries, content in big publications, and speaking at major industry events. These are all viable tactics for you but repeating them at the same scale can be a challenge. So rather than adopt these tactics, it can also work to exploit some that big agencies tend to avoid. For example, few big agencies use paid advertising aside from the occasional spread in an industry magazine. Clever brand awareness, thought leadership, and more provocative campaigns can help make your smaller agency more visible and credible with the right audience.
Your smaller size means you have more freedom to take risks with your marketing. This isn’t about swearing for the sake of it, or doing daft stunts just for attention. But it means you should avoid the mediocre marketing middle ground full of dull-as-ditchwater white papers, webinars, and wet LinkedIn posts. Instead you have license to experiment with being satirical, funny, or controversial. So make up a fake brand to call out the crap they’re doing wrong. Create a surreal video to sell in your B2B agency. Run an event in some weird location with unusual guest speakers. The tactics themselves are down to you, but avoid the beige and utterly expected ones that most big agencies fall back on.
So, fight smarter and punch above your weight
Look, big agencies have lots of benefits and can be a great fit for some brands. But there’s a huge amount of cool, creative and commercial agencies out there that are capable of doing great things to help clients thrive. But sometimes the easier option is to opt for a big-name agency. After all, nobody gets fired for hiring IBM. But this isn’t a good reason to ignore the smaller, leaner, faster and often smarter agencies that deserve more than just a seat at the table - they deserve to feast from it too.
That’s why Treacle exists; to give agencies like you an edge over the big, bulky behemoths. Because it’s unlikely you can outspend or outmuscle the establishment. But you can outsmart them through standout positioning, smarter messaging, and slicker branding. So if you’re serious about punching above your weight, let’s chat about getting you fighting fit.
Go get ‘em.