Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

It’s an age-old decision point in marketing — work with a range of specialized agencies, or find a full-service agency that can handle everything. In the last couple years, we’ve seen an ever-expanding tick-box approach to agency services. This decision point has only gotten more complicated.

In the late-90’s, I joined one of the first digital agencies in the Bay Area. We built websites, mainly for travel companies like Disney and Starwood. We were specialists and we were good at it. Then we got acquired along with 30 or so other specialist agencies and rolled-up into one big one-stop shop.

Suddenly, our new, big agency offered everything from brand identity design to consulting to advertising for every conceivable type of company. It was total chaos. I remember going to a meeting with a client to talk about an integrated plan and meeting other groups from my own company for the first time in the client’s reception area.

I learned to be wary of agencies that claim to do everything. In my experience on the client and agency sides, few agencies are capable to doing all of those things well, particularly for emerging technologies....

... If you drill down into the top 500 agencies, you’ll find that the fastest-growing and most profitable firms are those that are devoted to specific areas of expertise. Social media, experiential marketing, and customer relationship marketing account for many of today's competency specialists. Other types of successful market specialists include travel/tourism, agriculture, food, pharma, and senior living.Solutions, not servicesUltimately, marketers aren’t buying a service from an agency. They’re buying a solution. And effective solutions spring from deep areas of expertise, not a from a “wide range of experience” as most agencies are prone to tout....