The value of specialist services in your marketing mix

1. Results-driven and focused

Do you want to go wide or do you want to go deep? In this rapidly changing and dynamic age of digital marketing it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep up with changes in policy, algorithm and popularity on each individual digital platform.

Each platform serves a very specific function in your marketing mix and brands need to decide if they want to simply be present on platforms or use platforms to drive results. Yes, a multi-service agency can employ specialists and assign them to your account but the management structure within the agency and attention to detail may not be to the degree that you need.

If results and focused attention is what you are after, studies show that having a specialist agency managing your platforms will ultimately deliver more value and drive more success in the long run.

2. Competition and collaboration drive results

One concern of choosing a specialist agency over a full-service agency is that consistency of tone etc. would be missed. However, the role of the marketing team within a brand would be to proactively get specialist agencies to collaborate with one another and ensure they speak in the same tone of voice across platforms.

If the agencies can collaborate you are more likely to see valuable solutions to your problems and increased creative solutions to your marketing campaigns. Each individual specialist will be considering (in detail) how to work the platform to suit the whole while still driving results.

In my experience, some agencies are afraid to collaborate with specialists as they see them as competition and they want to hold on to as much of the pie as possible. That said, if you want to drive results, agencies should collaborate and the “competition” will ensure you get what you want at the end of the day – the best possible solution.

3. The smaller and specialist agencies are hungry and in love with their work

Often you will find that the smaller or more specialist agencies take better care of their clients as they know how valuable clients are to their growing business. You get better communication, more detailed approaches to your marketing conundrums, analytical reports and a depth of work that you cannot find elsewhere.

Staff at specialist agencies are also usually employed in those agencies because of a die-hard love for the platform; and if someone loves what they do they are more likely to go the extra mile to drive results and over deliver. That should be attractive to brands who want their marketing plans to drive results.

4. Risks and pace: two factors that can cripple creative strategy and campaign success

Full-service creative agencies took their rise in the 50s and 60s with the likes of David Ogilvy and Leo Burnett pioneering the advertising space. But in the 1970s (after a few recessions globally) clients began to value price over creativity.

So the rise of the smaller specialist agencies came about as they could offer more financial accountability and lower commissions and because they were small enough they could be more agile without having to employ as many creatives to expand their overheads.

Larger companies have more processes and thus are often slower to react which often results in missed opportunities. Specialists and smaller agencies are better able to turn around campaigns faster and with more gusto than a larger multi-service agency.

Conclusion

In conclusion, digital media is moving rapidly and in order to keep up brands need to be agile and work agencies who add the most value within the marketing mix and in line with what a brand wants to achieve.

There is room for larger multi-service agencies to manage the online landscape while allowing smaller specialist agencies to plug in and go deeper - providing solutions that drive results. Some projects and campaigns may be better suited for smaller specialist agencies; while others may require a multi-service larger agency.

If you can’t decide between the two, the sweet spot would be to build a diverse team of specialists and multi-service agencies and manage them correctly.