I think that one of the hardest things to do as an agency is to clearly communicate how you’re different to everyone else. There are a few things that we often get told to do here that revolve around:
- Your unique value proposition or selling point.
- Your positioning.
- Your messaging.
- Your brand.
These are indeed very valuable things to work on, but there is a tension point here that I still find hard to resolve:
There isn’t actually anything unique about what most agencies do.
Yes, there are the odd exceptions when an agency truly innovates in some way, but even then, it doesn’t last forever.
This is why figuring out your unique positioning and why clients should choose you over your competitors, is actually really, really hard.
Today, I can’t promise to solve this completely for you, but I would like to give you a few things to think about that may change your thinking on what “it” may actually be.
What you think differentiates you (and why clients don’t care)
Most agencies define their differentiator as a service capability, a methodology, or sector expertise. We do great technical SEO audits. We’re creative. We specialise in SaaS. We have a 200-factor analysis process.
The problem? These are table stakes, not differentiators. This has pretty much always been true in an industry that moves so far. It’s even more true now that we’re seeing AI play a bigger and bigger role in how agencies work and deliver work.
I’ve seen it a lot over the years and experienced it with my own agency. We delivered amazing SEO audits or creative strategies, truly excellent work that was in-depth and had the potential to truly help a client’s business.
The problem – we often struggled to realise and communicate the actual value of this work to a client in our marketing and sales processes.
The real value wasn’t the thoroughness of the analysis and auditing work. It was that the audit gave a CMO who doesn’t understand technical SEO the clarity and confidence to make decisions without needing to become an expert themselves. They could finally hold their team or their current agency accountable. They could justify budget requests with concrete evidence.
That’s what clients were actually buying. But as an agency, we kept pitching “comprehensive technical analysis.” I still see it a lot. We’re all almost too close to what we do and have the curse of knowledge.
Another example: an agency I work with held a planning meeting for their senior team. When I asked what topics came up naturally, the answer was client retention, team performance, operational challenges. Standard stuff that does have value.
But there was something missing when they were talking about what you need to provide and deliver for clients.
Creativity.
For some agencies, this wouldn’t matter so much. But for this agency, creativity goes to the heart of who they are and what they do. Yet it was being forgotten about as something that clients truly value.
But it had become so normalised internally that when the leadership team sat down to discuss what was important, their core strength didn’t even make the agenda.
When something is routine for you, you stop seeing it as special. You describe what you do (we run creative campaigns, we build links, we do brand strategy) rather than what clients actually get from working with you.
The invisible things clients actually choose you for
Here is part of the problem. Clients often can’t articulate why they prefer one agency over another when the service looks similar on paper. It’s not about your process. It’s about how you make them feel, how you operate, what you take off their plate.
This is often why, when you lose a sales pitch, you can struggle to get tangible feedback on why you didn’t win. Clients often struggle to articulate it unless it’s something super obvious.
The chances are that you and the other agencies promised work that looked very similar – research, auditing, strategy, execution, reporting. It can all look very similar, especially during the sales process.
Real differentiators are invisible, subtle, yet very meaningful. And they matter more than you think during the sales process. It basically comes down to how you make the client feel.
That’s it. Honestly.
You need to make them feel:
- Listened to.
- Understood.
- That they can trust you.
- That you “get it”.
- Valued.
- You’ll be easy and fun to work with.
- You won’t make their life harder.
Good agencies understand this but even the best ones will proactively do these things after they’ve won the contract. A few will proactively try to do these things during the sales process and even fewer will attempt to communicate these things as their value proposition.
Why this gap exists (and why it’s so hard to see)
You’re too close to your own work. The things that feel routine to you are often the most valuable to clients.
Of course your work is valuable – you’ve been doing it for years, have seen the impact and know that you’re worthy of their investment.
So, it should be obvious to the client too, right?
Nope.
Agencies often discover what clients value most only when things go wrong. A client doesn’t renew and in the exit conversation you learn that what they really valued was the fact that your account manager always gave them a heads-up before problems became visible to their boss.
You thought they valued your strategic thinking. They valued not being surprised.
How to figure out what clients actually value (without losing them first)
Ask clients directly, but not in the standard “how are we doing?” way. Ask questions that dig a bit deeper such as:
- What would happen if you disappeared tomorrow.
- What would they struggle to replace?
- What would they miss most?
Look at the moments when clients have stayed despite having reason to leave, or when they’ve expanded the relationship. What was happening in those moments?
We don’t tend to ask why clients ask us for more services – we’re often just grateful for the extra work!
I was working with an agency where a major client explicitly said the entire relationship hinged on the current campaign succeeding. That’s a clear signal of what actually matters to them: tangible results they can show internally, not strategic thinking or creative awards.
Pay attention to what clients repeat back about you when they refer you or describe your work to others. That language often reveals what they genuinely value, stripped of the way you describe yourself.
What to actually do with this
Your positioning and sales process should lead with the thing clients actually value, not the thing you’re proudest of.
This doesn’t mean abandoning your methodology or expertise. It means framing it through what clients get rather than what you do.
Instead of “we run 200-factor technical audits,” try “we give CMOs clarity and confidence about their digital performance so they can make decisions without needing to become SEO experts themselves.”
Instead of “we’re a creative agency that does PR campaigns,” try “we solve the specific challenge that legacy businesses face when they need to modernise their reputation without losing what made them successful in the first place.”
One is a description of your work. The other is a client outcome.
A warning: don’t manufacture this. If you genuinely don’t solve a valuable problem in a distinctive way, clients will see through it. The work here is to discover what you’re already doing well that you’ve stopped noticing, not to invent something new for marketing purposes.
You need to follow through on what you promise.
Most agencies are better than they think at things they’ve stopped paying attention to. The agencies that grow consistently are the ones who figure out what clients actually value and make that the centre of how they talk about themselves.
Not just in marketing. In how they show up day to day, what they prioritise, what they measure, and what they hire for.
This is hard to see when you’re in it. You might need to ask people outside the business. Or pay attention to the moments when clients explain to others why they work with you. Those conversations often reveal more than any amount of internal strategising.