Don’t come for me, I am not discounting the value with specializing in a certain category or industry. Focused experience provides a level of knowledge within the category that can be extremely beneficial, especially within highly regulated sectors (e.g. pharma). It is easy to see the positives of working with a specialist, but what’s on the other side of the coin? What are you missing out on by limiting your marketing hires to firms that don’t have experience in other industries?
A lot of us will recognize the quote "A jack of all trades is a master of none” – which is valid in some cases. But most don’t realize, that is not the full quote. It’s actually: "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
Throughout my career, I have had the great honor of working across multiple different categories, industries, verticals, etc. I wouldn’t change that experience for anything. I am not saying it’s easy, as an agency that provides services across all marketing functions & is industry agnostic, it requires a greater level of intellectual curiosity & dedication to research. But in my controversial opinion, staying inside a box when it comes to marketing breeds laziness. Think about it in your own life. When you know something so well, you’ve been doing it for the longest time, you get comfortable, it’s muscle memory. And therefore, leads to resistance when it comes to change. The same goes for marketing – let’s take EDU marketing as an example. An industry that, for the most part, tends to stick with marketing agencies that specialize in EDU. I get it – a college education is not your average purchase, in fact, it’s one of the largest purchase decisions you will ever have to make in your life; makes sense that you’d want a marketing firm that lives and breathes that complex marketplace.
However, I have seen time and time again, brands are missing out on huge market share growth opportunities because they have aggressive enrollment goals, less than ideal marketing budgets, and a niche agency that is solely looking at the bottom line of media lead performance. Given what I just mentioned about this being one of the biggest purchases you’ll ever make, coupled with the thousands of options a consumer has, a full-funnel approach, with multiple touchpoints is absolutely necessary. Just going after the low-hanging fruit at the bottom of the funnel will stiffen growth and that well will dry up very quickly. Furthermore, you have to be obsessed with the business outcome, not just the media performance. Quality over quantity.
The experience we have gained through working with brands across many different verticals has allowed us to think outside of the box. It’s not about what every other EDU brand is doing – what can we learn from other DTC brands to enhance our EDU marketing strategy? That is the approach we take at Marketsmith. So, if you are a brand that has historically put yourself in a box when it comes to who you choose as your agency and are not seeing the growth you desire, let’s have a conversation. We guarantee positive impact within 90 days.
Subscribe to Our Email List!
You can expect to receive valuable content with input from thought leaders, case studies across a variety of industries, and MSI solutions.
