I’ve recently been discussing the topic of defining a niche or specialism with a few other agency founders. After some healthy debate I still feel that positioning an agency towards a niche or specialism is the best way to go.

The main reason for this is increased competition. When a potential client is faced with many options they will look to see which one most aligns to either their industry or the solution they’re looking for. What underlies this buying behaviour is the perception that there is value in the deep knowledge that a specialised agency will have. That works for both an industry-based specialism (healthcare) or a craft-based specialism (3D motion graphics), even better if you’re both (digital strategy for arts and culture). If you’re a contractor you’ll know this best by the line “Must have experience in Fintech”, common on many recent job ads. It’s another way of saying, we don’t want to hire someone who will have to learn about Fintech, we want the reassurance that they can hit the ground running.

Even large, generalised consultancies understand the importance of specialism. McKinsey provide a large array of services for multiple industries. You could argue they’re generalist. But the structure of their website reveals the company is actually made up of many specialists sitting under the banner of a respected name. Structured under the taxonomy of industry sectors, they present content that demonstrates deep knowledge alongside the partners with expertise in that area. It’s an approach that works for them mostly due to their size. Pentagram have a similar model.

Hanno—a small, independent digital agency—focus entirely on the health and wellness space. In their useful playbook they give their take on this matter:

“We realised that trying to be a generalist agency was something of a fools errand. That's why we started to narrow down on a niche and subsequently decided to focus our time entirely on health and wellness projects.

The advantage of this is that it makes outbound marketing far more natural. Instead of sending out spammy messages to every startup in existence, we can focus our time on doing good networking with other people who are experts in the same Healthcare space.”

The problem with working in a niche or specialism is that it goes against the idea that being a generalist is good for creativity. What you learn from one industry can be applied to another and lead to breakthrough ways of doing things; a cross-pollination of thought. If you become too entrenched in a single mindset or industry there’s a chance you might lose the ability to ‘see things from the outside’. Ultimately, this external view point is why clients hire outside help, though this is not always reflected in their buying behaviour, as I stated above.

This presents a dichotomy. A battle between the head and the heart almost, which leaves me with a couple of questions as I seek to remedy the unease of the matter:

How can I continue to position my agency towards a niche whilst still maintaining the ability to see things from the outside?

Is it possible to maintain the creative benefits of being a generalist through secondary activities (e.g. reading), as opposed to primary activities (e.g. project work)?