Offer strategic partnerships not “consulting by the pound.”
While this is listed as Epiphany 9, differentiation is critical for long-term business success. Over the past few years, I have consulted with companies that all believe they are different from their competitors, and it is often tough for them to learn they do the same thing, often just less expensive.
In a crowded marketplace where agencies often compete on price and deliverables, differentiation isn’t just a marketing buzzword—it’s a necessity for survival and growth. Many agencies struggle with client retention, pricing pressures, and proving their economic value. But the agencies that thrive for a decade or more do so by focusing on demonstrating economic value, not just delivering services that are just a different color than everyone else.
From my experience working with agencies worldwide, those that differentiate themselves effectively often follow a few key principles. Let’s review what I have learned over 30 years to enable your agency or company to break free from the commodity trap and build lasting client relationships.
1. Just Be Different
Suppose you have been following the epiphanies in order; you know by now that my thinking and that of GSI were radically different from that of most agencies. I was proud that these insights forced us to be different, enabling us to earn working with some of the biggest companies in the world. Our key differentiators focused on revenue creation, change management, and process improvement, positively impacting search and business performance.
In the lesson on Epiphany 11, a Winning Search Agency, I tell the P&G story where because we were not just another order-taking agency, it allowed us to earn their business. The presentation started with the procurement manager’s concern that we were too small, stating the leading contender planned to put 21 people on the project. I asked them, ” What are those people doing today – who has 21 people just lying around? Then what would they do? I went to the whiteboard and wrote the main deliverables of the RFP. I then drew our enterprise search framework and the required headcount to deliver it. Our framework is almost precisely aligned with the one mandated in the RFP.
I started drawing a model showing how we would integrate with existing workflows, share information across brands in categories, and build a scalable and repeatable process. This required experienced strategists that would be embedded into their organization. I concluded that if you want people to sell you SEO by the pound doing everything as individualized projects without integration or scalable change, then hire the other guys. If you believe in the model you requested, your only option is to choose us, as we are the only ones who have demonstrated that approach. Ultimately, they chose us, and we built them an enterprise-grade search program, gaining the name “The McKinsey of Search.”
We showed differentiation because we did not just do checklist items but focused on frameworks and integrating them into their existing process to create incremental value.
- Demonstrate your experience—we showed how we were doing exactly what they wanted and needed with similar-sized clients.
- Don’t be afraid to challenge their process – It is risky to argue with procurement, but if you are truly different and they cannot understand why, you will lose anyway. Unfortunately, they are often the least knowledgeable about the solution they need and the qualifications of those they are evaluating.
- Avoid being viewed as a commodity – Without differentiation, agencies risk becoming interchangeable and competing solely on price. A precise, unique positioning allows agencies to charge premium rates instead of engaging in a race to the bottom.
When an agency is unique in its approach, specialization, or services, it can communicate a more apparent and more compelling reason why clients should choose it over competitors.
2. Proving Economic Value: Why Clients Stay or Leave
If you have already read Epiphany 6, Show Economic Value, and Epiphany 8, Showing the Love, you knew this would be in an article on differentiating. A significant reason agencies lose clients isn’t poor work—failing to showcase the value of that work effectively. I’ve consulted with agencies with client churn rates exceeding 80% after the first contract. Their renewal pitch was often simply a copy-paste of the original contract with “renew” written at the top: no progress, new strategy, no demonstrated ROI—just the exact deliverables listed again.
Differentiated agencies, on the other hand, don’t sell SEO by the pound or PPC by the click. They sell outcomes. They communicate impact, such as:
- How much revenue they helped generate
- How much money did they save a client
- How they contributed to a client’s key business objectives
An agency that tracks and reports on economic value (cost savings, revenue increases, efficiency gains) will stand out from those that merely list tasks completed. I have tried to demonstrate strategic value to clients in some creative ways.
3. Stop Selling Services—Sell Business Growth
Not to rehash economic value, but many agencies that struggle with differentiation often present their work in terms of actions taken instead of results delivered. Clients don’t care about keyword research or technical audits in isolation—they care about how those efforts translate into revenue growth, cost savings, or competitive advantage.
For example, in a high-stakes meeting with a Fortune 500 company, I witnessed firsthand how budgets don’t expand—they get reallocated. The client was sold on search optimization, but they had to cut funds from print ads to make room for it. This is the reality: If your agency or solution can’t prove why it deserves a bigger budget, someone else will.
Successful agencies differentiate by:
- Linking deliverables to measurable business impact (e.g., “Our SEO campaign reduced paid search spending by $880,000 per month.”)
- Aligning their work with client KPIs (e.g., revenue, lead generation, conversion rates)
- Shifting from a “consulting by the pound” model to a strategic partnership
4. Moving from Retainers to Relationships
The agencies that retain clients for 10+ years focus on long-term business value, not short-term contracts. One of my biggest points of pride with the GSI team was our ability to retain our partners. In a presentation to WPP a number f years after acquisition we showed that our average client has been with us for 10 tears with multiple over 15. I have never heard of any company keeping a search agency for that long. This was only possible due to the amazing team and our focus on delivering for clients.
Many agencies lose clients because they operate in reaction mode—delivering work as requested rather than proactively identifying opportunities for growth. A Fortune 500 client once told me, “Your job as my agency is to keep my ass employed.” That insight was a game-changer. When clients feel their agency is actively working to help them succeed internally—securing their budgets, making them look good in board meetings, hitting their KPIs—renewals become a given. This was teh driver being our focus on showing the love.
Differentiate by:
- Regularly checking in with clients to ensure they feel supported
- Aligning deliverables with their internal success metrics
- Creating customized reports that speak their language (e.g., revenue growth, lead quality, customer lifetime value)
5. The “30 Minutes to Search Greatness” Framework
One final way to differentiate is by consistently delivering quick wins while executing long-term strategies. Too often, agencies get bogged down in months-long projects without showing early results or a protracted procurement process can delay a real start of work but clients assume you have been working for them. To counter this, I developed a simple weekly exercise that any agency team would use to generate fast, impactful improvements:
The “30 Minutes to Search Greatness” Checklist
The idea was simple, one a week on Friday or Monday you would review the following for each of your clients. These simple data points called out elements that if fixed could show that we were moving the needle and delivering revenue or cost savings.
- Check high-cost PPC keywords. Are you optimizing for the same terms organically, and are they ranking? We can send traffic into organic for every high-cost word, resulting in real cost savings.
- Review new homepage backlinks. Are high-authority sites linking to the wrong pages? Many press releases and industry references link to the home page. Identifying them quickly and asking for a link to the product or solution referenced shortly after posting can drive high-value links where they belong.
- Analyze Search Console errors. Are technical issues blocking indexing or preventing pages from ranking?
- Find keywords ranking 5-10. Initially, this was ranking 11-15, but now, with multiple SERP elements, it is more like 5 to 10. The idea is that these pages are just off the mark, and a small optimization change of a single relevant backlink could move them to page one.
- Optimize underperforming high-ranking pages. This is the lowest-hanging fruit. If a page is ranking well but not getting sufficient clicks, can we tweak the snippet or content to improve CTR? A simple export from Google Search Console of keywords by rank and click rate, identifying any top 3 with less than a 5% click rate, is prime for snippet optimization.
This structured approach ensures that progress is visible and measurable every week even within large-scale campaigns.
Final Thoughts: Make Your Agency Irreplaceable
If your agency looks and operates like every other agency, you’ll struggle with pricing pressures, client retention, and proving your value. But if you differentiate by:
- Focusing on economic value over deliverables
- Selling growth instead of services
- Proactively reporting on business impact
- Building long-term client relationships
- Delivering quick wins while executing big strategies
You’ll not only keep your clients—you’ll keep them for years.
The best agencies don’t just execute—they help businesses grow.
How does your agency demonstrate its economic value? If you’re struggling with differentiation, let’s talk.