As consumers focus more on quality of brands, and the #ShopLocal movement advances, larger marketing agencies continue to see the exodus of clients moving to boutique alternatives. This shift has been happening the past few years, and still continues as boutique agencies thrive. Here we’ll go over reasons why a smaller marketing organization might better suit a client’s needs.

Communication and Authenticity

Utilizing simple math; smaller agency = less people. This equates to less gatekeepers for potential and current clients to get through to actually speak to a decision maker (as with larger firms). Especially with the notoriously high turnover rate in the advertising industry, clients can be pushed around to multiple account managers and feel like they do not have a go-to point of contact. With boutique agencies, clients often speak directly to principles or owners. Those owners usually come from a big firm or have a marketing background before they branched out on their own. So while boutiques might contract out work, leadership teams are experienced and seasoned jack-of-all-trades, therefor will understand the basics of the goals and campaigns. With larger organizations account managers often serve more as project managers, and just pass info up the—very long—ladder of communication.

Back to the numbers game, with a boutique agency their clients aren’t just a number, which equates to the ability to truly focus on brand awareness and loyalty, and represent your organization’s core values while doing so. With a large firm you can feel like the process is more of an assembly line. ‘This is the formula that we’ve experienced success with, we’ll apply it towards your business.’  –OR- ‘Here are the packages we provide, we’ve used these with X other clients, this is how it will apply to your campaign.’  But no two organizations are the same.

Agility

Small teams = faster teams. Large organizations = bureaucracy. When you’re working with a large firm, as we mentioned in our last point, the ladder of communication can often be long. This also equates to decisions taking longer because more levels of management need to approve changes. If you want to have a meeting with a large firm, more people are involved, which means more calendar coordination, and a lengthy approval process. Whereas small boutique agencies can pivot on a dime.

This agility also gives boutique agencies the ability to try innovative and out-of-the box ideas. This is the reason cited when cereal giant General Mills decided to farm out specific project work to boutique agencies. “The industry is teeming with small agencies of every variety doing really powerful work. We’re confident they’ll help us crack great creative work for our brands, and they’ll do so with ambition and generosity.” Large firms with multi-level approval processes are often focused on bottom line which makes them risk averse.

Name Your Price!

We’re not talking about the slogan for travel website Priceline. With a boutique agencies a potential client can say; ‘This is what I want to spend, these are my goals. What can you do for me?’ Many large firms have a high price tag before they would even consider working with a client, which creates a barrier to entry for small-to-medium businesses. Boutique agencies will work with small budget and small projects.

Boutique agencies also have less employees, less overheard, they operate leanly, and often contract out specific projects. These business practices allow them to offer lower prices points in general than a larger firm. The client isn’t paying for the name and the amenities of marketing representation, they’re paying for the work. Also, as mentioned previously clients have direct access to decision makers at a boutique agency which allows for the freedom for negotiation. It’s not as easy to haggle with an account manager of a large firm.

Boutique Agencies Walk the Walk

Boutique agencies don’t often spend their marketing dollars on outreach and acquisitions, they operate on connections and organic relationship building. Just because they don’t have the name recognition of a flashy firm, doesn’t mean they can’t provide what the client needs. Word-of-mouth referrals can go along way, and speaks volumes about the ROI that a boutique agency can provide.

Frankly, small agencies are often willing to go the extra mile for clients because they have more skin in the game—they have less clients. Losing a client equates to a greater amount of profit loss than it would with a large firm. Its this mindset and ethos that equates to boutique agencies hustling harder, which in turn is beneficial for their clients.

Quality over Quantity

Marketing trends have shifted focus away from scale and reach, and moved more towards targeted customers and specific brand engagement. Think of it in the sense of a billboard. Billboard advertising in a high trafficked location has a steep price tag. Sure, you will have a lot of eyes on your ad, but what good are people just becoming aware of your product? Brands and companies want to target specific audiences and authentically engage with them. It is for exactly this reason that Popchips decided to leave the big agency model for a boutique option. “Popchips is trying to make an emotional connection with its target, health-conscious women, so where its messaging appears is more important than the number of platforms it uses or the total number of impressions achieved.”

Key Takeaways

While the trend to gravitate towards boutique agencies began a few years ago, it still continues today. Large firms have even tried to get ahead of it by backing their own independent agencies, which offers a boutique arm for the conglomerates.

Bottomline- bigger is not always better when choosing marketing representation. Boutique agencies offer consistent communication with clients, as well as quick accessibility to decision makers. Less bureaucracy equates to flexibility with both projects and budgets. All of these factors can yield truly unique results for both clients and campaigns.