Specialising by sector? Be careful

When I was a client, we ran a pitch process to find a Digital PR agency to work on our Evans Halshaw brand.*

Although the Digital PR boom didn’t really begin until a few months later (shortly after we launched Rise at Seven), I’d been working with Digital PRs for half a decade with Branded3 and Edit, so I felt confident that I knew which agencies were good at it.

…which was validated by the agencies: they definitely knew how to do Digital PR.

Some of them, however, struggled to understand our industry.

Most agencies have received that feedback at some point: “didn’t understand our industry” feels like a cop-out (and easy to overreact to, leading to massively increased pitch costs). So I’ll tell you what I mean.

What sector is Evans Halshaw in?

Awareness of Evans Halshaw in 2019 was high, with more than 100 dealerships in prominent locations and north of £500k spent on media most months. If I asked you what sector the brand was in, you’d probably say “automotive” without thinking about it too much.

So the agencies wheeled out their best “car” case studies, the majority related to car insurance.

The paths to purchase for cars and insurance couldn’t be more different:

The average person changes their car every 3-4 years and spends up to a entire year researching the purchase; they follow the manufacturers they’re considering on social media and watch videos about the products on YouTube and Instagram (and, more recently, TikTok). Some brands have extremely loyal buyers. In most cases, they’re excited about getting a new car and it will probably be one of the two most expensive things they own.

In most cases, people are irked about having to buy insurance: they do it because they have to. They do not look forward to using their insurance (exactly the opposite). They make the decision by visiting the comparison site that’s top of mind and choosing the cheapest quote from a brand they recognise. Their current insurer has spent the last 3-4 years irritating them even more by trying to raise the price and forcing them to waste an afternoon on the phone, threatening to move their business.

The only similarity between Evans Halshaw and, say, Confused.com, is that they talk about cars. That isn’t enough for a brand-side marketing department (and it shouldn’t be enough for a Digital PR agency either).

Evans Halshaw is a retailer.

If the agencies brought case studies showing how they drove store visits for a fashion brand, that’s experience that would resonate.

So, here’s what you should do with this information:

• Ask yourself, “would the brand we’re pitching to categorise themselves the way that we might categorise them?”
• Ask yourself, “what are the challenges this brand actually faces?” rather than “what are the topics this brand might want to talk about?”
• Ask yourself, “how do people feel about this brand and how would the brand like people to feel about them?”

You likely have way more relevant experience than you think. You can do better than “talks about cars”.

* My sales training includes what I learned from buying services, not just from the sell-side.