23 min
How to Test Out a New Niche Instead of Going All-In Right Away Smart Agency Masterclass with Jason Swenk: Podcast for Digital Marketing Agencies
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- Management
Is it time to pick another niche for your digital agency? There are tons of benefits of niching down. However, there are a lot of concerns about making big changes and focusing on a specific industry. The good news is there are ways to test out a new niche instead of going all-in.
Alano Vasquez is the founder and CEO of Cyberwhyze, an agency that helps cyber security companies become brands that scale. Although he found success and even more room for opportunity in this space, he has had other failed attempts at niching down and understands it can be scary to choose a new market and fail. However remember, failures are just lessons to help you move closer to success!
In this episode, we’ll discuss:
Failures that become lessons learned when niching down. Testing out a new niche, rather than going all-in right away. Having the right team in place to give your freedom in your agency. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free.
Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM
First Steps and Lessons Learned When Niching Down Alano was working in sales at a tech startup right out of college. He was laid off, unfortunately, but when another startup hired him, he soon realized they had no marketing. He decided to use what he had learned and focused on becoming a full-staff marketer.
After learning the tech industry and creating his own agency, Alano started working by with any client in the B2B space. He worked with education, healthcare, and fintech companies trying to offer as many services as he could. Within 3 or 4 years, the agency hit a ceiling of about $1.5 million in revenue.
In trying to work out a solution, Alano noticed a lot of density with the agency’s cyber security clients. However, at the time he actually decided they would focus on the tradeshow space. It seemed like the right choice at that moment. Unfortunately, this happened right before the 2020 pandemic and the end of all in-person events for quite a while. They had spent time and resources on experiential and interactive marketing when everything went virtual because of Covid.
How to Identify a New Niche for Your Agency After his first failed attempt, Alano and his team went back to the basics and turned to the opportunity in the security space he had noticed before. They focused on branding and content creation for cyber security companies.
Before you pick a niche you pretty much start working with everyone so you can start to see what you like and do really well. You can see where you have success and start weeding out the things that you don’t like or do well. To his surprise, Alano quickly realized this new market presented a big runway of opportunities and was dealing. His agency Cyberwhyze started working with big brands sooner than he thought. He has rushed to create the capabilities in order to keep up with what the clients wanted from his agency. Now sees a possibility to double down on this niche.
You Can Test Out a New Niche Instead of Going All In In hindsight, his agency would have niched down much sooner had he followed the advice he now gives to his clients. Some of his clients have a few verticals and try to put out a lot of broad-stroke marketing, trying to make it a one-size-fits-all. He finds clients tend to do this to avoid going through the process of creating an entire website for each vertical. Instead, Alano suggests creating a funnel with positioning that speaks to each specific persona.
Agencies can also apply this same principle. There’s no need to build an entire website for a new niche, just build a funnel, test it out on LinkedIn and run some Google ads. It serves as insurance to make sure you’re not going down the wrong path and it might help you
Is it time to pick another niche for your digital agency? There are tons of benefits of niching down. However, there are a lot of concerns about making big changes and focusing on a specific industry. The good news is there are ways to test out a new niche instead of going all-in.
Alano Vasquez is the founder and CEO of Cyberwhyze, an agency that helps cyber security companies become brands that scale. Although he found success and even more room for opportunity in this space, he has had other failed attempts at niching down and understands it can be scary to choose a new market and fail. However remember, failures are just lessons to help you move closer to success!
In this episode, we’ll discuss:
Failures that become lessons learned when niching down. Testing out a new niche, rather than going all-in right away. Having the right team in place to give your freedom in your agency. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free.
Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM
First Steps and Lessons Learned When Niching Down Alano was working in sales at a tech startup right out of college. He was laid off, unfortunately, but when another startup hired him, he soon realized they had no marketing. He decided to use what he had learned and focused on becoming a full-staff marketer.
After learning the tech industry and creating his own agency, Alano started working by with any client in the B2B space. He worked with education, healthcare, and fintech companies trying to offer as many services as he could. Within 3 or 4 years, the agency hit a ceiling of about $1.5 million in revenue.
In trying to work out a solution, Alano noticed a lot of density with the agency’s cyber security clients. However, at the time he actually decided they would focus on the tradeshow space. It seemed like the right choice at that moment. Unfortunately, this happened right before the 2020 pandemic and the end of all in-person events for quite a while. They had spent time and resources on experiential and interactive marketing when everything went virtual because of Covid.
How to Identify a New Niche for Your Agency After his first failed attempt, Alano and his team went back to the basics and turned to the opportunity in the security space he had noticed before. They focused on branding and content creation for cyber security companies.
Before you pick a niche you pretty much start working with everyone so you can start to see what you like and do really well. You can see where you have success and start weeding out the things that you don’t like or do well. To his surprise, Alano quickly realized this new market presented a big runway of opportunities and was dealing. His agency Cyberwhyze started working with big brands sooner than he thought. He has rushed to create the capabilities in order to keep up with what the clients wanted from his agency. Now sees a possibility to double down on this niche.
You Can Test Out a New Niche Instead of Going All In In hindsight, his agency would have niched down much sooner had he followed the advice he now gives to his clients. Some of his clients have a few verticals and try to put out a lot of broad-stroke marketing, trying to make it a one-size-fits-all. He finds clients tend to do this to avoid going through the process of creating an entire website for each vertical. Instead, Alano suggests creating a funnel with positioning that speaks to each specific persona.
Agencies can also apply this same principle. There’s no need to build an entire website for a new niche, just build a funnel, test it out on LinkedIn and run some Google ads. It serves as insurance to make sure you’re not going down the wrong path and it might help you
23 min