What’s Next For Agencies?

What is going to happen to agencies? 

Agencies have always taken advantage of an asymmetry of skills in the marketplace. In other words, you have something companies want and can’t have themselves due to a number of factors (timing, investment, skillset, etc.). 

We all know those factors are changing and skills are becoming more accessible. And even if you disagree with that sentence, you likely admit that expertise is now perceived as more accessible.  

So, that leads us to a constraint driven exercise. 

If the companies that used to hire you now execute that work internally, why do you get hired?

My growing belief is that you will get hired for your data. 

Agencies have (or could have) the most valuable datasets for their clients. Information on how, why, and when decisions are made across an audience segment, verticals, or specific focus area. 

This is information that isn’t publicly available through LLMs or other AI models. It’s data that you collect through independent research or client engagements. 

Sure, clients can now use AI tools to write, design, code, and market. They can even develop strategies around all those things. But the one thing they can’t do is make decisions based on experience and backed by hard evidence. 

You think companies are going to do this on their own? 

They won’t. It takes too long and in most cases is far too specific to interest them in the investment and learnings that can benefit them. After all, they’ve had decades to bring marketing, design, and software development in-house. Most didn’t. 

Once a skill is learned or automated your advantage starts to disappear. But data compounds the longer you've been collecting it. A competitor can hire your best strategist in a week. They can't backfill five years of financial advisor behavior research. And even if a single client wanted to try, they only have a reason to study their own customers. An agency serving twenty wealth management clients has a reason to study financial advisors as a category, a depth of interest no single client will ever have.

A client’s research commitment will be on a snapshot of data to drive a short-term benefit. Your research commitment can stretch years and layer in longitudinal findings that brands can only dream about.

Here are two specific examples of how this may play out in practice. 

A marketing agency focused on launching medical devices to healthcare providers builds out a database of provider insights. They invest a small amount monthly to conduct qualitative and quantitative research into how specific provider types adopt new tools and think about the buying process. They add to this database when new projects require external research. Medical device clients seek them out not because they lack internal marketing tools, but because they want specific insights into how urologists, radiologists, or some other specialty responds to marketing. The marketing agency helps them execute the work and may even give them access to the database for a monthly fee. In some cases, prospects are also attracted to a lower commitment around discovery and research because a foundation already exists. This marketing agency becomes top of market for what they do and can command higher fees as a result. 

In a different situation, a product agency focused on digital employee experiences builds out a database focused on employee engagement. They invest in a research function that analyzes employee tools, how they’re used, and what their impact is on employee productivity and retention. They publish a small piece of these findings in a quarterly report and the rest are available only to their clients. They don’t have trouble finding these clients because no other design or development shop has the demonstrated expertise and supporting data that they do. Clients seek them out because they offer the highest odds of a successful outcome. 

These are just two potential examples, but the scenario is consistent. If you own valuable data your agency can learn from it to produce better work and use it as a driver of new business.  

One thing you have that your clients don’t is an outside perspective. AI offers the illusion of outside perspective but lacks the practical application and depth of experience. Claiming that expertise isn’t going to get you far. Collecting and owning hard data that proves it will. 

I’m looking for a few agencies who are interested in building out this capability for themselves and using it to transform their business. If that’s you, let’s connect.