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Agencies help their clients stand out – but what about themselves? Too often agencies preach personality, but struggle to actually showcase theirs.

“Agencies in particular kind of struggle with walking the walk,” says Gina Buckle, founder of Hoot Copy. 

“Many of them have this very theoretical understanding of what it means to really stand out and to add fun and personality to their marketing. And particularly for digital marketing agencies who talk about this – this is a big USP that draws in clients – they need to be practising what they preach.”

The issue? Many default to copying what’s already out there, rather than carving their own space.

“I get a lot of, ‘Oh, Monzo. Yeah, we want to be like Monzo!’” And yes, brands like Monzo are fantastic. They do fun and humour really well. But their style works because it’s for them. They’ve designed it for them and their audience and their value proposition,” says Gina.

“What agencies try to do is just drag and drop, and rinse and repeat, and then they’re confused about why it hasn’t worked. It’s absolutely about taking inspiration from other businesses and brands that do it well, but working out what’s right and authentic to you.”

Even when agencies attempt to define their tone of voice, the results are often vague.

“A lot of the times when we start working together, I say, ‘Okay, so do you have tone of voice guidelines?’ and they go, ‘Yeah, we’ve got some.’ But we have different understandings of what ‘voice guidelines’ mean,” Gina says.

“They send me one page with three words on it, and they’re invariably things like ‘community’ and ‘trust.’ And I don’t think anybody has ever sat them  down and gone, ‘What do you mean by that?’ Like, we’re going to have to get more specific than that, because six of the agencies on your street – not even in your city, just in this one area – are using the same values as you are.”

So, what can agencies do to fix this? For Gina, it starts with honesty.

“You need to get clear on what makes you different,” she says. “Why should a client come to you rather than the agency down the road? It’s not just about having a ‘good’ tone of voice – it’s about having a tone that’s yours.”

“You need to be brave, basically, and stand for something. You shouldn’t be afraid to put your personality and unique tone of voice centre stage when you communicate.”

And if agencies keep falling back on the same words and phrases?

“I might start a buzzword jar,” Gina jokes. “Don’t know how I’d get agencies to contribute to it, but… 50p because you said ‘elevate,’ please.”

If you’re struggling to carve out your agency’s voice, or want to get more of an insight into how you can market your agency authentically and honestly, then this is the session for you.