Vertical positioning
Vertical positioning for marketing agencies.
Vertical positioning means an agency commits to serving one market or type of buyer so prospects can describe it in a sentence, and Tim Kilroy coaches agency owners through that choice. In his words, positioning is the choice to burn the boats: removing options so the remaining work is the strongest connection between your impact and the market's need.
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What is vertical positioning for an agency?
Vertical positioning is choosing a market, such as an industry or a type of buyer, and building the agency around serving it, instead of listing services for anyone. It works because buyers cannot remember an agency they cannot describe. A specialist in one market is easier to recall, refer, and pay more.
Agency owners say they work with everyone because picking a lane feels like leaving money on the table. Tim Kilroy argues the opposite. The agency that works with everyone gets friend-zoned: prospects like you, recommend you to a friend, and hire someone else.
Definition
Agency positioning, defined
Agency positioningis how the market hears what you say about yourself, not the words themselves. Tim Kilroy's point is that buyers categorize an agency in the first few seconds based on options they already understand. If you do not fit a category they recognize, they forget you before the second tab loads.
That has a hard consequence: you cannot write your way out of a position your work contradicts. If your case studies say everyone, your tagline cannot say specialist. The market reads the case studies and treats the tagline as noise. You can rewrite headlines in a week; repositioning takes years, and the work has to back the words.
The 20-second test
If a prospect, a current client, a teammate, or you cannot describe what your agency does in under 20 seconds, you do not have a defensible position. You have a brochure. Try it this week: ask three clients to describe you to a peer. If their answers differ, so does the market's memory of you.
Is a niche a moat or a trap?
It is both. A niche buys faster trust and higher rates, and it concentrates your risk into one market's weather. Tim Kilroy's advice is to choose a market you can genuinely dominate, then watch for over-concentration the same way you would watch a single client that grew into 40 percent of revenue.
“Tim helped us completely rethink our positioning and pricing. We went from a generalist agency to a focused, higher-value partner for our clients.”
| Question | Service-led (works with everyone) | Vertical (market-led) |
|---|---|---|
| How buyers describe you | A list of services, often hard to repeat | A sentence naming who you serve |
| What deals compare on | Usually price, since services look alike | Fit and understanding of the market |
| Referral quality | Liked and recommended, hired less | Easier for others to refer accurately |
| Main risk | Forgettable in a crowded field | Concentration in one market |
Summarized from Tim Kilroy's positioning playbook and agency FAQ on timkilroy.com.
How to choose your vertical
Look at your best clients, not your biggest
Find where your impact and the client need overlap most strongly, and where you enjoy the work.
Name the buyer in a sentence
Write who you serve and what changes for them, then run the 20-second test with clients.
Make the work match the words
Lead with case studies from that market so the evidence backs the position.
Commit long enough to be noticed
Tim describes positioning as the move that makes the next 18 months coherent. Expect silence before recognition.
Install it across the team
For larger agencies, DemandOS gives every role a way to speak to that market from their own seat.
Why positioning comes before sales
A price objection is usually a positioning problem in disguise. When a prospect cannot see the specific change you create, the only thing left to compare is your rate. That is why Tim Kilroy works on positioning before sales training, and why sharper positioning makes discovery calls shorter and better. For the full picture, see marketing agency coaching.
Questions agency owners ask
What is vertical positioning for an agency?
Vertical positioning means an agency commits to a specific market or type of buyer rather than offering its services to everyone. Tim Kilroy describes positioning as the choice to burn the boats: removing options so the remaining work is the strongest connection between your impact and the market’s need. A practical test is whether anyone can describe what you do in under 20 seconds.
Is my agency’s niche a moat or a trap?
It is both, and the variable is your margin for error. Tim Kilroy’s view is that a niche buys faster trust and higher rates while concentrating risk in one market’s weather. Choose a market you can genuinely dominate, then watch for over-concentration the same way you would watch a single client growing into 40 percent of revenue.
Why does my agency keep losing deals on price?
Agencies lose on price when they sell effort while the buyer pays for an outcome. If a prospect cannot see the specific change you create, the only thing left to compare is the rate. Tim Kilroy’s fix is to shift the conversation to outcomes, raise the floor on who you take, and walk away from deals that anchor you low.
What is DemandOS?
DemandOS is Tim Kilroy’s system for turning the whole agency team into a demand engine. It starts with sharp positioning, then gives each role a way to talk about that position to the layer of the buyer’s organization it naturally speaks to, from the CEO writing for senior leaders to analysts writing for early-career staff who notice good work first.
Does Tim Kilroy coach PR agency owners?
Yes. Tim Kilroy works with PR agencies alongside marketing, creative, development, and content agencies. The problems are usually the same: growth that depends on the founder, a pipeline built on referrals, and positioning that makes the agency sound like every competitor. Coaching focuses on choosing who you serve and building a repeatable way to win those clients.
What if I am not sure what is actually broken in my agency?
That is normal, and it is the reason Tim Kilroy diagnoses before prescribing. Symptoms like feast-or-famine leads, price-driven deals, or cash flow swings often trace back to one root cause such as unclear positioning. The WTF Assessment takes two minutes, and the free WTF call is designed to separate the real problem from the symptom.
Struggling to describe your agency in 20 seconds?
Start with the contact page on timkilroy.com. The first strategy call is free, runs 30 minutes, and is built to find the real problem before anyone suggests a fix.
Contact Tim Kilroy