Agency positioning statement: a template without the fluff
An agency positioning statement in one sentence: a five-part template, five steps from client alternatives to the sentence and a before-and-after example.
How do you write an agency positioning statement that doesn’t sound like everyone else’s? Use a sentence with five parts: who it’s for, in what situation, compared with what (what the client would do without you), how you’re different, and what proof you have. The pattern: “For [who], who [situation] and today [alternative], we are [difference], as shown by [proof]”. In the [difference] slot you write who you are, what you do differently from the alternative and what that gives the client. You fill it in at the end of the work, not at the start: first you list the client’s alternatives, then your differentiators and proof, and only then do you build the sentence.
In this post I’ll show the template, the five steps that lead to it, and an example of a statement before and after the fix.
What agency positioning is
April Dunford, author of the positioning book “Obviously Awesome”, defines it as how you are a leader at delivering something that a well-defined set of customers cares a lot about. She also says what positioning isn’t: it isn’t messaging, a tagline, your brand story or your vision (“A Quickstart Guide to Positioning”, 2021). A positioning statement records that decision for internal use.
A template filled in off the top of your head produces fluff
Dunford criticizes the classic positioning statement, filled in like a form with blanks. She calls the exercise “not only pointless but potentially dangerous”, because it assumes there is one obvious answer for each blank. In practice an agency can compare itself with different alternatives and stress different things for different clients, and the form doesn’t tell you which version to choose.
In my view, that’s where statements like “full-service marketing for demanding clients” or “your partner in digital growth” come from. Every blank is filled, but none of them tells the buyer who to compare you with and why to pick you. Promethean Research’s 2025 report on digital agencies says something similar: the next competitive edge comes from how clearly and credibly you define your specialization, and generic claims won’t cut it (report, p. 45).
So the template is useful only at the end, to record the results of the five steps below.
The statement template: five parts
| Part | What you write | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | the type of client who cares most about your difference | step 4 |
| Situation | the moment or problem in which the client looks for help | step 4 |
| Alternative | what the client would do if you didn’t exist | step 1 |
| Difference | what you call what you sell, what you have that the alternative doesn’t, and what that gives the client | step 2 |
| Proof | a project, result or reference for each difference | step 3 |
These parts match the components Dunford lists: competitive alternatives, differentiated capabilities, value for customers, target customer segment and the market category you position in. I add proof as a separate part, because without it a difference is just a claim.
Five steps from the client’s alternatives to the statement
Dunford starts with competitive alternatives, because only against them can you see what actually sets you apart.
- List the alternatives. Input: recent inquiries, won and lost proposals. Output: a list of what clients did before buying from you or instead of it. In a marketing agency that’s usually an in-house team or one “marketing person”, a freelancer, another agency, or nothing. In a software house it may be the client’s own IT department or off-the-shelf software; in a consultancy, the client’s leadership doing it themselves. Dunford points out that the alternative is sometimes “do nothing”, which means sticking with the current way, and warns against phantom competitors: companies that could theoretically compete with you but that you never actually lose deals to. Leave those out.
- List the differences. Input: the list from step 1. Output: two or three things you have that the alternatives don’t, for each an answer to “so what does that give the client?”, and a name for what you sell that covers those differences.
- Attach proof to each difference. Input: the differences from step 2. Output: a project, result or reference for each one. Cross out a difference with no proof, or keep it for later.
- Name who it’s for and in what situation. Input: the differences with proof and the list of alternatives. Output: the type of client who cares most about them, the moment they look for help, and the alternative from step 1 that this client considers most often.
- Write the statement. Input: the results of steps 1–4. Output: one sentence following the template, with one group of clients and one or two differences. If you need more for the sentence to make sense, go back to step 4 and narrow the group.
A before-and-after example
This is an illustration, not a real firm: take an agency that builds websites and runs campaigns, in recent years mostly for accounting firms.
Before: “Full-service online marketing for businesses that want to grow.” This sentence doesn’t say who it’s for, compared with what, or why.
| Part | Example (illustration) |
|---|---|
| Who it’s for | accounting firms with a few to a dozen or so employees |
| Situation | the owner wants to win clients from a specific industry and has no time for marketing |
| Alternative | a website built by a friend and a social media profile run by someone on staff |
| Difference | a marketing agency for accounting firms; we schedule campaigns outside tax-filing periods, so the owner doesn’t deal with marketing in the busiest weeks |
| Proof | campaign schedules from projects for accounting firms and their owners’ feedback, shown with the clients’ permission |
A second difference the agency considered (“we write in the language of the firm’s clients, not accountants”) was dropped in step 3, because it had no proof.
After: “For accounting firms with a few to a dozen or so employees that want to win clients from a specific industry, have no time for marketing and today have a website built by a friend and a profile run by someone on staff, we are a marketing agency for accounting firms that schedules campaigns outside tax-filing periods, so the owner doesn’t deal with marketing in the busiest weeks, as shown by our campaign schedules and the feedback of the accounting firm owners we’ve worked for.”
A homepage headline based on this statement could read: “Marketing for accounting firms that doesn’t eat your time during tax season.”
Where the effects of the statement show up
A positioning statement is for your team, but its content should be visible in three places:
- in your homepage headline, shortened to who it’s for and what you deliver,
- in the opening of a proposal, where you compare yourself with the alternative the client is considering,
- in your first message to a prospect, where proof replaces adjectives.
If you’ve already chosen a niche, the statement should name it. I wrote about choosing a niche in the post on agency specialization.
Frequently asked questions
How is positioning different from a tagline?
Positioning is the decision about who you’re the best choice for and compared with what. A tagline is one of the messages that follows from that decision, and it can change with each campaign while the positioning stays.
How long should a positioning statement be?
One sentence, even if it’s long, like in the example above. What matters isn’t length but the condition in step 5.
Should clients see the positioning statement?
Prospects, on your website and in proposals, shouldn’t see it in this form. You can, however, show it to a current client you know well and ask whether that’s how they’d describe why they chose you.
Summary
If any competitor could sign your current statement, I recommend starting with step 1: list what clients from your recent won and lost proposals did before buying from you or instead of it. Only then list the differences with proof and write the sentence. If your team writes with the help of an AI agent, it’s worth giving the agent this statement: at the start of a Claude Code setup we write down the client’s company profile with them, including its positioning, which the agent then uses; details are on the Claude Code Team Start page.
Every method on this blog also runs as a skill in the open-source B2BForce repo. About the repo