Digital marketing companies are generally exhibiting the same trends as major tech firms, in terms of job cuts and strategic reorientations. Much of this is due to short-term changes brought on by the economic changes of the post-pandemic era. But it would be overly pessimistic to focus only on the negative aspects of current trends. While it’s true that digital marketing companies are dealing with new challenges, it’s also true that new opportunities are emerging with the forward progress of the industry and technology in general.

In North Carolina and elsewhere, there have been various recent reports of digital marketing firms laying off substantial portions of their workforce and labeling it as a strategic decision, aimed at better serving the goals the company has laid out for itself. In many cases, those goals involve a primary or even exclusive focus on “enterprise clients”, at the expense of smaller firms with more limited aspirations and narrower digital marketing strategies.

This is good news for the enterprise clients, who can look upon such layoffs as confirmation that they’ll be receiving the full attention of whatever digital marketing staff is left. But it’s also good news for smaller firms, which should be able to take advantage of mass egress from large digital marketing companies, in order to partner with a small team or even an individual marketer to give them similar personal attention, proportionate to their needs.

Optimistically, the laid-off employees can even view this strategic shifts as an opportunity. But cutting loose those digital marketing professionals who were better suited to smaller clients, the major companies are implicitly acknowledging the potential for better outcomes from face-to-face interactions regarding smaller-scale marketing campaigns.

Of course, those who have been working as part of larger companies in recent years will face the challenge of competing against those digital marketing professionals who have already been striving to provide face-to-face service, particularly with local clients, throughout their careers.

But on the other hand, laid-off employees and newly de-prioritized clients have to negotiate a similar learning curve. Neither has ever really needed to navigate the labyrinth of departments and teams that one would expect to find in a large-scale digital marketing firm. But if that’s what you’re used to working for or who you’re used to having strategy meetings with, then there’s a possibility that more direct, streamlined service will prove disorienting.

It is probably not too optimistic to suppose that with ongoing layoffs from major marketing firms, there are opportunities for partnerships that ease client transitions and split the difference between big and small. Longstanding boutique firms should remain open to recruiting new talent from among those laid off workers, who in turn should remain open to providing a different, more intimate type of service. And clients who no longer have a place at big firms should certainly take advantage of the boutique model, but should also keep an eye out for digital marketing professionals who can navigate entirely different environments, both big and small.