As a co-founder of The Squad, I've never been afraid to share our secret sauce. We're not making Big Macs, we're helping businesses grow and transparency is important to everything we do.
Here at The Squad, we've found that our sweet spot is ongoing digital marketing partnerships. Many agencies claim to do it, but we've got the secret sauce that enables us to do ongoing well and to continue serving our clients year after year - some for as many as 10 years.
No smoke and mirrors, no jazz hands, just solid a process and an even more solid team. This is a bit of a long read, but in this post I'm going to outline all of the elements that make up a powerful outsourced marketing team that you could unleash for your business.
If I told you for the cost of one of your lowest salaries, you could gain access to the following outsourced marketing team and processes and about 30 hours for them to crush your marketing and sales goals each month, then would I have your ear?
Occasionally we work with businesses who have a Marketing Director, Chief Marketing Officer, or a VP of Sales and Marketing. These businesses still rely on our outsourced marketing services, but usually, they have a specialized need that we can meet.
They may need someone to ramp up content on their blog, social channels, or email in a way their internal team can’t fulfill.
They may need a graphic designer and web developer to help handle technical aspects of their website or online presence.
They may need access to video and photography skills they don’t possess in-house.
They may need an SEO and Digital Ad specialist who can help lay out strategy, execute, and report on results in a timely manner. They may also want access to the ever-changing knowledge this specialist tunes into.
They may need someone who knows a certain marketing automation software or CRM like HubSpot, Pardot, SharpSpring, Active Campaign, Keep (formerly Infusionsoft), Mailchimp, Pipedrive, or many others.
They may need an expert in slicing and dicing Google Analytics in a way that’s focused on business development, not just telling you your bounce rate dropped 2% or that you have many visitors from Norway.
Whatever the case this arrangement can be mutually beneficial and honestly we love supporting these marketing directors and helping them achieve the goals and objectives they are tasked with.
These are some of our best clients. Our team really enjoys serving these businesses. They typically have over $20 million in revenue and maybe upwards of $75 or $100 million. It makes sense to gain access to the team of experts here at The Squad. We’ll do our best to lead in strategy and creative when we need to, but we also follow and execute on the direction of our client’s internal team. It’s the perfect dance.
The other large group of clients we work with don’t have a Marketing Director. These businesses are typically a little smaller. They likely have an active owner or owners, along with a key General Manager or potentially an Operations Manager. They also typically have someone focused on sales or business development. What they often don’t have is a full leadership team. This means they don’t have someone to sit in a role like Marketing, or maybe even IT, finance, or HR.
These businesses may range in revenue from $3 million up to $20 million. They are poised for big growth but need someone to own the marketing function at a high level and they need help executing.
Any time we enter a new ongoing partnership, we get right into action. We’ve never been an agency that sits back and plans forever. We also find our clients don’t like paying those “onboarding” type of invoices. So our onboarding is pretty fluid.
Content Marketing isn’t something you turn off and on frequently. It’s good to keep a base level of activity at all times. When we begin a new ongoing partnership we jump into ongoing messaging and campaigns that are already in motion. Then we commence our onboarding to see how we can do it all a little smarter.
When we think about our own marketing strategy here at The Marketing Squad, we first align our sights on our Core Focus and Niche. That flows right into our goals and objectives in different areas of our business.
The next thought that pops into our noggins is our target audience. You may call it your buyer persona or target market. This is the profile of your buyer.
Then we get into how we speak to our audience, both internal and external. How we maintain a consistent look and feel. This is where a brand messaging guide comes into play.
The last major step in our 90-day onboarding is to build out the roadmap, which is the 90 - 180 day content and campaign calendar. We follow this process for ourselves and for all our ongoing partner and program clients.
When you partner with our agency, you’re popping the top on our secret sauce. That secret sauce is our ability to drive results month in and month out, year in and year out by following our core processes. We’ve been doing it 11 years and we’re getting better at winning every year.
Every partner client we work with has a Monthly Strategic meeting each and every month. Our key people meeting their key people. Every partner client has specific reports we cover based on the activities of the past month or quarter. We don’t just provide a flashy dashboard (although we do have one).
Did we have an email campaign the past month? Were we running a webinar or event series? Were we focused on crushing new organic traffic with a super strategic SEO strategy? Were we optimizing Google Ad campaigns and all the landing pages therein? Were we embarking on an influencer social media campaign or contest with FB and Instagram ads? Were we blogging like mad people telling the story of our clients to grow their business?
Whatever the case, we’ll provide the measurements in relation to your goals and benchmarks. We ask questions about winning. We don’t hide behind awareness or anecdotal evidence. Sure some of marketing is a cost of doing business, but we don’t retain clients for years without a growth objective.
Each month we check-in and set course for the next month based upon your growth objective.
So we’ve talked a lot about how we work, and who we work for, but we haven’t introduced the team of experts who serve your business.
To start off you get a business development-minded sales person to escort you in the door. Then you get to work with these guys and gals:
Rather than doing a roll call here, head over to our team page to meet each of the individuals on our team and learn more about their talents and strengths.
Occasionally, a business wants to outsource the Chief Marketing Officer function. We’ve placed a CMO in 3 different businesses this year and also supported that role with the team above. We have another CMO in the waiting, and we’re looking for 3 additional businesses where this could be a fit.
If outsourcing your marketing makes sense to you, then let’s talk. Marshall Fall is ranked in the top 3 of coffee buyers in Louisville based on the most recent polls. He’d love to buy your next cup of Java.
Like to start with a little higher level convo? I’d be glad to connect myself. Hit me up in the comments, through our get started form, or just ping me on LinkedIn. I’ll buy the coffee but just not as good as Marshall.
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