Working with a Full Stack
Choosing a rock-star marketing team can be challenging regardless of whether you’re a start-up or taking your brand to the next level. To compound the challenge, there’s conflicting advice on whether to choose the team with the most experience or a team that can grow with your vision and brand. Some believe you should hire a team that has a portfolio filled with work specific to your industry while others find it’s best to work with those who have broad experience among diverse sectors.
But let’s back up a minute and put experience and portfolios aside. Forget all of the preconceived notions you may have about interviewing and selecting a marketing team. Because the main qualification that should guide your search and decision-making is finding a full-stack marketing team.
What the heck is that? A full-stack marketer is a person or a team who is a jack of all trades. In essence, they have an understanding of every aspect of marketing – the big picture – and know enough about individual tactics to engage a full marketing plan.
Now, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going implement a full marketing plan. This means that the team you hire has the capability to do so.
For example, let’s say you hire a team to design and create your logo. To be effective, the team needs to understand much more than how to make a pretty design. Of course they need to understand the “look” you’re seeking. But they also need to have a deeper understanding of your brand, values and mission. They need to know your target audience (and how to reach them), realize your long-term plans and envision how to present your logo in different applications (website, social media, merchandise). A designer who’s simply a whiz with Adobe Illustrator isn’t enough.
As another example, let’s say you want to hire someone to build or revamp your website. Once again, this team needs to get the big picture to ensure your website is as effective as possible. This team must have knowledge in design, know your target audience, understand how to create a marketing funnel, grasp code and have the skillset to build the backend of a site for maximized functionality, have the ability to write effective copy as well as understand SEO. Having said all of that, custom websites are king. Cookie cutter sites simply can’t achieve the success and meet the individual needs of your brand and business.
So, the key is finding the marketer who gets it all AND is backed by a team who can implement all of the individual tactics to make your brand successful. Select a marketing team based on their ability to both strategize AND implement tactics.
You should select a full-service marketing team even if you do not currently have plans to utilize all the services they provide. This ensures:
Consistency in your messaging strengthening your brand
A foundation and long-term strategy for your marketing
Eliminating the need to find a new “expert” for every new marketing project
A lasting relationship with a team that has become vested in your brand
This full-stack approach is exactly that of STA Marketplace. Our business model includes a few big picture marketers who are the jack of all trades backed by a team of more specialized experts – with everyone working together like a well-oiled machine. Our success is rooted in the collective minds of genius marketers, creative designers, tech whizzes, crafty wordsmiths, master social media managers and talented promoters.
Ready to begin marketing your business with a full stack? Let’s talk! Drop us a line at info@stamarketplace.com. (And remember, we’re currently running a 20% off special on memberships, logos and websites! Offer expires August 15th.)