Should Your First Marketing Investment Be an Agency, CMO or a Generalist?
This is a big question for any startup. Usually you hire a generalist when you already know someone who can help and you have faith that they can grow into the position with your team’s support. You hire a CMO when you have massive funding and you can’t risk investments in tactics that may not pay off. You need a trusted expert whose experience will help you focus, prioritize, and develop relationships. You hire an agency when you don’t know what you need, who to hire, or what to do.
Setting Expectations
Agency: An agency will follow a formal process and may at times be overwhelming for a small team to keep up with. They need you to provide direction and unless it’s part of the scope, they won’t figure out your positioning for you, but they will help you refine it. The deliverables process to stay on track (briefs, reviews, and approvals) can add extra pressure to founders who are already stretched thin.
CMO: A great CMO is often expected to fix everything. To be successful they generally need a team, a budget, and a content foundation so they don’t just become an expensive strategist with no one to help execute. No matter how amazing they are, they still need a few months to build infrastructure and longer to produce visible results.
Generalist: No matter what level of experience, this can be a stressful role that is responsible for everything. When you’re hiring someone who is mid- or entry level they still need direction from the founding team, which still makes the CEO the de facto marketing strategist. Don’t rely on them to develop the plan - they’ll be best at executing defined tasks.
Before you decide, ask yourself:
Do you have clear positioning?
Do you know what content your prospects and your sales team need?
Can you provide timely direction to whichever resource you choose?
Stealth Cartel’s Approach
Today, Stealth Cartel functions as a hybrid fractional CMO and small agency for most of our clients. We attend meetings, we’re on your Slack channel, we develop an understanding of your team’s frustrations, wins, aspirations, and limitations to recommend strategies and tactics to execute on your top priorities.
We understand the limits of resources to make recommendations and investments that will serve your team best. When projects need design, copywriting, or other specialized support, we bring in trusted partners we've worked with — so you're not managing multiple vendor relationships.
Great marketing takes time. We’re here when you’re ready.
