How to Own Your Marketing Strategy  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: How to Own Your Marketing Strategy - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/593be025-8b54-43e9-a5a8-1b1e7e833dc7 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Contractor-Owned Ad Accounts** - A remodeling firm paid ~$10,000/month for ads without owning the accounts. - They discovered the contractor owned the ad accounts and they'd have to rebuild if they left. Transcript: Sara Nay You lose control, honestly. And you have no idea if your marketing is working or not. And so I was speaking to a prospect a while ago back and they were a home remodeling company, family business, really nice, great people. And they were like, we are paying someone, I think it was around $10,000 a month for paid ads. And they're like, we don't know what they're doing, if it's working. Some percent of that is going to their fees. Some percent of that is going to spend. And so we had a conversation. I started asking him a number of questions and I was like, well, can we look at your accounts to see what's happening in there? And they're like, oh, the contractor owns the accounts. They're not ours. And so we had to have a conversation with them as to, okay, if you ever wanna leave the contractor, you basically are gonna have to rebuild everything from scratch in your own account. ([Time 0:04:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/81678225-c289-4b09-a011-66d8629fcdf4)) - **Prioritize Channels Where Customers Are** - Map your business, marketing, and team strategy before adding channels. - Focus on the channels where your ideal customers actually hang out online. Transcript: Sara Nay So we used to have it on our website. I don't think we have it on there anymore, but we had something along the lines of do less, but do it brilliantly. And that always really resonated with me because a lot of small businesses are told that they need to be on this channel and this channel doing this and this. And all of a sudden they sign up for all these accounts and they have no idea what's actually performing well and what's not. And so we always help people take a step back and actually map out the business strategy, the marketing strategy and the team strategy. And that is a great way to really simplify your marketing because you don't need to be on every single channel. You need to deeply understand your target market. Where do they hang out online? And that's where you should be directing your focus. And so oftentimes in small business with small teams, less channels, but doing them really well is the solution versus being spread too thin. Also, another thing I would say too, is we've always on our team at DuckTame Marketing, we've always hired people that we see as like trainers or leaders. That's some of our values that we're looking for. And so if you're thinking about working with an outsourced solution as a business owner, make sure you're looking for people that will come in and they'll talk strategy from the beginning And they'll ask you hard questions, business related questions from the beginning, because that's someone that's really looking to understand what you're actually trying to accomplish And not just copying and pasting a campaign from someone else. And so you want to look for someone that's thinking strategically from the start, but also willing to teach you and educate you along the way. And so when we're working with clients as a fractional CMO, like we're creating the strategy, but then we're meeting with our clients on a very consistent basis. And we're not just saying, here's your monthly reports and metrics that look foreign to you. We're digesting them. We're talking about them. ([Time 0:06:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/11a719b3-31d5-4077-815c-53642ebb3d3f)) - **Strategy Creates Purpose** - Strategy gives purpose and prevents random acts of marketing. - Identifying ideal client, core message, and customer journey directs all execution decisions. Transcript: Sara Nay I agree. It absolutely simplifies. But also, I always tell people it gives purpose to your marketing. Without a strategy in place, you are playing the guessing game. And so when you take a step back and you identify your ideal client, your core message, your customer journey, like those are the three starting points, then all of a sudden you're thinking About growth priorities and execution calendar. But all of the decisions you're putting into the growth priorities and execution calendars are based on your ideal clients and the research you would have conducted. And so it simplifies and it gives purpose. So you're not creating random acts of marketing, essentially. ([Time 0:09:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d58db94c-63be-46ef-b21b-9cf20a52b487)) - **From Doer To Orchestrator** - AI shifts marketing roles from hands-on doers to system orchestrators. - Team members oversee AI-assisted workflows instead of doing all manual tasks. Transcript: Sara Nay Yeah, it's a great question and topic I love talking about. So if you think about before AI, way back then, we had people on our team. We had people on our team that their core role was content production. So if we had blog posts that we were writing for clients, they would do manual research. They would create an outline. They would do some more keyword research. They would write the first draft. They would edit it. They would optimize it from an SEO standpoint. They would do all of that stuff manual. So that's an example of a very doer situation. Now with the evolution of AI, we're able to elevate those people from doers to orchestrators where they're using AI systems below them to help with a lot of the heavy lifting. So they're using AI to help with keyword research, deep research, maybe even before writing any content. And then they're using AI systems to help write initial drafts. And then they're editing as humans on the back end. And so it's still human AI human, but they're overseeing a system instead of processes, instead of being in the weeds for everything. And so it's been interesting because it's shifting doers from like doing all of the stuff to really almost a management role. They're not managing people, but they're managing systems. And so we've identified that with our team and also with our clients teams as well. ([Time 0:10:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a53f219e-47a6-4204-848c-0bd501be2a67)) - **Help Teams Level Up For AI** - Analyze each team member's skills and plan where they must level up. - Invest in training so people work alongside AI instead of competing with it. Transcript: Sara Nay Think it will be harder for some people. No questions asked. Some people are more strategic. Some people are give me a process and I'll follow it. You know, not that strategic side of things. But I think as business leaders, our time is now to help our team level up as much as possible. If someone is really great at certain tasks that ai is better at already they're not necessarily future-proofing their career and so you know that's why with our team we've really thought About everyone individually as team members and we've helped them analyze what they're doing on a consistent basis and then identified like where they should spend their focus and Time moving forward. And I suggest everyone do that with their teams moving forward is analyze like what skills they should focus on and where they need to elevate and then give them the support to be able To elevate and grow because there are certain things that we won't be better at. We aren't better at than AI is. And so like research, for example, AI is way better research than I ever will be and ever want to be. ([Time 0:13:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/50712302-dd96-47a6-b1f6-2b45ae0cf37f)) - **Make Marketing An Asset You Own** - Owning marketing means owning the strategy, accounts, and AI tools used. - Ownership makes marketing an asset that increases business value at sale time. Transcript: Sara Nay So we've talked a lot about some stories so far about people, what I would consider renting their marketing. So they were just completely relying on outsourced partners. Yeah, but unfortunately they didn't look at the lease that they signed, right? Yeah, exactly. And so that's an example of renting. Let's go back to owning. For a small business, it really comes down to understanding the strategy behind what's being done. And then as the founder or CEO, working alongside a fractional CMO or a marketing leader or a marketing strategist or an advisor, internal or external, it doesn't matter, but someone That can really lead the marketing department. And so you're collaborating and working with that person. So you're in the know, you're aware of what's being done and the why behind it and the metrics and what's working and not. And so as the CEO or founder, you don't have to be a CMO, but you need to have conversations with someone that's leading your marketing on a regular basis. And then from there is the execution piece. I think with the evolution of AI, it has made it for the first time ever, a lot more affordable for small businesses to be able to handle execution. So before everyone just, or not everyone, but a lot of people would just outsource content creation, social, SEO, paid ads, because before you would really need roles within the business For each of those areas. But now with the evolution of AI, I think is if you have marketing people in your department that understand those different areas, you can layer AI systems below them and they can do More than they ever had before. But when I talk about owning, like I know it doesn't always make sense to have in-house marketing team for small businesses. So I'm not saying that's the only solution. I think it is a great solution now. ([Time 0:16:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/21413e02-4269-4bdf-b840-cc8101ce89ca)) - **Use Fractional CMO Plus** - Use a fractional CMO plus model: strategy plus execution and team management. - Have the fractional CMO own metrics, budget, and collaborate closely with the CEO. Transcript: Sara Nay And so you just identified like the traditional role is, you know, you get a fourth of my time and I come in and I advise. That's kind of in a very quick nutshell what a lot of people think of fractional. For us, when we work with clients, we come in as a fractional CMO, we create the overall strategy, but we have fractional CMO plus because it doesn't end there. From there, we're then able to manage internal marketing teams to up-level them. So marketing plus that, or we're able to bring our team in to help with the execution as well. So really what we're doing is we're combining the agency side of things that we've always done with the fractional CMO side of things. And so we're bringing strategy plus execution. And really the role of the fractional CMO is creating the strategy, working alongside the CEO, managing all of really the marketing department in a sense, really owning the metrics And communicating those to the CEO and then also owning the budget as well. ([Time 0:19:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/56a50a2e-0c8d-425b-a955-66897de9bb27))