Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

Horrible Bosses Are The Worst, But What Can We Learn From Them?

Written By

On

A boss can make or break a job. A bad one can make your work life unbearable, but a good one is just…the best. For many of us, much of our time is spent working, so having a boss you like and respect goes a long way. 

A podcast called “Caffeinated Convos & Horrible Bosses” dives deep into this topic. It’s hosted by Lauren Williams, Chief Boss Lady of Harmony HR Experts, and features a new guest each week, where they share stories of their best and worst bosses — and all that we can learn from both. 

In her third episode, Lauren speaks with our very own Rajat Kapur, Founder and Managing Director at &Marketing. While it can be entertaining to hear about other people’s horror stories, the episode also serves as a lesson for all of us on how we can apply these stories to our own situation. For example, when Raj was going through a tough time with a bad boss early in his career, a mentor told him, “Take it with you.  Make sure you never forget the way you feel right now with the poor management and leadership. Then, when you’re the boss, do better.” How profound is that? What a way to make lemonade when life gives you lemons.  

We encourage you to give the episode a listen and think about:

  • What you can learn from your bad boss?

  • What NOT to do if you supervise other people? 

Check out the full episode here!

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

When To Consider Outsourcing Your Marketing Department

When To Consider Outsourcing Your Marketing Department

When To Consider Outsourcing Your Marketing Department

Written By

On

Some businesses like to keep their marketing departments in-house. For example, many big companies can afford to hire a full marketing team internally and prefer to maintain complete control over the strategy and execution. Others know they need support, but think they can’t afford a digital marketing agency. And then, of course, there are the small companies who (if you can believe it) don’t see the value of marketing at all, and therefore devote minimal resources to it.

At &Marketing, we are in the business of offering outsourced marketing solutions. We’ve learned that specific scenarios call for outsourcing this function, depending on the unique goals, needs, and current state of your company. Our experience with B2B and B2C clients of all shapes, sizes, and industries has taught us the perfect mix of circumstances that may indicate it’s time for your growing business to look externally for marketing support. For the most part, it boils down to resources, bandwidth, and skill-sets. Here’s how to know when to consider outsourcing your marketing department.

1: You have neither the time nor the resources to do marketing in-house

You recognize the value of marketing, but you’re understaffed and don’t have the time to commit because day-to-day operations take up all your time. You don’t have the budget to hire marketers in-house, so you might be thinking about bringing on a few different specialist contractors, to avoid the overhead costs and still get those boxes checked.

An outsourced marketing department would make sense here, as you gain access to a group of experts at about the same cost of an employee, and usually at a fraction of the cost of a single senior-level Chief Marketing Officer. If you’re looking to hire contractors, you might want to pivot and consider hiring a single company, so that all of the specialists can seamlessly work together, instead of separated in a silo.

We know what you’re thinking (and you’re right): agencies are expensive. Many of them are rigid in their approach and try to force a one-size-fits-all, big-company model onto smaller, growing companies. However, some outsourced marketing departments have a flexible, tailored offering specifically for growing businesses, scaled to meet your needs and your budget.

2: You need to grow fast, but you don’t know where to start (and don’t have the time to figure it out yourself)

You’re under tremendous pressure to generate leads fast and grow your business under tight time constraints. You have a great product, but don’t know how to reach your audience, and lack the time to piece together a marketing team to strategize and execute a lead generation program. An effective lead gen program takes time – it’s a marathon, not a sprint – but there are some things in the short-term you can do to generate quick wins, as long as you have the know-how to do it. Outsourcing this work will save you time. 

3: Your current marketing efforts are inconsistent or ineffective

Many employees at growing companies wear multiple hats. Your in-house marketer may also be a sales or customer service rep, so they’re pulled in many directions. They only have time to send an email to prospects every so often, publish a blog post every other month, and post on social media less than once a week. With all of those hats constantly being switched, it’s likely they don’t have the time to put strategic thought behind these tactics. Without strategy and consistency, marketing efforts are futile, because generating qualified leads takes time and focus. If your in-house marketers can’t commit, it’s time to look beyond the walls of your business for support.

    4: You have a marketing leader or “Chief Marketing Officer,” but daily execution work is hindering his or her focus on higher-level strategy

    Perhaps you have a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) but no broader marketing team, so your CMO is left to handle both strategy and execution with no support. The day-to-day work becomes cumbersome, between content development, social media management, emails, and digital advertising. Your CMO loses focus on the bigger picture and has limited time to assess the results of their work and refine their strategy. An outsourced marketing department can become an extension of their team and focus on the execution work, allowing your CMO to stay focused on business goals.

    5: You don’t have all the marketing skill-sets you need in-house

    You have a strong group of marketers in-house, but their expertise doesn’t span the full marketing spectrum. You have a content writer, a social media coordinator, and a paid search specialist, but you lack strategists, project managers, graphic designers, web developers, SEO specialists, and the analytics nerds. Or maybe you have a jack-of-all trades digital marketing generalist, but they lack deep expertise in any one area. 

    While we’re not saying you need all aspects of marketing covered at all times (priorities vary depending on your business), there may come a time when you want to run a certain marketing campaign that requires skills your team doesn’t have. With an outsourced marketing department, you gain access to whichever specialists you need, all in one place.

    6: You need support for a one-time marketing initiative

    If you have a one-time project that requires multiple areas of expertise you don’t already have (i.e. redesigning and optimizing your website), it would be costly to hire additional full-time employees. Once the project ends, you may not have any work for them to do, yet will still be responsible for their salaries and benefits. It’s better for your ROI—and more efficient— to outsource the project. You can contract a single marketing company that has all the specialists you need, for as little or as long as you need them. You also won’t need to worry about training them. They’ll hit the ground running right away.

    7: You’re struggling to hire marketing talent internally

    A study from 2019 showed that: 

    • 90% of companies are having trouble finding marketing talent

    • More than 80% of open marketing roles take 5+ weeks to fill, and almost one-third sit vacant for more than 2 months

    • Nearly 80% of companies have an understaffed marketing department 

    If these stats reflect what you’re going through, then consider outsourcing to a team of marketers who are ready to jump in and get to work, even if it’s only a temporary solution as you work to build a long-term in-house team. 

    8: You’re in a dynamic market 

    When things are changing rapidly around your business and you can’t seem to communicate quickly or effectively enough, an expert pair of hands may help. When could that happen? In a variety of scenarios: 

    • Your industry decision-making is changing. Decision-makers are either going through generational shifts, or the power structure is changing. Maybe they don’t go to the same trade shows they used to? Or maybe they’re not as willing to take sales calls?

    • Your industry is growing rapidly. If new customers and new competitors are popping up, it’s often hard to keep up with the changes.  

    • You’re pursuing a new industry or new geography. Often, selling your products or services to a new industry or geography requires an updated strategy, new tactics, and new lingo. If your current team only knows the old way, expert hands can help re-assess the fundamentals. 

    Ultimately, an outsourced marketing department is beneficial for many reasons. By partnering with them, you can: 

    • Trust that they’re keeping a pulse on the ever-changing trends of the industry

    • Gain a fresh perspective on your business

    • Save costs vs traditional agencies or full-time employees

    • Move quickly but strategically 

    • Leverage their analytics platforms and technology, which enables smarter and more strategic decision-making

    At &Marketing, supplementing in-house marketing teams, or even serving as your complete marketing team, is our bread and butter. The “&” in &Marketing signifies a partnership. We cover everything from strategy, storytelling, business intelligence and analytics, to planning and execution, and we consider ourselves an extension of your company. It’s us & you!

    As you work to determine whether or not your company should consider outsourcing its marketing department, it’s important to keep in mind what it takes to strategize and execute a marketing program that yields results for your business. We encourage you to check out our eBook – Marketing Planning like a Pro: The Importance of a Coordinated Approach to Marketing – to learn more about this.

    About the Author

    As the founder and Managing Director of &Marketing, Rajat “Raj” Kapur strives to provide growing businesses of all sizes unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. Raj brings nearly two decades of professional experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development experience spanning B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and startups. 

    About &Marketing

    In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

    &Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

    Keep Calm And Market On: 3 Marketing Tactics To Do During A Crisis

    Keep Calm And Market On: 3 Marketing Tactics To Do During A Crisis

    Keep Calm And Market On: 3 Marketing Tactics To Do During A Crisis

    Written By

    On

    In the midst of the corona-virus pandemic, companies— as they should be— are focused on taking care of their most important audiences: their employees and existing customers. Lead generation has taken a backseat, as leaders look to either preserve this budget for when things settle, or reallocate it to more pressing areas. This is the right move, as most lead gen communications would be neither socially nor financially responsible at the current moment, unless your product or service is a critical necessity during this crisis. Anything else may feel exploitative, and right now we only need empathy.

    Despite this, we don’t recommend that growing businesses pause all marketing activity. Why? Because although human health is of utmost priority right now, we recognize that for many of you, the health of your business is also at stake. When this terrible turn of events does begin to turn around, you may feel as though you’re starting at square one, scrambling to make up ground as quickly as possible. You’ll likely increase your spend on lead generation, but you’ll be pitted against a more competitive landscape than usual, as many others will have the same idea. By keeping some marketing activities turned on, you will lessen this effect.

    So, which marketing activities do you focus on right now? In this post, we’ve outlined three foundational marketing tactics to execute or maintain during a crisis. When you do reactivate your lead gen and the world rights itself, your business will be in a better position for success.

    1. Take a look under the hood…of your website and complete an SEO audit

    Conducting a semi-regular SEO audit of your website is a marketing best practice, but it often falls through the cracks. The real world gets in the way, and marketers are pulled in a variety of different directions. We also often face clients or organizational higher-ups who find it difficult to understand the value of SEO, since results aren’t immediate. Prioritizing SEO is important, though, because it enables your website to rank for certain keywords related to your offering. In other words, when a prospective customer types a related keyword or phrase into Google, your website will appear within the first few pages of results. SEO ensures your target audience is always able to find you through an organic search, using your most relevant keywords.

    Before running the audit, you should first check out your SEO Score, which you can do for free. This will give you the opportunity to understand just how much work you have to do. It also allows you to compare yourself against competitors and set realistic expectations for what you can achieve going forward with your site. 

    After you’ve obtained your SEO score, it’s time for the audit. The good news is that there are plenty of great tools online to help you do it, including, but not limited to:

    Once you’ve used one of these tools to complete your SEO audit, you should receive an output document that provides areas for improvement. The below screenshot is a sample audit for &Marketing, using SEMRush.

     As you can see, this sample company has a little bit of work to do. From this page, we can identify the most pressing issues and develop a strategy to make improvements. Obviously, there are a few technical aspects to solve for, such as site speed, but there are things that are easy to do that don’t involve back-end manipulation.

    Update Keyword Research

    First, do keyword research to determine the gaps within organic rankings and where competitors are outranking you for high value terms. If you find you’re not ranking for certain keywords but should be, tweak your website copy to ensure it includes those words or phrases (but avoid keyword stuffing!). 

    Install an SEO Plug-in

    Second, implement an SEO plug-in. If you’re on WordPress, we recommend Yoast SEO, as it shows us if your pages are green (SEO is great!), yellow (opportunity to optimize SEO) or red (SEO needs some work!). This helps optimize each page of your site.

    Enhance Your Site’s Security

    Finally, as we look to the future, there are changes on the horizon. Privacy and accessibility issues are poised to become more prominent and have the potential for legal action. Check your state and federal guidelines – including those of your main audiences (hello GDPR!) – to see what you might need to add or amend. We recommend the WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool to ensure all of your forms are secure and that they have cookie policies and bars installed. You can even add a browser extension, which provides you an overview of issues, so you can nip them in the bud before they become a legal issue. 

    Once you’ve optimized your site, it takes a good three to six months to see major changes organically. Since your lead generation is on the back-burner right now, you can use this time to get your SEO and website up to speed (pun intended).

    For further information about SEO audits, aHREFs wrote this great piece!

    2. Generate Content 

    As you optimize your site for SEO, the updated keyword research will show you which keywords or phrases your audience has searched for when they’ve found your website, as well as any other keywords that are relevant to your industry or used by competitors. These keywords provide inspiration for creating content that will both resonate with your audience and begin to climb its way up Google organically. Content will also fuel your lead gen efforts later on, so it’s good to get prepared now if you have the time.

    Given that many businesses are slowing down and thought leadership and professional development events have been cancelled or postponed, your audience may be spending more time online to consume content, sharpen their skills, and take advice from thought leaders. 

    Creating digital content around keywords and topics with high search volume is an excellent way to educate your target audience on topics they care about. Important to note, though, that during this time of crisis, you want to be sensitive with the content you produce. For example, you could consider how the pandemic impacts your industry, customers, and prospects, and create a point-of-view blog post with advice on how to navigate the current situation. You could even poll your audience via email or social media asking, “What do you want to hear from us right now?” There’s a way to bring value to your audience, without being promotional or exploitative. 

    If you already have consistent content in place, then you could instead use this time to assess your content’s performance so far and determine any changes you should make to optimize your strategy in the coming months. For example, at &Marketing, we regularly use a Business Intelligence & Analytics platform to dig deep into our audience and the terms and phrases they use online. Through this, we can keep a pulse on what they’re searching for, optimize our content to reach them organically, and identify topics that will convert and drive leads. We’re also able to precisely measure the value of each piece of content so that we can make changes as needed. 

    3. Optimize your current marketing strategy with Business Intelligence & Analytics

    As you optimize your site for SEO, the updated keyword research will show you which keywords or phrases your audience has searched for when they’ve found your website, as well as any other keywords that are relevant to your industry or used by competitors. These keywords provide inspiration for creating content that will both resonate with your audience and begin to climb its way up Google organically. Content will also fuel your lead gen efforts later on, so it’s good to get prepared now if you have the time.

    Given that many businesses are slowing down and thought leadership and professional development events have been cancelled or postponed, your audience may be spending more time online to consume content, sharpen their skills, and take advice from thought leaders. 

    Creating digital content around keywords and topics with high search volume is an excellent way to educate your target audience on topics they care about. Important to note, though, that during this time of crisis, you want to be sensitive with the content you produce. For example, you could consider how the pandemic impacts your industry, customers, and prospects, and create a point-of-view blog post with advice on how to navigate the current situation. You could even poll your audience via email or social media asking, “What do you want to hear from us right now?” There’s a way to bring value to your audience, without being promotional or exploitative. 

    If you already have consistent content in place, then you could instead use this time to assess your content’s performance so far and determine any changes you should make to optimize your strategy in the coming months. For example, at &Marketing, we regularly use a Business Intelligence & Analytics platform to dig deep into our audience and the terms and phrases they use online. Through this, we can keep a pulse on what they’re searching for, optimize our content to reach them organically, and identify topics that will convert and drive leads. We’re also able to precisely measure the value of each piece of content so that we can make changes as needed.

    BI is particularly valuable for growing businesses, as it:

    • Enhances cross-functional marketing strategies
    • Identifies cost savings within digital campaigns
    • Provides insights needed to create a strategic road map for growth
    • Identifies target audiences
    • Equips sales teams with warmer leads
    • Provides intel for potential expansion areas
    • Improves customer and client acquisition/retention through insights from sales and audience geographic

    In Summary

    We hope this post has provided valuable guidance for you as you work to navigate the unknowns of our current climate and prepare your business for the coming weeks and months ahead. Like most effective business tactics, the activities we’ve recommended here (doing an SEO audit, building your content library, and conducting an in-depth analysis) will require some level of time and resources.  If you, like many companies, have halted paid advertising and lead generation, redirecting your focus to these marketing fundamentals may help ensure that you’re set-up for success once the storm passes. 

    We wish you, your team, and your business good health! 🧡

    About the Author

    As a Marketing Director at &Marketing, Paul Ferguson uses his 16 years of B2B marketing experience to help clients develop fully integrated marketing solutions that make impressions and drive results. Whether it be design-oriented campaigns or digital market execution, Paul skillfully creates strategies backed by data, to effectively reach client’s desired audiences. Paul graduated from La Salle University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a double minor in Marketing and Business Administration. Visit Paul’s LinkedIn.

    About &Marketing

    In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

    &Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

    Podcast: How to Effectively Market Your SaaS Business with Rajat Kapur

    Podcast: How to Effectively Market Your SaaS Business with Rajat Kapur

    Podcast: How to Effectively Market Your SaaS Business with Rajat Kapur

    Written By

    On

    Are you a SaaS company looking to generate more leads, but struggling to grab the attention of your target audience? At &Marketing, we work with several growing software companies, so we understand the unique challenges they face in the marketplace. Recently, our Founder and Managing Director, Rajat “Raj” Kapur, joined an episode of The Product Launch Podcast, hosted by Sean Boyce, to talk about this very topic (click here to access the audio and here for the video).

    In the episode, “How to Effectively Market Your SaaS Business,” Raj describes how the number one mistake companies make is diving head first into marketing execution without first setting a clear strategy, mastering the fundamentals and, importantly, doing their research! If you don’t have a deep understanding of your target audience (“What keeps them up at night?” where they go for information, etc), there’s simply no way for you to get your product in front of them and in a way that will stick.

    We encourage you to check out the episode to hear from Raj on all things marketing strategy and execution, from audience segmentation, messaging development, and competitive analysis, to powerful storytelling and identifying the right lead generation tactics for your business (and how to execute them in an affordable way!). He also shares compelling resources that have helped shape his thinking.

    Many thanks to Sean Boyce, CEO of NxtStep, for hosting! If you enjoy the podcast and are looking for an even deeper dive, join us for our free &Marketing webinar on March 12, 2020 and learn how to market your business like a pro through a coordinated marketing strategy.

    About the Author

    As the Managing Director of &Marketing (and-marketing.com), Rajat “Raj” Kapur strives to provide growing businesses unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. He is known for bringing the best of “big company” marketing strategies to smaller companies, without the excess baggage. His team of professionals can either augment an existing team, or outsource the entire marketing function for a client.

    Raj’s two decades of marketing, sales, and strategy development experience have spanned B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and startups. He has a proven track record of using analytics to drive action, an unrelenting customer focus, a bias for practical implementation, and strong interpersonal skills. He is a hands-on leader, sought-after facilitator, and experienced marketing advisor with experience across five continents.

    About &Marketing

    In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

    &Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

    Are We Meant To Be (Your Outsourced Marketing Department Match)?

    Are We Meant To Be (Your Outsourced Marketing Department Match)?

    Are We Meant To Be (Your Outsourced Marketing Department Match)?

    Written By

    On

    Do you ever wish there was an OK Cupid or eharmony to help you find the right partnerships for your business? Just like you might or might not be a personal match for everyone on a dating app, some businesses are destined to be a perfect professional fit, and others aren’t. At &Marketing, we are proud to be different than your typical marketing agency. In fact, we prefer not to even call ourselves an agency. As an outsourced marketing department, we consider ourselves an extension of our client teams. It’s us & you.

    The successful partnerships we’ve built with our clients would be impossible without first establishing some common ground. This happens before we even sign on a new client. We take the time to understand your business, your goals, your team, and your culture. In doing this, we’ve learned that we’re not a perfect fit for everyone. Based on our experiences with a variety of clients of all shapes, sizes, and industries, there are certain commonalities that we and prospective clients must share in order for us to have a successful relationship.

    Goal-Setting

    First thing’s first: can you articulate your business goals? Do you know what you’re hoping to accomplish? If not, we can help you figure that out. However, if you can’t arrive at a clear definition of goals, it likely won’t work out between us.

    Why? There are two reasons. First, your goals lay the foundation for everything we do with you. Without them, we can’t develop a strategic marketing plan. And without a strategic marketing plan, we can’t put together an execution plan.  We’re headed nowhere fast. Second, we measure our success by whether we’re driving results for our clients, and results are dictated by goals. Yes, we can sit and check boxes and complete tasks, but what is the actual return? We like to win, but we can’t win without knowing how to calculate the score.

    Transparency 

    Partnerships aren’t always pretty. Sometimes hard, uncomfortable conversations need to happen (your palms sweat, your heart beats fast…you know what I’m talking about). But this doesn’t intimidate us. We say let’s go ahead and have those hard conversations. We believe in open, candid communication with the senior decision-makers at our client companies. Transparency is one of our core values, and we admit when we’re wrong. Let’s face it, we’re human beings, so being right 100 percent of the time is not feasible. We’re also not afraid to challenge you or encourage you to see something through a different lens.

    Respect for Time and Money

    We’re not obsessed with billable hours, and we don’t nickel and dime. We’ll never ask you to be in a meeting just for the sake of being in a meeting. We don’t invite our entire team to be on client calls; only those who are necessary.  As much as we might like you and enjoy talking to you, we’d much rather have our heads down working toward meeting your business goals. One of the questions our Managing Director, Rajat Kapur, likes to ask is, “What would you do if it were your money?” When you think about it like that, the conversation changes. As your outsourced marketing department, we will treat your money (and time) like it’s our own.

    Company Culture

    We have purposefully created a unique and unbureaucratic company (well, as unbureaucratic as possible…obviously there need to be some rules.) Our culture is important to us. We have very little turnover at &Marketing because when people come on board, they tend to stay. We are selective with our people and invest in them accordingly. Ideas from every single team member are valued, from those of us with decades of experience, to our newest, fresh-out-of-college Marketing Coordinators. Everyone brings value. Our expectation is that our clients will treat each of our team members — regardless of age or experience — with dignity and respect. How we operate together will make or break this culture.

    Ethics

    Ultimately, it all comes down to ethics, and we’re not afraid to decline work with potential clients if it’s a cultural mismatch. As we wrote in a previous blog series (the ABCs of What We’ve Learned so Far at &Marketing):

    “What we’ve learned so far is that you can’t assume everyone takes ethics seriously. Many take it for granted, while others don’t even think about it at all. In our two-year journey, we’ve run into a surprising number of clients who try to cut corners, don’t stay true to their work, or don’t hold themselves accountable for their end of the bargain.”

    As your outsourced marketing department, our top priority is not growing our own bottom line; it’s meeting your business growth goals. We measure our own success by our client’s success, and we’re here to generate results for your business. The foundation of that joint success is transparency and mutual respect. We believe if we do that relentlessly and consistently, the financial results will follow.

    So, do you jive with our ethics? Are you looking for an honest, trustworthy marketing partner, and not just a “vendor?” If the answer is yes, let’s chat! Contact us for a free consultation, or download our workbook, “Marketing Planning Like a Pro: Offline and Online.”

    About the Author

    Tracey Colla is a Marketing Director at &Marketing. In her role, she is an outsourced marketing director for multiple clients, helping them execute modern marketing programs by understanding their business challenges, providing them sound advice, and coordinating activity with &Marketing’s experienced team of creatives, developers, analysts, and writers.  Tracey brings nearly 20 years of experience to &Marketing, including Peet’s Coffee and Jamba Juice. She lives with her husband, 11-year old son, and anxious rescue dog in the Philadelphia area.

    About &Marketing

    In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

    &Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.