The ‘A’ in Team: When Marketing Agencies Get it Right

Too many industry insiders don’t dare say it. Most marketing agencies suck.

It’s not rocket science—but too many marketing agencies burn your fuel, then never break atmosphere.

You’ve probably learnt the hard way. After bootstrapping, then funding, then building a culture that’s ready to scale—you’ve been let down by a marketing or branding agency.

Big promises, bigger briefings, avalanches of slick documents full of (ahem)…the latest marketing jargon. But it’s fluffy, it’s generic, it’s exclusively visual—and it’s aimed at you, not your audience. 

You read a lot about the brand voice you need—but it’s not actually brought to life for you. You can win rooms talking about your product. But every room you walk into, your brand copy has walked in before you. 

And too many agencies sell you the emperor’s clothes.

You’re exposed to your board, frustrated, wishing you could claw back that spend—and then spinning wheels with inhouse marketers struggling to keep up.

Then—eventually—you find us.

It seems we’re always rehabbing clients—rebuilding your trust in the promise of marketing agencies. We do it by nailing the creative. Then pumping the automation. Then publishing content that sells.

It’s a daring new chemistry of sales, marketing and tech.

Here’s how it works.

With you, then for you.

Beware the suck-up briefing. Too many marketers run out the clock getting into your fuzzy beliefs, your vague goals, your business-as-usual strategies—but it’s a smokescreen for poor creative execution.

We dare to be different. We know we’ll stick the landing creatively—so during briefing we question your assumptions. We work with you confidently—so we get insights you couldn’t find on your own.

Then we shift gear and work for you. We go away—and we get creative.

We come back with executed concepts. The kind creative people notice on billboards. The kind that used to be locked behind big media buys.

It’s the same with websites. You’re in the room with us while we craft the journey and architecture, then we finish off wireframes on our own and circle back for input on content.

We present all our work with videos that break it down professionally. You can present and share with your board or executives. You’re included, and you decide—but we speak from expertise.

It’s what you’re paying us for.

We may be a little ‘fuck yeah’—but we’re never ‘yes’ people.

Stick the landing.

Nike has ‘Just do it’. Apple has ‘Think different’. We deliver the straplines and executions for web, outdoor, social and email that make you recognisable in the market—for years.

Other digital marketing and branding agencies don’t do it, because they can’t. They’ll have 10 designers and no senior copywriter. If it looks pretty, they’ll ship it—the words are an afterthought.

We do the opposite—our senior copywriter runs our briefs—and then sticks the creative landing. You get the brand foundations of headlines, language, and campaigns that make every marketing dollar not just well-spent, but transformative.

Measure what matters.

Quality foundations is how we tackle analytics frameworks and tech stacks too. With a co-founder on the board of HubSpot, we see it as the Rolls-Royce of marketing analytics. A sales and technology audit usually reveals clients with splintered tech, poor integrations—and if clients are using HubSpot, they’re often overpaying—and virtually always under-using it.

No point having a Rolls- Royce without the keys.

We integrate everything to measure actions on your new website. We measure traffic sources and touch points. HubSpot makes the sales journey 100% trackable. Your sales analytics go from post-facto reporting to pre-emptive performance management. You use deal velocity, churn, source and close rates to identify who’s performing—and where they need to step up.

Your email list goes from ‘spray and pray’ to a masterpiece of granular segmentation. It’s plugged into all your social, with visibility across every client journey, and every leak in the funnel plugged.

Sounds like time to scale.

Integrate all your marketing.

And that’s where it all comes together. When we integrate your marketing, we don’t just pull together brand and sales and channels. We integrate your marketing with your entire business. We take you from product-centric to customer-centric.

So your brand strategy pushes back into your business design. Your website pushes back into your pricing model. Your internal thought leadership pushes out into content marketing—and it all redefines you in the market.

If it sounds like a C-suite level contribution, that’s because it is. You get the vision, visibility and material to rise above the day-to-day and knock your own brand into next week—where your new customers are waiting to continue the conversation.

You can still have a team. Your marketing coordinators need something to coordinate! We’ll even mentor them—and they’ll love it. 

Best players on the field.

We reckon there’s a golden ratio of executives to administrators. Most marketing agencies are bottom heavy—with heaps of junior admin staff churning the waters. So the creatives and strategists who founded or built the agency are drowning in management—the best players are off the field, and there aren’t enough of them.

But we dare to show up.

Our founders and creatives are on the tools—it’s where quality comes from. Systems are great—and we love automation—but if the ‘A’ team is in the stands, your marketing gets stuck on the bench.

So with us, you get the dream team. We’re senior enough to share your insight, craft your creative, and monitor your results. We self-manage and collaborate when you need it.

You get the oxygen to lead—to be bold, to be visionary, to be epic.

And we do the rest.

Ready to rehab?

It’s not rocket science—but there is a definite knack to kicking ass and taking names as a marketing agency. If you’re ready to rehab your sense of what’s possible—and ready to rip the world a new view of your business—book a time with one of our founders.

We dare you.

*No marketing or branding agencies were harmed in the making of this content.