Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote in his book
“Outliers”
that “it takes a lot of practice to be good at complex tasks”.
I wholeheartedly agree. 30 years is a long
time to spend at one’s craft. At this point, I’ve got at least 70,000 hours
under my belt as a marketer and salesperson. By Gladwell’s definition, I should
be at worst, competent by now 😊.
In my industry the advance and speed of
technology change has been unrelenting.
Identify, adapt or die is a as true today
as it was in 1998 when I oversaw the creation of my first website on behalf of
a client.
So how does Full-Stack Marketing fit into the mix?
The concept and practice of full-stack is
well understood and documented on the software development side of our business.
Full-stack developers can take responsibility for the creation of something
like an app or a website from beginning to end. They are skilled at everything
from wireframing to UX design to programming and finally testing. Full-stack
developers are comfortable and skilled with a broad suite of tools and
processes.
The same is true in marketing. Today’s best
marketers are comfortable creating and programming a targeted, sponsored
LinkedIn campaign as they are devising a workflow in LucidChart for inbound
leads using tools like AdWords and HubSpot.
There is a requirement to be a generalist AND
a specialist to be an effective Full-Stack marketer. We like to think of a
Full-Stacker as someone who is a mile wide AND a mile deep. They are aware of
the entire sales funnel and how to move prospects and customers through a
funnel in the most effective, measurable way.
The Backstory
At Sherpa, our team of Full-Stack marketers
uses their breadth of experience to approach things differently.
Why?
Because, while it took a long time, we
understand that marketers have for the most part, failed to live up to - and
deliver the promise of marketing. Don’t get me wrong, we are thrilled for every
job we earn, but for the most part, we have been over-eager order takers.
Clients ask us for a website, we build a
website. Done.
But here’s the rub. Most customers want
their website to be their best salesperson. They want it to rain qualified
leads. More often than not, the website woefully underperforms, and it creates
disappointment and friction between vendors and clients.
It was time for me to put all those hours
of experience to work. I needed Sherpa to think about what it was we needed to
do to reposition the business in the hearts and minds of our staff, clients and
prospects. There is nothing more motivating than the fear of customer
disappointment. What did we need to change in our processes and thinking to
build better outcomes for all sides?
Full-Stack marketing is the result of a
3-year journey.
Now when Sherpa is presented with an
opportunity, we always think about the whole customer journey and where a
particular tactic falls in the journey.
Today’s customer journey is a tangled mess
of analogue and digital experiences. The most common beacon or termination
point for a customer or prospect, is your website. A great proportion of
purchase intent is influenced on your website and a Full-Stack marketer knows
that there can be no dead ends for your users and that great customer
experiences are a seamless fusion of what the website visitor needs and what
you need.
Full-Stackers think about how to appear
for, capture, nurture and convert those who know you and those who don’t.
What’s in it for you?
The Truth
We will ask the tough questions. We will
find the dead ends and holes in your funnel. We will tell you if we think you
are skipping steps. Our Full-Stackers have been trained to “think, then do.” We
find this can add time in the discovery phase, but will save time and add value
in execution, driving the results you are looking for sooner.
Sherpa doesn’t say
“No”, we are
trained to say
“I need to know more”.
Imagine asking your marketing partner to
build you a website and instead of running off to build it, they ask you how
you plan to drive traffic? What content appeals to your ideal buyer personas
when they are searching organically? Or, what channels you think you should be
in? How about the weighting of the spend in those channels? Who’s going to
write the copy? Where do the images come from? What platform will you program
your social posts in? How will you measure? What will you measure? How much
should you spend (and why?)… What does purchase intent look like? Where do
leads go? What tools/software/content can we leverage to instigate a first
contact quicker? …the list goes on.
Platform Experience
SaaS tools are integral to your success.
Our platform agnostic Full-Stack team has the transferrable expertise that
allows us to choose the right tools for our clients. There’s more than one CRM
system out there and frankly, some are total overkill. So whether it’s
Nutshell, HubSpot, Salesforce or something else, we can build it out and
integrate it with whatever makes the most sense for your business.
Better results.
You get a partner that knows you are
accountable for those hard-fought marketing dollars. You get a partner that
wants to give you measurable, effective strategy and tactics. Think about how
great it would be to know, in real time, what your cost of acquisition is.
Imagine knowing what’s working and what’s not.
Whether it’s B2B or B2C, our Full-Stack
Marketers can take seemingly incongruent tools, tactics and messages and
expertly align them into a beautiful, cohesive “stack” of interconnected
building blocks that drive our customer’s success.
Contact us today to start developing a comprehensive marketing strategy with no dead ends, utilizing automation and validated by data and analytics.