A quick glance at LinkedIn from any marketing professional will highlight an evident pattern emerging, as markets expand, it is not a shortage of talent that provides the challenge, it is the ability to scale quickly as new markets emerge and new products go to market.
For example, a strong hire steps into a Marketing Director or CMO role within a portfolio company where there is an urgency to reach high revenue and EBITDA targets. So much must be considered from supporting the sales team on outreach, lead generation and collateral development to the c-suite expectations of growth, internal communications, customer relationship management, community engagement and everything in between.
It’s a tension we see constantly, from the other side of the table, arriving at exactly the point where ambition has outpaced capacity.
The marketing challenge in investor-backed businesses
Investment and M&A create urgency. A platform needs to scale, a portfolio company needs repositioning ahead of exit, a newly merged entity needs one credible brand instead of two overlapping ones. The timelines are tight and the EBITDA expectations are real. Marketing is asked to prove commercial value fast, yet it’s the moment that internal capability is thinnest.
Hiring a strong leader is the right instinct. But a leader without a team is a strategy without an engine. Vision, positioning and clarity of message only convert into pipeline, brand equity and market share when strategic expertise is coupled with the ability to execute effectively. To do this consistently across every channel and touchpoint requires more than a foundational marketing team. This is the piece of the puzzle that gets lost. The newly acquired company is under pressure to build on its success quickly but finding the marketing expertise at this pace is costly, time intensive and sometimes impractical, especially if the exit is a five-year plan.
Where outsourced marketing partnership earns its place
This is the gap companies like us are designed for. As a global brand specialist and growth partner, we align with the executive leadership team and we embed our team as an extension of yours: brand strategists, go-to-market experts, new business, creatives, content leads and digital specialists who plug directly into the business and start moving at pace.
This looks different from business to business, and for portfolio companies looking to reposition or go-to-market with a brand-new profile, the skills required are business planners, brand strategists and commercial specialists. For many of our clients we have built new brand identities within 16 weeks. We have built a brand-new AI platform from the ground up, and for one of our software customers, we are proud to have embedded our team for over seven years, with the CEO stating, “we’re yet to build an internal marketing team. Now, we don’t need to.”
In each case, the common thread is a leadership team that requires commercial and brand specialists with experience and the ability to move at pace.
The takeaway for investor-backed leadership teams
Brands left to chance, with a single team are under-resourced and unsupported, and unlikely to ever reach their true potential.
If your business has made the right leadership hire but is still short on the capacity to deliver against it, that’s exactly the conversation worth having.
The Brand Marquee is a global brand and growth partner, providing outsourced marketing support and brand consultancy for ambitious organizations navigating change, whether through M&A, investment or repositioning into new markets.
To talk through how we can support your marketing function, get in touch at hello@thebrandmarquee.com.