Let me tell you something I’ve learned the hard way — watching clients burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes millions: tactics without strategy is just expensive noise.
I’ve been in the trenches for two decades — working with startups, scaling e-commerce, handling $5M+ ad budgets, building marketing departments from scratch. I’ve seen it all. One of the most consistent patterns I’ve noticed? When marketing is failing or plateauing, it’s rarely because the team isn’t talented. It’s because no one is owning the big picture.
Everyone’s busy. There’s a content person making social posts, a freelancer running Google Ads, someone else doing emails. But no one’s stepping back, looking at the full picture, and asking: Does any of this actually work together?
That’s where strategy comes in. Not just “strategy” as a slide deck or some fluffy mission statement — I mean someone real, someone accountable, someone whose actual job is to drive the overall marketing plan forward.
Let’s break it down.
The Fragmented Reality of Modern Marketing
The marketing landscape today is a beautiful mess. You’ve got:
- Paid ads on Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn
- SEO that needs technical, content, and offsite strategy
- Email marketing, automation, nurture journeys
- Influencer campaigns, video content, webinars
- CRO, UX audits, heatmaps, A/B tests
- CRM systems, attribution modeling, data dashboards
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You could easily have 8–12 channels running at once if you’re even moderately serious about growth.
Now here’s what happens in most companies: They hire specialists before they have a strategist.
A Google Ads expert here. A junior content creator there. A freelancer who does Klaviyo setups. Maybe an outsourced SEO person in a different timezone.
They all do what they’re told. And they might be doing a good job in their own swim lanes. But nobody’s guiding the overall race. Nobody’s ensuring the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. So what do you get?
Busy people. Decent execution. Flat results.
Marketing that’s active — but not effective.
The Job No One Wants (But Every Business Needs)
Let me tell you about the most overlooked, undervalued, yet critical marketing role: the person who sees the whole picture.
This person isn’t necessarily better than the channel experts. They might not know the latest TikTok trend or how to tweak CSS for page speed. What they do know is how to connect dots. They know how to architect a plan that actually drives revenue. And how to bring the right people together to make it happen.
Their job isn’t to out-Google the Google expert. It’s to say:
“Okay, we’re running paid search to this landing page, but it’s converting at 0.8%. What’s the bounce rate? What’s the CTA? Is email follow-up happening? Do we have retargeting running cleanly? Are we actually measuring the full CAC?”
This person is thinking across content, creative, paid, organic, CRM, lifecycle — all of it — and constantly steering the machine toward results.
That’s strategy. And someone’s got to own it.
Why Strategy Leads to Real ROI
I’ve walked into companies where they were spending $60K/month on ads and seeing $40K in return. And everyone was scratching their heads.
They weren’t dumb. They had solid teams. They had reports. They had attribution tools. But what they didn’t have? Alignment.
Here’s what we did:
- Paused campaigns that were running just because “they’d always been running”
- Rebuilt landing pages to actually convert (not just look pretty)
- Created a unified nurture flow that didn’t leave paid leads stranded
- Set channel-specific KPIs that laddered up to actual business goals
- Started weekly reviews across departments to tie actions to outcomes
Within 90 days, CAC dropped by 40%. ROAS tripled. And no one had to work harder — they just had to work together, under a real plan.
That’s the ROI of having someone orchestrating the whole thing. Strategy isn’t overhead. It’s a multiplier.
What Happens When You Don’t Have This Role
Let me tell you what happens when no one’s in charge of the marketing strategy:
- Your media buyer is spending $10K/month with no feedback loop
- Your email flows are sending traffic to outdated offers
- Your social team is posting fluff because no one told them what the funnel looks like
- Your CMO (if you have one) is too busy fighting fires to map the actual journey
And then leadership starts wondering: “Is our marketing broken?”
No, your marketing isn’t broken — it’s leaderless.
Tactics are flying in all directions. People are doing their jobs. But no one’s aiming the ship.
Eventually, this kind of disorganization wears people out. You churn staff. You churn customers. You lose trust in the idea that marketing can even work.
And worst of all? You start reacting instead of planning.
What Makes a Great Marketing Strategist?
So, who is this person supposed to be?
They’re not just a “unicorn.” They’re usually someone who’s worked across multiple disciplines. Someone who understands how creative connects to conversion, and how data ties to decision-making. They’ve seen campaigns succeed and fail. They know how to ask “why?” instead of just “how?”
Here’s what I look for:
- Enough hands-on experience to call BS on vanity metrics
- Enough leadership skill to manage both freelancers and in-house teams
- The ability to say “no” to bad ideas, even from the top
- Pattern recognition — they’ve seen the signs of a leaky funnel or misaligned brand before
- They understand that growth isn’t just ads. It’s alignment across the entire marketing engine.
Personally, I’ve served in this role for years. And I can tell you — it’s not glamorous. You’re the one asking the hard questions. You’re the one pushing for better reporting, fixing sloppy targeting, rebuilding creative briefs, and herding cats between sales and product. But when you do it right?
You become the reason the company grows.
When to Hire One (and How to Set Them Up for Success)
If you’re a startup founder trying to do it all — I get it. At the beginning, you have to be scrappy. But there comes a point where DIY turns into chaos.
You don’t always need a full-time CMO out the gate. But you do need someone acting as strategic lead — even part-time, even freelance, even as a contractor or fractional hire.
Here’s when to make that move:
- You’re spending more than $10K/month across multiple channels
- You’re hiring specialists but aren’t sure if they’re coordinated
- You’ve hit a plateau and don’t know why
- You’re starting to scale and need to set the foundation right
And once they’re on board? Let them lead. Don’t micromanage the strategist — they’re there to tell you what’s working, what’s not, and what to do next.
Final Thoughts: Why This Role Pays for Itself
Here’s what I’ll leave you with.
Every time I’ve seen a company scale sustainably, they had someone leading marketing strategy — not just marketing execution.
This person wasn’t always the best writer, designer, or media buyer. But they were the best at making it all work together.
They saw the forest and the trees.
They set priorities.
They protected the budget.
They built the system.
And they made sure marketing was serving the business — not just filling a calendar.
If you’re serious about growth — stop piecing your strategy together from YouTube videos and Slack messages from different freelancers.
Hire someone who sees the whole damn board.
Want to talk about how to build a real marketing engine instead of playing channel roulette? I’m always happy to connect — strategy’s what I do.
Marketing Unplugged 
Leave a Reply