You know how this plays out.
You spend months making the case for outside help. You finally get budget approved. The agency comes in, the work gets noticeably better, and leadership is pleased. Polished content. Cleaner campaigns. A website that doesn’t embarrass you in front of prospects.
And then someone in a leadership meeting says, “The marketing has really improved lately,” and it just kind of… hangs there. Not directed at you. Not connected to the decision you made to fix it.
That’s a frustrating outcome. Not a bad one, but not the right one either.
The good news is it’s completely avoidable, and it starts before the agency does a single thing.
When you’re a one or two-person marketing team at a financial services firm, most of your energy goes into keeping things moving. Content that needs to get out, campaigns that need to launch, the CRM your sales team keeps asking you to do more with. There’s always more on the list than there are hours.
In that environment, the internal narrative around what you’re doing and why tends to get deprioritized. You know what you’re trying to build. Leadership sees some of the output. The gap between those two things is where attribution gets lost.
Here’s something worth sitting with: the way you present an agency engagement to leadership shapes how your role gets perceived throughout it.
If you walk in and say “I need more help,” you’re describing a capacity problem. Accurate, probably. But it frames you as someone who’s stretched, not someone who’s strategic.
If instead you walk in and say “Here’s a gap in our program, here’s what it’s costing us in pipeline and advisor engagement, and here’s how I’m proposing we close it,” that’s a different conversation. Same decision. Same budget ask. But now you’re the person who diagnosed the problem and built the solution. That framing sticks.
Most marketing professionals at financial services firms are carrying more than their titles suggest. Leadership often sees the outputs without fully understanding the constraints. You don’t need to spell out every constraint. You need to make your thinking visible.
Before the agency starts, have a clear conversation with leadership about what you’re trying to accomplish. Not just what you’re spending. What does the program look like in six months compared to today? What specific gaps is the agency closing? What are you now free to focus on that you couldn’t before?
That conversation sets expectations and positions you as the architect, not just the relationship manager.
Jake Hanley runs marketing and distribution for Teucrium ETFs, a small team managing a big mandate for a firm that issues agricultural commodity and crypto ETFs. When he started working with GK3, his firm was doing marketing activities: webinars, conferences, display ads. But they weren't translating into growth. Without a way to follow up consistently with leads, an automated funnel, or real visibility into what was working, there was no engine behind the effort.
He knew the gaps. He just didn’t have the time or technical depth to close them all.
Before a single campaign launched, the work started with strategy. Who was Teucrium actually trying to reach? What did those buyers need to hear at each stage? That meant defining audience segments, building content to nurture them, and putting the systems in place to execute: HubSpot setup, email sequences, lead scoring, automated workflows. Jake stayed focused on strategy and distribution. The execution happened behind the scenes.
The results showed up in AUM and flows. But they also showed up in something Jake didn’t expect.
“It’s funny. From time to time I get emails, phone calls from people I know socially, and the message is something to the effect of, ‘Wow, you guys have really stepped it up. Good job. You’re doing really well.’ GK3 makes us look good. They’re deeply integrated in our business, but in essence they’re behind the scenes. Investors, clients, friends, they see the output.”
— Jake Hanley, Managing Director, Teucrium ETFs
Jake gets those calls because he made the decision that produced those results. The agency executed. The improved output reflects his judgment about where the program needed to go.
Bringing in an agency doesn’t reduce your value. It shifts what you’re spending your time on.
When execution is handled, your job becomes less about producing work and more about directing it. Setting priorities. Evaluating what’s working. Deciding where to go next. That’s a more senior version of the role you’re already playing, not a diminished one.
The firms that get the most out of agency partnerships are the ones where the internal marketing lead stays active, not as a coordinator, but as the person who owns the program. The agency brings execution capacity and specialist expertise. You bring institutional knowledge, the leadership relationships, and the strategic judgment about what the firm actually needs.
Neither works without the other. And here’s the thing: your contribution doesn’t get less visible when the agency comes in. If anything, it gets more visible, because there’s finally enough output to make the strategy legible.
That assessment becomes the foundation for the leadership conversation. It shows you’ve done the diagnostic work, you understand the gaps, and you’re bringing a solution, not just a problem.
GK3’s Marketing Readiness Assessment evaluates your firm across four areas: messaging clarity, marketing infrastructure, content execution, and sales-marketing alignment. Five minutes, thirteen questions, and you’ll have a clear picture of where to focus.
How do I make the case to leadership for bringing in a marketing agency?
Start with the gap, not the solution. What specifically isn’t getting done, and what is that costing the firm in terms of pipeline, advisor engagement, or competitive positioning? Once the problem is clear, the agency becomes the logical answer rather than an optional expense. Pair that with a clear outcome framework — what does success look like in six months? — and you’re having a strategic conversation, not a budget conversation.
What should I communicate to leadership before the agency engagement starts?
At minimum: what gap you’re closing, what the agency will be responsible for, what you’ll remain responsible for, and what you expect to see change as a result. That framing sets you up to take credit for the outcomes rather than just the relationship management.
How do I stay visible once the agency is producing a lot of the output?
Stay close to the strategy, not just the execution. Make sure leadership sees you making calls about priorities, evaluating what’s working, and steering the program. The agency produces the work. You own the direction. Those are different things, and the distinction matters.
Will leadership question why they need me if an agency is doing so much of the work?
Only if the framing is off. If leadership understands that the agency handles execution while you handle strategy and program leadership, the question doesn’t come up. Get that framing right from the start and it’s a non-issue.