Today, more than ever before, much is expected of Chief Marketing Officers and their marketing teams.

And today, more than ever before, those same executives and leaders – if not CEO's themselves - are looking to fill a void of expertise in some, if not many, aspects of marketing. After all, marketing is vast and can seem an abyss at times. In a business, the responsibility to cut through the clutter of marketing and put forward a path of growth and achievement has to fall on someone, or on a team of people.

But, there aren't many people or companies out there that have deep understanding and expertise about everything when it comes to marketing. It isn't about just hiring a creative agency or a PR firm as a solution. No longer is it good enough in today's ultra-connected, ultra-competitive, ultra-social marketing world to be an expert at – or focus on - one aspect of marketing, or even a few for that matter. Things move way too fast for that, and are way too interconnected.

That's the key phrase. Marketing is interconnected. Offline, online, across social media, on mobile devices…media is all interconnected, and therefore a brand or business is interconnected, whether you're considering Yahoo! search results, Twitter, email campaigns, direct mail, traffic to your retail store or traffic to your website. So, the ability to be well-rounded in marketing – and exceptionally well-rounded with deep expertise – and be able to craft a consistent narrative is a necessity, not a luxury, in business nowadays.

There are, of course, a few things (until now) standing in the way of most businesses having exceptional, 360-degree marketing. For one - "average" has become status quo; we still hear the word "silos" to describe marketing infrastructure within most businesses or companies. Some companies have their search engine team, and their social media team, and their creative folks, and their PR flacks. This leads to expertise and focus in those areas, for sure, yet a narrow expertise and one that is ultimately limited and destined to not fulfill expectations. Of course! They all need each other because they're functionally interconnected. Only the best brands or businesses have the ability to take expertise in every way and demonstrate how they should be totally interconnected.

Most marketing is average - whether it refers to advertising, social media or print campaigns - and hardly any of it is award-winning, much less "acclaimed". Because of this, secondly, marketing is sometimes viewed through a lens of being a below-the-line expense and somehow not as critical to incremental sales, branding or profit growth. This makes sense, we guess, because if you're "average" at something, it is easy to be overlooked.

Sprouse Marketing Group knows these views to be false (because, we've proven them so), and we have seen over the past decade that the collective marketing industry has not done a good enough job in foreseeing and explaining a complete marketing story to customers, our own employees, shareholders or Boards. Most "experts" or gurus talk about one area of marketing, and forget the other two dozen of them, while losing sight of any type of integrated approach. Such is the common practice of administering the almighty marketing budget. Yet, it is so counter to what should be happening to be effective. Before we were named Marketing Team of the Year at the American Business Awards (twice), this mentality was what was in place. E-Commerce is a line in the budget, along with public relations, brand initiatives, traffic and customer acquisition, trade marketing perhaps.

Yet, no one we know of (until now) has been able to provide thorough expertise and strategy about everything marketing covers nowadays, much less even educate folks about how marketing roles have evolved, and be able to communicate that story or narrative over and over effectively. The aspects of marketing that appear in a budget aren't just lines in a budget that are independent of each other. They are - again – interconnected; together they tell the narrative of your business, product or service.

Average is over. Sprouse Marketing Group knows this and provides strategy and expertise across all marketing aspects because we've done it all – and done it exceptionally - for small, medium and large businesses and brands with diverse types of products and services. We have the stories, the narratives and the successes to back it up.

So how does this affect you? Today, CEO's and business leaders looking for a basic foundation of marketing knowledge, a general strategic guideline and approach, or a full-fledged marketing kick-start have a few choices.

They can hire a Chief Marketing Officer, and the CMO can hire a staff.

They can hire an agency who claims to "provide expertise about everything" and then become just "a number" working with 27 different contacts across 8 departments.

They can hire several agencies who claim to provide expertise in one or a few disciplines of marketing - like search, public relations or creative services - and then leave the rest to chance with whatever money is left over.

Or, they can work with Sprouse Marketing Group.

You can't imagine how often we hear "we're not happy with our PR agency" or "our SEO company sucks and we're not getting traffic" or "we're nowhere to be found on social media because our partner isn't doing anything". Meanwhile, CEO's and Marketing executives are dropping a lot of money each month for expertise – and to dominate their competitors – in one or a few areas of marketing and somehow are confounded about why they aren't getting the results they thought. "Why are we not making more money on this one aspect of marketing which we're paying someone to focus on?"

Have you stopped to truly think about why that might be, or why that scenario might happen? It happens more often than not. But consider this: when you outsource one or a few aspects of marketing to a partner, you actually need to be outsourcing all aspects of marketing to a partner – provided that partner is well-versed and proven experts in all aspects of marketing. Otherwise, it is like having one hand tied behind your back. You have an internet marketing agency working for you, but they have no ability to help develop the social media or public relations narrative? That's a recipe for disaster. An E-Commerce partner that can't set a strategy for Search or Display advertising? Same thing.

Let's say it again. It's about interconnecting everything in your marketing strategy. Marketing cannot be done in silos. Social media goes hand in hand with public relations, which goes hand in hand with search, which impacts display advertising, which leverages direct mail programs, which leads to lucrative in-person client events and trade marketing, all of which impacts your brand and communication strategy.

Confused?

Sprouse Marketing Group is the diverse, well-rounded Chief Marketing Officer – and award-winning, national Marketing Team of the Year – you've never had, and without the overhead. The deepest expertise, without the hassle. Not to mention, our employees are well-compensated because they have been hand-picked as the best not just in one thing, but in every thing.

Sprouse Marketing Group does in fact "provide expertise about everything" because we've done it all and done it all exceptionally. But, our clients aren't a number. In fact, we work exclusively with one client per vertical or industry. You get all our focus and all our commitment. You win. Your competitors lose.

Sprouse Marketing Group is several agencies rolled into one, yet we manage to remain small enough to be super-fast and nimble. Why would you hire different agencies to strategize about different facets of marketing? This is a major mistake, not to mention…why make things tougher on yourself? Marketing, now more than ever, needs to be fully integrated across media and platforms. Sprouse Marketing Group provides expertise in all disciplines and removes any chance of having a disparate or choppy marketing plan, budget or strategy.

Really, what it comes down to, is that marketing is an investment. Like any other types of investment, there is expected return on that investment (ROI). What marketing, in general, has struggled with is quantifying that ROI; marketers always have.

Sprouse Marketing Group believes the reason for the inability to quantify marketing ROI is because no one has taken a truly comprehensive approach to understanding and evaluating marketing as a whole. CMO's are challenged to, but most don't know how or have the resources to do it. They look at one marketing silo, figure out if it is worth the investment, abandon it when it doesn't work, but never actually understand how that silo impacts everything else. It is no surprise that it's next to impossible to get a comprehensive "marketing ROI" when you have to analyze things in silos.

If you had one partner that you could count on to deliver strategy and analysis about your marketing budget, deliver deep expertise on all aspects of marketing, and be able to guide your company across marketing functions while being able to integrate all those functions together into a cohesive strategy, wouldn't that be appealing?

We think so too.

Click here to request more information about Sprouse Marketing Group.