The most underrated superpower of your marketing program?
Your marketing vendor stack.
All the agencies, freelancers, and service providers that power your marketing engine. SEO, video production, PR, PPC – the difference between an average vendor and a 10x one can be the difference between mediocrity and a phenomenal outcome for your startup.
These folks are behind the scenes – they’re not on your payroll, they’re not in your HR performance discussions. But their impact is massive – on your budget, time, and most importantly, the results they drive.
You know all about the tools in your martech stack. Your vendor stack is 100x more important. And its importance is growing every day, as more top-tier marketers choose to go freelance and independent instead of going in-house.
So what’s a founder or CEO to do?
Don’t dive into the vendor jungle yourself – it’s a time sink and a gamble.
Instead, find a marketing leader who comes to the table with an all-star roster of vendors. Someone who knows the networks, taps into the right communities, and can build a vendor dream team quickly. Marketing is a team sport, and the best leaders blend in-house talent with the best external partners.
At Blue Seedling, we’ve cultivated a strong database of top-tier B2B marketing vendors for over 8 years. It’s one of our secret weapons. Quite often, we start working with a client where we need to re-build their entire marketing vendor stable. Thanks to our database, the process takes mere weeks instead of months.
The bottom line
A strong marketing vendor stack is a competitive moat. Make sure your marketing leader masters it.For more of our thoughts on some of the most common B2B marketing myths and misconceptions, check out our crash course Busting the most common B2B marketing myths.
