21. Healthy Relationships with Agencies and Outsourcing Your CMO with Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media

Erik Huberman of Hawke Media joins the E-commerce with Coffee?! podcast to talk about outsourcing marketing and the relationship between brands and agencies. Recently having published The Hawke Method alongside his team, their book and this episode are both chalked full of insights and experiences that go into a successful marketing strategy.

Erik joins Nate Svoboda on this episode to break down his marketing insights, to explore why his marketing strategy works where traditional methods might fail, and to solidify that the most profitable brand-agency relationship is not a contentious one, but one where collaboration is both open and positive.

What to listen for:

• Erik starts us off with his background, from growing up with entrepreneurial influences to having to navigate the 2008 financial crisis. Learning from every position and exploring the world of commerce, he realized that the marketing ecosystem was truly broken. Hence Erik’s a-la-carte CMO philosophy.
• It’s no secret that running a business is tough work–Nate calls it a “full-contact sport.” One of Erik’s main takeaways after working with so many businesses is that, as a business owner, the best thing you can do is take ownership of the challenges and lean into the chaos that is business. You can always exit and take a job if things get to be too much, but realizing that it’s your choice to stay in the game is one of the best ways to keep rolling with the punches and tackling the big problems.
• There’s some commotion in the industry surrounding how to properly run certain ads. Erik suggests that many brands simply don’t know how these ads fit into the ecosystem of the company, and Hawke Media’s more grounded strategy allows them to navigate these issues smoothly.
• There are plenty of advantages to outsourcing the CMO position. For one, vetting actual marketing talent for in-house positions is much easier said than done. Outsourcing marketing is also more cost-effective, more flexible, and can provide a much-needed outside perspective.
• A lot of brands take a very binary look on in-house and outsourcing things like marketing–Erik believes that it shouldn’t be this way. At some point, it is important and necessary for companies to have their own head of marketing, which can actually make hiring a second set of eyes like Hawke Media even more valuable.
• While having an in-house head of marketing is important, it’s also important not to make the switch cold turkey. Again according to Erik, the best solution is to balance in-house with outsourcing, which can save your business a lot of heartache down the road.
• Sometimes brands hire agencies into a sort of contentious relationship, but this ultimately hurts the same brand more than anybody else. Treating the agency as a partner and a collaborator is how brands see the best returns.
• Erik gives us a quick pitch for his team’s new book: The Hawke Method. He breaks down the three fundamental pillars to their approach, which are awareness, nurturing, and trust.