The Future of Marketing Is Flexible: Rethinking How We Resource for Success—and Why

Let’s be honest. While marketing has undergone a remarkable transformation—Boards are no longer satisfied with metrics like impressions or MQLs; they demand tangible evidence of revenue growth and business impact.

To demonstrate that marketing is a strategic force within the organization, leaders must step into a new role. They need to assert their expertise on buyers and markets, take ownership of more of the revenue process rather than passing it off to sales, and align their goals with the overarching objectives of the CEO and CFO.

It’s a tall order. For many marketing leaders, it feels a lot like trying to build the plane while flying it—a balancing act between reinvention and immediate delivery.

To truly position marketing as a strategic driver, leaders must confront three critical challenges in the way marketing itself operates in the organization.

Let’s examine three critical challenges facing marketing teams and explore how to overcome them to deliver the strategic impact the business demands.

1. New-age marketing talent shortages may hinder transformation efforts.

The reality is stark: for every advanced marketing role that emerges, there are only 2.5 qualified professionals to fill each open position¹.

This imbalance places marketing leaders in a bind.

How can they spearhead transformative, revenue-focused initiatives without the specialized skills needed to execute them?

The gap exists for several reasons. The pace of innovation in new-age marketing skills—everything from new MarTech, AI, and intent-driven strategies—outstrips the rate at which talent can adapt.

What to Consider:

While training existing team members is a vital long-term strategy, it’s not an immediate fix. Building expertise in complex, emerging areas takes time—time that most marketing leaders don’t have when delivering results this quarter is non-negotiable.

One promising solution is to centralize scarce, advanced marketing capabilities within a shared-service model. By pooling expertise into a central resource hub, marketing leaders can deploy skilled individuals across a wider array of projects and campaigns.

At the same time, leveraging remote and specialized service providers to do so gives marketing leaders the advantage of accessing niche expertise their teams need without the long lead times or overhead of hiring and training in-house talent.

The rise of work-from-anywhere policies has only made this approach more accessible, breaking down geographic barriers to connect marketing leaders with best-in-class specialists worldwide.

2. Traditional agency models lack the agility leaders need today.

Business is anything but static. From new investments to acquisitions and sudden pivots, the landscape shifts rapidly. Marketing needs partners who can move just as fast, but traditional agencies aren’t built for this kind of agility.

The rigid structures of many agencies present major roadblocks.

12-month contracts might provide predictability, but they fail to offer the flexibility needed to scale up during a merger or scale down during lean periods.

High retainers add another layer of difficulty, especially for organizations navigating financial pressure or transformation.

What to Consider:

Consider, for example, a subscription-based resourcing model. This approach allows organizations to scale their marketing efforts dynamically, responding to shifting business needs with speed and precision.

Whether it’s ramping up resources for a seasonal push or scaling down during a period of consolidation, this flexibility ensures marketing remains aligned with organizational priorities without added operational burden.

3. Your marketing team is stuck in operational inertia.

The way marketing operates in many organizations simply isn’t keeping pace with business demands. In times of high pressure—like product launches or major campaigns—teams often default to tactical execution, leaving little room for strategic recalibration.

Siloed structures exacerbate the problem. Teams segmented by function, rather than aligned with the customer journey, struggle to collaborate effectively. This misalignment not only causes inefficiencies but also leads to missed opportunities for meaningful, strategic impact.

Adding to the complexity are resource allocation challenges. Hiring full-time talent to address short-term needs often results in redundancies during slower periods, draining resources that could be better invested elsewhere.

The challenges are compounded by hiring cycles that drag on for months. Recruiting top-tier talent often takes up to three quarters—time marketing leaders simply don’t have.

These delays hinder the momentum needed to drive strategic change, leaving marketing teams struggling to keep up.

What to Consider:

These challenges demand a fresh approach to marketing operations, one that prioritizes adaptability, collaboration, and strategic focus.

This begins with rethinking how teams are resourced and structured.

Marketing leaders must shift from traditional, all-encompassing in-house models to alternative frameworks that distinguish between core and non-core competencies.

By focusing in-house teams on high-impact, strategic activities—such as market analysis, customer insights, and overarching revenue strategies—marketing leaders can ensure their talent is directed where it matters most.

For other tasks, such as execution-heavy work or specialized projects, leveraging external expertise through outsourced expertise and partnerships offers flexibility without compromising quality. This dynamic division of labor frees up internal teams to do what they do best: drive meaningful, long-term impact.

Rethinking the Marketing Resource Model

To command a seat at the leadership table and solidify marketing’s value, marketing leaders need to fundamentally rethink their approach to resourcing. The future of marketing lies in agility—building models that can adapt and deliver impact without rigid constraints.

An agile, subscription-based resourcing model allows marketing leaders to:

• Scale operations flexibly, aligning resources with strategic priorities like ABX campaigns or revenue operations.
• Access specialized talent by leveraging a mix of full-time or fractional professionals on demand. This approach fills skill gaps without the burden of long-term commitments.
• Demonstrate impact quickly by focusing on initiatives that balance short-term wins, such as pipeline acceleration, with long-term goals like market positioning.

This shift isn’t just about changing processes; it’s about adopting a new mindset. Agility must become a cornerstone of how marketing teams operate, supported by the right tools, processes, and partnerships to prioritize outcomes over outdated structures.

An agile approach to resourcing isn’t optional anymore—it’s essential. By adopting this model, marketing leaders can position themselves as strategic visionaries, driving measurable business outcomes and proving their indispensable value.

We’ve launched a webisode series to help marketing leaders transform the marketing operating model to deliver greater impact—as discussed by real-life B2B CMOs and seasoned marketing leaders.

Here are four crucial gaps marketing leaders and CMOs must bridge to position marketing as a strategic growth driver.

^{1 ‘The Changing Job Market: Navigating the Cross Section Between the Great Resignation and the Current Economic Climate’, 6sense, August 2022}