Why More Marketing Teams Are Choosing Boutique Agencies in 2026

Galen Low: I probably don't need to tell you that leading marketing for your company in 2026 is a tough remit. Not only are you expected to discover and engage customers across every available channel using every available technology, but you probably also have a smaller team than you did last year, and you probably don't have open headcount for this fiscal or even the next one.

And you're probably building a small army of AI agents to handle everything from crafting campaign copy to analyzing audience data. And you're probably running more than one campaign off the side of your desk between meetings with the SLT and conversations with the skeleton crew that you've managed to keep on.

But the question is: Is it just an undeniable fact that marketing is heading towards this lean, tech-led DIY approach? Or is it still viable in this economy to augment your marketing capabilities through boutique agency partners who understand your business the way you do? Or flipped around, what is the role of the boutique marketing agency when AI is already beginning to replace your full-time staff?

To lift the lid on that topic, I've brought in the owner of a successful digital marketing agency that has weathered storms of disruption like the pandemic, multiple Google algorithm changes, and the current trends around AI-generated content. Together, we're going to unpack the ROI of having a trusted agency partner, explore where AI should and should not be used in the digital marketing world, and dive into some less obvious things that marketing leaders and business owners should expect from an agency relationship.

Hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to The Digital Project Manager Podcast—the show that helps delivery leaders work smarter, deliver smoother, and lead their teams with confidence in the age of AI. I'm Galen, and every week we dive into real-world strategies, emerging trends, proven frameworks, and the occasional war story from the project front lines. Whether you're steering massive transformation projects, wrangling AI workflows, or just trying to keep the chaos under control, you're in the right spot. Let's get into it.

Today we're talking about how the role of the boutique digital marketing agency has shifted since AI has taken hold, and how organizations need to shift their perspective to get the most out of their agency relationships. We're gonna be exploring where AI adds the most value to the process and where human creativity makes a difference. We're going to be unpacking some real-world case studies around how leaner marketing teams have managed to achieve more impact with less, and we're gonna be sharing some practical recommendations for marketing directors looking to reset their POV on working with boutique marketing agency partners.

With me today is Tammy Valentine, friend of the channel, who also happens to be the president of LuckyTamm Marketing Group. Tammy founded LuckyTamm in 2013 to bring creativity, strategy, and collaboration to businesses looking to amplify their voice, elevate their presence, and build trust with their customers.

As a full-service digital marketing agency with a lean, specialized team, LuckyTamm is able to deliver the consistency and speed of an in-house marketing team, while also bringing in lateral insights from working across dozens of industries. Today, Tammy and her teams have found the perfect balance between AI-powered productivity, creative collaboration, and tangible results for their clients across social media, email, web, and AEO and GEO.

Tammy, love having you on the show. Really excited to chat.

Tammy Valentine: Thanks, Galen. I'm so excited to be here.

Galen Low: It's been incredible because you've been on the podcast before, and when we were in the green room, we realized, gosh, we've known each other for, I think, over five years we've been collaborating together. It's been great to see your team grow.

And the thing that's always impressed me is that every time you and I re-sync, you're always on the button of what's going on in digital marketing. You're always pivoting really quickly, and you're always in the know and have already reoriented your business around things that are just pertinent and trending and relevant to the marketplace.

So I'm excited to dive in. It's been a minute since you've been on the show, so I'm excited to figure out what's new with you. And I know that you and I have a tendency to go pretty much anywhere, which is always entertaining, honestly. But just in case, here's the roadmap that I've sketched out for us today.

So to start us off, I wanted to just set the stage by hitting you with a big, hairy question that's top of mind for my listeners. But then I'd like to unpack that and maybe talk about three things. Firstly, I wanted to talk about what you see in the competitive marketing landscape today and how that has shifted the way your team adds value for its customers.

Then I'd like to lead that into, like, how lean in-house marketing teams should be leveraging their boutique agency partners to answer the mail on doing more with less, and then maybe dive into a case study together. And lastly, I thought maybe we could just round out by looking at the future in terms of what in-house marketing directors should be doing to prepare for what's coming next.

How does that sound to you?

Tammy Valentine: Sounds awesome.

Galen Low: It's ambitious. We'll get into it. Awesome. All right. So I thought maybe I'd just start off with one big, hairy question. So there's this narrative right now that AI is going to replace a lot of what agencies do, everything from crafting social media posts and generating short-form videos to actually crafting a capable multi-channel marketing strategy.

It's all something that AI is technically capable of. But at the same time, I'm seeing in-house marketing teams that are shrinking, and in some cases, CMOs are actually a team of one. And in more extreme cases, marketing is actually not a department, it's just a shared responsibility across the leadership team or across senior management.

So I thought I'd ask, what is a boutique digital marketing agency actually for in 2026? What value does it serve?

Tammy Valentine: Great question. So in 2026, we really look to provide more marketing muscle with technical acumen and expertise so that companies can benefit from a collaborative group, and we can augment different areas in which a CMO might not, have expertise, and really they win because they only have to pay a third of the price as opposed to having all these people on staff having to, pay for that overhead.

So we can get more done quickly with more technical acumen.

Galen Low: I like that notion of just, like, augmentation, but I think a lot of folks when they're thinking of, "Okay, I'm gonna bring on a marketing agency," there's "Okay, they're gonna put me on retainer. They're gonna try and call the shots. They're gonna have..."

Sometimes full service means we have a set product that we'll offer for you, and it's inflexible. But I like this notion that, yeah, working with a smaller team of specialists, and you do build your teams up around relevant specialties, you can decide where you need that extra oomph and can be a partner within that versus at least what I think to be the more traditional retainer model of "Okay, you pay us and you use us or you don't, but come to us with a brief and we'll execute, but also we're the experts and we're gonna do what we do," versus something actually more nimble, something more collaborative.

And to your point, in a lot of cases, for a fraction of the price as well because it is a fractional team. That's super cool. I wonder if we can zoom out a bit because as I mentioned at the top, you've navigated your agency through a lot, like things like the pandemic, through big shifts in the way that social media platforms are used, through big search algorithm changes, and now there's this AI wave.

What's the thing that has kept Lucky Tam relevant? What makes a boutique agency resilient when the ground keeps shifting below you?

Tammy Valentine: It's definitely very fluid, but one thing that has been a competitive advantage of our agency is we are very scrappy. If not, we're just gonna become stale and left behind, and no one wants that, and we wouldn't be doing a service to our clients if we weren't trying to forecast or in the digital project manager world, look at the planning horizon.

What is coming, right? So I'd say that's a big thing. We utilize AI to help with the ideation phase of a project, but when it comes to execution with the clients and the industries that we serve, we really have found ways to help it bridge the gap between, innovation and inefficiency in various parts of a project, but it can't handle the whole project by itself.

Galen Low: That's a really good differentiator. And in my head I'm thinking like, okay, so this might be a little bit inside baseball, so share what you can. But when you're that scrappy, you're almost figuring it out as you go. But how do you find that balance between, oh, we're flying by the seat of our pants with our client, we don't actually have a process or know what we're doing because it's so new, and waiting too long to kind of like bake a process and have these systems that you feel like confident in, but maybe actually in so doing miss the mark for your clients because you don't have that offering when they need it.

How do you find that balance between figuring it out as you go and having a deep way of doing things?

Tammy Valentine: So there's two things that cannot be engineered. That's time and experience. And we Leverage both with that technical acumen and like you were talking about earlier, the group of specialists that we have that says, "Okay, let's pull this lever and do some experimentation here, and then let's pull this lever," and says, "Okay, we've gone down this before.

We need some guardrails on this. Let's pull it back." AI's, not doing us a service there. We tried it for the ideation and, the concepting part of a project, and we're starting to waste time, and no matter how much input we give it, it's still, producing some kind of graphic with five hands or whatever, right?

So let's go ahead and just do what we know and get it done to the best of our ability. So I think, like I said, time and experience help guide that and really help us to keep it within, a safe place.

Galen Low: I love the idea that, time and experience can't be engineered, and those are actually the levers and decision factors for you to be like, "Okay, well, is it helping us move fast because time is of the essence, and is it supplanting our experience?"

In other words, I see a lot of teams where they are supreme experts in what they do. They've been doing it for 10, 15 years, and suddenly there's this tool that's "Well, maybe you should do this," and they're like, "Yeah, maybe we should do that." And it almost takes away their confidence in themselves versus the, "Okay, well, actually, AI's trained on a lot of stuff, but it hasn't trained on, my lived experiences and the way I perceive my craft and how I've been delivering for clients, over the past," in your case, "13-plus years," and having the decision gate, in a way, to be nerdy about it, right?

To be like, "Okay, we're calling it. Should we go deeper into this or should we just, go with our expertise and instinct?" That sounds like that's what creates the blend that, yeah, maybe isn't a recipe, this rigid recipe for brownies that you must follow to you know that ounce. But instead it's like it's not figuring it out as you go, it's trusting instinct, using the technology, being progressive in your thinking about it, developing specializations in that, but also realizing that the deepest expertise, like a lot of the value's coming from the experience that your team has doing stuff over the past, decade and a bit.

Tammy Valentine: Right. We can use it as a springboard to get through some of the planning and the concepting phases quicker, but again, if we get stuck in idea land of, "Okay, well, Claude told me to do this and Chat told me this and Gemini is coming up with this-" "... and now we've got Midjourney," it's just paralysis by analysis.

And you're just sitting there, chasing your tail. So we have to keep it moving along the project, and if we're hanging out in a ideal end too much, that's not good either. So I think it's just having those checks in place and then, like you said, trusting your instincts and then just having regular check-ins.

Okay, how far are we getting on this? And are we moving the needle or are we going in a circle? 'Cause sometimes that happens, and that's where you can run up against budget constraints, and that's where you can get into trouble. So just knowing where those thresholds are and then You know, looking at senior leadership for guidance on how to continue moving the project forward.

Galen Low: I'm on this thread here about almost trusting your experience and your gut and your expertise, and how AI can maybe sometimes flatten that out, and you stop trusting your instincts on it. I wonder if I could also flip it around because even just to sort of circle around what we've been talking about all along is the role of a boutique digital marketing agency.

I think you're right. I think AI is the elephant in the room. It's great to see smaller agencies adopt it and be fast on their feet and be nimble and scrappy. But, if I were to believe my feed, it would appear that most people either think that boutique marketing agencies are, quote-unquote, "cooked" or that all AI-generated marketing is slop.

I imagine that the truth is somewhere in between. And if I might ask, just, from where you stand, where is AI genuinely helping boutique agencies punch above their weight class to compete with some of the larger agencies? And where do you think it maybe creates a false sense of confidence, not just for agencies, but also for in-house teams who are thinking, "Okay, well, I've got all these tools.

I've got Claude, I've got Gemini, I've got ChatGPT. I guess I can do this all myself." How does that balance work out for you? How are organizations like yourself able to compete at a larger level, at a higher level? And also, how are you addressing this idea that in-house marketing teams are being told either by their higher-ups or just culturally that they should be able to do this all themselves using AI?

Tammy Valentine: I think the big misconception with marketing agencies and AI is that AI is bulletproof, and it's not. The AI agents are only as smart and as good as the data that is input, and if the data is, false or incorrect, then the output is bad. So I think the big thing there is just using discernment to understand that, okay, what is the goal for the client, and how can we help them win?

And then you manufacture a strategy around that. But to sit there and just depend on these tools to spit out all of the answers, it's not going to be applicable, and most clients will be able to sniff it out immediately. So you still need to be able to interject some deductive reasoning as to why are we recommending these things, and this is where AI will help.

But again, I do believe that you have to be able to bridge the gap, at least in our industry, of what's practical because AI might not know your business and how intimate it is and how the economic climate or even the geographical area impacts your business. It does a, a good job of kinda, like I said, the ideation part, some of the concepting and helping with inefficiencies, but it's not gonna be an end-all, be-all bulletproof solution yet, at least not here in 2026.

It's a springboard, but it's not a end-all, be-all solution.

Galen Low: I like that notion of springboard to amplify something that's already there, not to create a signal from nothing. I also really you said sniff it out, and I'm like, oh, that captures everything. Not just from an agency to their customer perspective, but also your customer's customers, right?

Who are like, they're gonna sniff it out because we're all attuned. Not a day goes by where one of my news channels doesn't post something about how to tell if, a photograph is AI generated, or if a video is AI, or if a post is AI. And I think it's just this thing we have right now just as consumers of information to be like, "Yeah, but is that real?"

Be suspicious of it. And m- m- maybe actually a question for you what impact can it have from the customer perspective, the end customer of your clients, if they're sniffing out the fact that, these daily posts are feeding an algorithm, but they're definitely ... they're not passing the test of what is authentic and helpful?

Tammy Valentine: Right now with AI, it's a race of trust, and that's the biggest thing. For our clients too, it's feeding the machines and making sure that the agents are able to go onto the backside of the site. They're able to scan the code and say, "Oh, this is what this company does and this is what they don't do."

Because if you're not careful, the agents will also come to their own conclusion. So how are we as a boutique marketing agency setting our clients up for success by advising them, talking through implementation? How are we getting this information out there and making it easy for the agents to be able to easily pick up that information?

So it's a matter of creating content that's good for both humans and robots, and that's been the case ever since, the dot-com boom really. I mean, ever since search has taken over, that's been the case. Content became king. That was a whole thing, too. So I think it's just more of, I mean, we're playing the same game, but the rules have changed a little.

Galen Low: Yeah, agreed, and it's pervasive. It's impacting everybody at the same time. I think it's really interesting, and I just wanted to point out that I like your stance on at least what I'm picking up between the lines, that AI technology and everything we're doing technologically in the marketing space, it's pretty good.

It's just not good enough yet. But that doesn't mean we write it off and don't use it for now. It doesn't mean we go full bore into it and just force it to be good. I like that you've actually taken this sort of position of it's up to us to help our team of agents now that are capable and knowledgeable but still don't know everything.

It's like a genius that was born yesterday. It's up to us actually to fill in those gaps, to help the technology grow, to lift it up, and to find the balance of what is good. And eventually, might it know what good is, and could it build trust immediately, in the future? Maybe, but right now, probably not.

I wanted to circle back to that notion of trust, 'cause I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of things that you can't engineer, time, expertise, things that maybe you can engineer or at least get wrong, building trust, I think with your clients and also their clients with their customers.

You've been talking about how you've been using AI in the process, where your sort of decision gates are. So we've touched on this a little bit, but I'm wondering, zooming out and maybe zooming in, like, how do you and your team decide throughout the process, beyond ideation and into production, like, how do you decide what stays human and what gets automated?

Tammy Valentine: It really depends on, making sure that the output is quality So however much, oversight that that takes and safeguarding of just making sure everything remains on brand, that's really our job. In previous years, it's been all about... And like I talked about, search and just how that changed the game, and then, Google Ads and everything.

There's all this inbound. There's just been this whole shift within the landscape within the last 15 years. And really, sometimes you just kinda have to, sit back and watch a little bit, and then jump on it, right? And say, "All right. This is what we're noticing across different industries.

This is how I think it can benefit you." And business acquisition, really, at the end of the day, that's all our clients care about. Are we getting more visibility? Are we getting more sales? And how are we monitoring that? And is AI, helping us in that way, or is it being a detriment? So it's just a different way in which the game is now being played.

Galen Low: I like that it's like keeping the eye on the ball of quality, which, your agency understands, has understood through all of these shifts, that we've gone through. And it's funny because I feel like as humans, especially when it comes to technology that helps acquire business that makes money, there's always this layer that's like a race to the bottom.

How can we game the system? And even though I'd be the first to say that a Google Search algorithm change is incredibly disruptive to people in our field, in a way, it is a correction to account for people gaming the system. And as a result, the end game should always be to, like, how can we deliver quality and something useful and helpful for end users versus how can we stuff keywords in or how can we, automate the creation of, a whole pillar of articles about, whatever, getting your oil changed so that we can dominate the SERP, and saturate and beat out our competitors versus how can we resonate with our clients' customers?

What are they looking for? How can we build trust with them, not just technically dominate the current playing field through technological solutions that maybe miss the forest for the trees.

Tammy Valentine: 100%. And I had a conversation most recently with one of our clients about... 'cause they were like, "We just want views.

We just want views." And I'm like, "Let's go back to the fundamentals of digital marketing and the digital marketing trifecta." You got the three areas of Paid, earned, and owned media. And they all overlap, and in the middle's a sweet spot. So really, my job as a marketer is to guide my clients to that sweet spot, no matter what it is, okay?

How are we pulling the levers or just balancing everything out to make sure that we're equal in those areas, to make sure that they're getting the visibility, they're getting... All these things are taken, and no part of their, marketing house is being neglected. I can't tell you how many times that I've talked to various clients where they're like, "Oh yeah, we want these things," but their digital plumbing is broken.

Let's go back to the basics and the fundamentals. You have customers out there and you have a service. Let's connect the two.

Galen Low: That trifecta you mentioned has persisted for a reason, and yeah, I do see a lot of the off-kilter, right? Where it's just do paid, throw money at a problem. Let's just burn through money until we get the views, or, just earned, right?

It's okay, well, as long as other people think we're cool, then money will flow in. And then, yeah the own channels as well actually having a personality to differentiate in the market. And you can see how that trifecta actually... I mean, I was gonna go as far as to say is that is a recipe for building trust.

Maybe that's a bit, too much painting with a broad brush, but I do think it's important, right? That businesses are there in these various channels to find customers, right? To your point. It's actually a simple game with a lot of complexity in between, but what you really want is to, yeah, find those customers and resonate with them and, yeah, acquire new business.

I wanted to come back to this idea of-- I'm not coming at this with empirical evidence, but you and I, when we've chatted, we've been talking about how in-house marketing teams, they are shrinking. They are getting leaner. Expectations are getting higher, and I think the ability for marketing directors or CMOs to grow their team is actually a bit reduced because they have to almost leap over that barrier of "Well, couldn't we do that with AI?

Shouldn't we be able to 10x our output in terms of our marketing strategy? Wouldn't it be more helpful if we just had a small collection of people who get it, doing all the things and having AI as their, extra set of hands?" I've seen a lot of marketing teams of one and, very talented marketing directors and CMOs, but sometimes they're just doing a bunch of marketing off the side of their desk.

They are under a lot of pressure to build an army of agents to, do the job of people that they would normally hire in terms of human help. But, some of these folks don't have any support. They don't have a team at all, and they're expected a lot. I'm wondering, like, how has that changed what your clients actually need from you?

And has it made the, the process more collaborative, or has it actually maybe made it more transactional, where it's like, "Okay, I went to AI. Claude told me to do this. Tammy, can you do this thing that Claude asked to do? I'm busy. I've gotta go to, like, all my C-suite meetings, or I've gotta report out, or I've gotta manage this, do that.

Can you just get it done?" Has it deepened the relationship and made it more collaborative? Has it made it more transactional, and has it changed what people come to you and ask for?

Tammy Valentine: That's a great question. And it actually reminds me of a client that did that recently. They said, "Hey, can you just put it in chat and have chat do it?"

Yes, but we've been working together for many, many years. We already know what's working. Why are we gonna disrupt that? I think we can make small iterations, but let's not just depend on it. Let's use our instincts here and really understand your digital plumbing is working. Your sales funnel is fully fleshed out.

So it really comes back to it has deepened our relationship with our clients because they know that we at least have our ground to the, floor. We're monitoring and trying to make sure we fully understand the landscape before just jumping in. Because you also- ... don't wanna be reckless of "Well, AI told me to do all this, so I'm- Right

gonna go ahead and waste all this time and effort to build this whole, campaign that AI told me to do, and it's a complete flop." So we're gonna take the data and the information that we know and all of the brand, the intimate relationship that we've built, and we're just gonna, make small modifications.

But really, our job is to be the guide within the labyrinth of all of these technical products. We had one client that came to us and was like, "Hey, Tammy, just wanna put it out there. We did cheat on you, and we tried to-" "... DIY on ads, and we got lost." And I just said, "Well, it's a good thing that we're being honest here because that's why you have us, is we are the guide."

We've, gone through some of this, and we are very seasoned professionals, that we understand, where the noise is and how are we gonna break through. Because these machines, at the end of the day, they all wanna make money, too. So-

Galen Low: Right ...

Tammy Valentine: we have to also be mindful of influence and just how much is it taking away from the goal, is it adding more noise, or is it helping with expediting the workload?

Because between those three things is really where our relationship has become much greater in this era of AI. And the other part of it, too, is people cannot get too caught up with the, bright, shiny things. "Oh," "we've got this tool, and it's gonna do everything for us." I have a hard time believing that.

Galen Low: I love that.

And I love both of those stories because they're such a microcosm of what I'm seeing out there today, and I think what you're seeing out there today. It almost gets us second-guessing ourselves. Like that first story where they've come to you, and they've been like, "Can you just throw this through chat, and then we'll go from there?"

Almost like disconnecting it from years of experience working together as partners and collaborating and developing this deep and intimate understanding of one another's businesses. Not just your understanding of their business, but their understanding of yours and how you add value and this level of expertise.

And yet this new player comes in, and they're like, "Well, now I'm second-guessing it. We should just use chat because chat is all-knowing. AI is all-knowing. Our LLMs are all-knowing." And almost discarding what brought us here in the first place or what it even trained on to begin with, which was this sort of relationship between businesses to play the game, to, acquire business, to use tools whose game is also to acquire business, right?

It's like there's all these layers that we probably shouldn't throw away so quickly, but I think that's what the pressure is doing on these marketing teams. And then I love your other story about "Hey, Tammy, we kinda cheated on you. Sorry." Right? And how that can highlight the value of the relationship, even getting to that moment.

But, having developed that trust and that honesty to be able to have that conversation and for you not to, be like, "Oh," right? That's just no, I get it, right? You're under a lot of pressure. You're being told these things. Of course, this is gonna be an attractive thing to try and DIY or do in-house, but thank you for coming to me and let's move forward from here as partners.

And I like that what you're finding is that it's deepening the relationships. Can I ask about new clients? Because some of that is okay, yeah, actually, we've worked together for years, and there was this blip, and I was like, "Maybe I can do it myself." And then it's actually, no. It's we've got these trusted partners that have been able to keep their eye on the prize and keep us on target all these years.

For new clients coming in, and especially I'm thinking from the perspective of a marketing director or a CMO who's "Okay, well, listen, I can't do this all in-house." We did maybe have, a different agency partner. Maybe they were a bigger agency, and they just weren't able to shift and meet the needs.

Maybe they felt like they were a small fish in that agency's pond, and they're looking to, start working with maybe a more boutique digital agency. But for that relationship to flourish into some of the stories that you're telling what does a good boutique agency and client relationship look like in 2026 from day one?

What is good behavior? What is the goal to build a productive relationship?

Tammy Valentine: Great question. Something that has really been very attractive to our clients and that something that they love in working with us is our onboarding process. And throughout that discovery, we fully unpack how that brand comes together, who has influence on the account, what's been done before too, because there's nothing worse than, getting a job and you're like, "So and so agency managed this and, they did a poor job," or whatever.

Yeah, you'll always get that whenever a new agency or CMO comes to you, and what are you gonna do different? And so we like to understand the lay of the land fully before digging in. So that's step one Step two is we expect our client partners to show up and collaborate with us. This is not super hands-off.

So if you're wanting just this very hands-off automated thing, I would recommend trying to DIY and go ahead and just do what you gotta do there. But ours is more of like how are we using our experience and our capabilities to really highlight the nuts and bolts of what makes your, product or services awesome, and really putting those things to work.

So I think showing up and being engaged as in a group project, not just hands-off, but like digging in together, getting our hands dirty together, and then, okay, we got it. It's now, working. It's polished. Now let's go rinse and repeat and try to put it into maintenance mode. So that part of it is a whole process, and that's something that really CMOs and anybody looking for an agency partner in the small boutique type capabilities, that's where they benefit is it's not gonna be slapstick.

It's not going to be just a, oh, we're gonna throw this in Canva and we're gonna... it's much more involved, but they like that. And so no different than if a doctor were to spend a ton of time with you like, "Okay, well let... tell me more about, you know- ... workout regimen, your nutrition. Okay, let's really dig in so that we can identify the underlying issues of whatever kind of health challenges."

It's the same thing. We're monitoring the health of the business and digital assets and making sure that everything is performing optimally or at least as much as it can, and we're gonna plug in various activations to make sure that if there's a deficiency, we're gonna supplement or augment, right? So it's the same thing, it's just, on the digital scale.

Galen Low: Yeah. Marketers are doctors, but I understand what you mean, right? And I think it holds up. I like that you called out onboarding and have identified that as like a, an area where it's important as an agency to kinda get right. That's the quickest way I've ever gotten an eye roll from a client, has been botching onboarding or have it draw out for too long You said earlier, you can't engineer time, but you can certainly engineer out anything that's a waste of time and accelerate in.

I think you touched on it earlier when you were saying, AI can go and do some of the research about, what a company does, what a company doesn't do. You are engaging. It is higher touch. You're dialoguing with your clients, and I like that idea that, yeah, instead of spending the time coming up with ideas that have been done before and not having the depth of understanding of the business, characterize those first few engagements together.

I think that's like it's brilliant 'cause that's exactly what I would want, as a small business owner, as a, marketing director. I don't want to spend so much time, I don't wanna go to the doctor's office and for the seventeenth time explain everything I've done for the past five years so that they can give me basically the same answer as the other specialist.

That's what we're trying to avoid in the agency world as well. And I like that idea of it is hands-on. If you're looking for hands-off, then this probably isn't the answer. There's loads of solutions on, Upwork or in-house AI to do your bidding. That's different than having a team and, we started this sort of section on this notion of shrinking marketing teams and not being able to hire humans and maybe being forced to think through how can we build a team of agents.

But even coming back to what you first said there is some middle ground. Some middle ground is well, listen there's something between either having no humans and only having technology supporting you and hiring full-timers. And even like that, well, we'll just get a bunch of contractors, and they'll all work together.

Still not quite the same as what I know of your agency, which is like you're kinda like hiring this SWAT team, this baseball team that's played together for a long time. They know what each other are going to do and not having to go through all that, storming, forming team-building stuff that you would have to do if you're just assembling a bunch of contractors together.

This is actually a relationship with a team of people who are going to care about your business, who are gonna take the time to think this through, who have other clients, and that's okay, and maybe even a benefit because they're working in different industries, and they're seeing what's working and what's not.

And for that to actually activate, it needs to be a conversation. You don't just throw things over the fence and expect something to come back and, check a box and go "Yeah, we had fifteen posts for our social media campaign. Done." Uh it's, it's more than that, and it's all about, yeah, the results.

Speaking of which, when we were prepping for this, you told me this story. It was about a social media video and sort of the, the different generational responses to video. I wasn't sure... I mean, I, I'm kinda putting you on the spot here, but I wasn't sure if you're able to share that story. But what I liked is that it revealed an untapped market for one of your clients.

Are you willing, can you talk me through, like, how that unfolded from the initial idea to, like, how your client recognized and your team recognized that there was something there that they can act on, and what led to that action? Can you talk me through that sort of collaboration process?

Tammy Valentine: So as social media serves three pillars And that is to inform, educate, or entertain.

And we need to have a good balance of those things, 'cause ultimately when you're managing social for a client, you need to do one of those three things, and then ultimately call them into action, call the audience into action to do business with you. And we had a client that was really just absolutely loving this campaign.

They'd never done anything like this before. It was all new, and they were all about these video reels. And internally, we were having a discussion on how to best manage that, and some of the younger folks piped up and said, "Well, why don't we try some of these other kind of trendy reel ideas?" 'Cause everything else up to that point had not had huge viewership.

So sure enough, we did, and we've had several videos that have gone viral as a part of that. And then of course, additional followers. It's been this whole wave. And so now after, going through all of that, I've learned, again, it's a we thing, and it's not a me thing. It's a we thing. And while I might not be completely stuck in my ways, it's being open to new ideas, it's being open to new energy, and then, two, having fun with it and, making sure we're in it with the client and following all the rules.

So that was a super fun one. We've actually turned it into a machine that we have to just keep the momentum going because the client is having so much fun, and, and we are too, to be honest. It's been a great campaign. I love when clients get super engaged because then we really get to show off the brand personality, and that's something I think that was lacking for them.

And so now they are just so pumped and, it's brought them together as a team 'cause now "Oh, when are we gonna film the next reel? What are we doing? What are we talking about? How are we showing off our services and the fact that we're, like, this dysfunctional family?" We're a brainy bunch, and they all have their own roles, but it's super fun 'cause they aren't shy from a camera and they're open to giving us, creative autonomy in which we don't always get that with different brands.

So that's been a really, really good partnership and just a complete blessing to be able to work with clients that totally get it. And it was cool that they had never, ever... They didn't have a foundation on digital. It was just, "We've done, more traditional advertising and we've done some of these things."

And so they went all in with us, and we turned around and said, "Okay, let's get it," and we did.

Galen Low: That's awesome. And for folks unfamiliar with Lucky Town and some of your work, so like you all go on site and you work with your clients. Like some of the talent on screen is your client team, and you're going there with your team.

You're ideating and you're creating these videos that have a lot of sort of personality, and I love the brand personality of a quirky family, and it comes off in the work. So for folks listening, like that's kinda what we're talking about here, is just these kind of like video content made with your clients, really.

They're in it. They've had input into it. And what I love is that when you were telling me the story, the first thing I thought of was we let our Gen Z edit our marketing video reels. There was like a, a minute of somebody inhaling before they speak, and that was the video, right? It's just like That was just it, right?

And we're like, as a elder millennial myself, I'm like, "Oh, yeah," like part of being nimble and scrappy, part of keeping your finger on the trends, and part of honoring the, decade or so of experience you have is also being open to what is new and what is coming up, and being willing to test it. I can't even imagine being in that room to be like, "Okay, we're creating these videos.

They're polished," right? They're quick, they're punchy, they're polished, they do educate, they do inform, they do entertain. But it's not rolling on the floor laughing, share it with your friends. And generationally I'm like, "That's what a video looks like." Versus some of the stuff that I see going viral and, and this story as well, where it's like, gosh, that's so silly, and like, how is that actually creating impact?

And then you look at the numbers and you're like, "Oh, wow. Yeah, okay, I get it," in terms of reach, in terms of awareness of brand, and in terms of being like, "Oh yeah, these people have fun." And those are people I'd like to work with. Not to mention that the buyer is, like Gen Z, Gen Alpha is getting into purchasing territory.

They are the customer now for a lot of the brands that you work with, and there's a lot of forest to be missed if we're just thinking of it as, "Oh yeah, we're growing up with our current customer base and we're only gonna do the like polished corporate videos because, that's our brand." It's like there's opportunities to experiment.

Maybe not a full rebrand right away, but like now you have data to be like, "Okay, well this is what's catching fire," and look at the age demographics here of what that means for your business. And I think it's really neat.

Tammy Valentine: It goes back to what I said earlier with the digital marketing trifecta.

And so their owned media, they're like, "We're crushing it." But also two, just making sure there's a balance between earned, owned, and paid media because you really need to make sure that there's, a good blend of all three. And then, the silly stuff, ah, I do, I'm not gonna lie, like I cringe.

The generation millennial in me wants it polished, wants it tidy. I want it more produced. But I'm learning that that doesn't always work, and I have to be, open to those things and especially if it fits the brand and the client is open to it, then yeah, let's have some fun and let's show that side of the business.

But then it's also show like the things that they do well. Because it is in that particular industry it's acceptable to be silly, but if you're in a more uptight industry like law or some of those other corporate areas that's not as acceptable, but it definitely raises eyebrows, or at least what we're always after is the thumb stop, right?

You're doom scrolling, you're doom scrolling. We want the thumb stop. So to know that we're still able to do that, that excites me, and that's fun. So yeah, it's definitely an adjustment on the managerial side, but it's fun, and I get it, and that's, the way our world is right now.

Galen Low: It's funny 'cause I'd hazard to say that that is one of the secret ingredients of your brand, actually, is this sort of working at this fringe of discomfort, where you're like, "Ah, I don't know.

Content marketing, we have to, to get on page one of the serve, we need to do these things, and we need to structure our articles that way." Or, "Oh my gosh, nobody's doing in-person events anymore 'cause of the pandemic, and we're still coming out of that." Or, "LinkedIn is basically Facebook now, so, we have to pivot to that."

But I think that's how you've stayed scrappy and nimble, not discarding the experience that you have from before and not starting from a blank slate ever, but always being willing to engage with something that actually makes you and your clients feel just a little bit uncomfortable, but figuring out the right way to test that and then going from there.

Tammy Valentine: Well, and I think as marketers, there's fine lines of staying in the lane, but if you ever wanna break out of the noise you have to be willing to push the envelope from time to time, and those are the brands that become the most memorable. Got Milk, Don't Mess with Texas, Just Do It.

There's plenty of brands and campaigns that will live on forever, and it's because of their ability to break through the noise and just be ultra clear with their message.

Galen Low: And I mean, what's nice about all of those examples is it wasn't just, "Let's see what we can punch into chat. That sounds good. Press go."

It was built on trust. It was built on an understanding of a business and a brand and their customers and what their customers really need and what's gonna resonate with them. Coming back to what you're talking about for onboarding and ideation being a blend, but always having a human element because that's the foundation that lets you experiment, that lets you do something that's gonna be a bit edgy and it's gonna stand out, but it's not just starting from being edgy and standing out.

It starts from this foundation, this relationship between a business and its agency and the folks that work on that account. That's what's really interesting about those ones.

Tammy Valentine: 100%. If you can get the fundamentals, then it's just rinse and repeat, but you have to get the fundamentals and the foundation built before you can bring in all these grandiose ideas.

Galen Low: I thought maybe we could round out by just looking out into the future a bit, and I thought I'd ask this. If you were advising a marketing director today who is being asked to do more with less and who's wondering whether to build more capability in-house or lean harder on agency partners what would you tell them?

And also what should they be looking for in an agency relationship that's actually built for the future, that will withstand the next few years and not, as we've been talking about leaning on stuff that is old world now? Being like, "Okay, well, we're stuck in our ways. Here's what we do.

We've been doing this for the past decade. We do polished corporate videos and turn them into reels." What should they be looking for in an agency partner that will tilt the scale between DIY and actually having these fundamentals, these foundations to lean into the trifecta of how their marketing mix works to generate results?

Tammy Valentine: So if I was advising a CMO or a marketing director that's looking to potentially bring on a small boutique agency, the thing that I would say to them is really look for an agency partner that really wants to get to know you, your industry, and your team. And then, like we've talked about, we do a lot of work at the front end with our discovery process to make sure that we understand the goals before really digging into the brand.

They should look for a partner that is real clear with expectations, they're great communicators, and, clarity of goals, KPIs, and just a true understanding of each other. And then, two, how an agency partner like our firm could be an extension of theirs. So how is that agency partner going to be a chameleon and adapt to all of the, whether it's competition or threats or bureaucracy of- an organization to get things done, how is that agency partner going to morph into that and come back, organize the chaos, and produce something that's gonna drive impact?

Galen Low: I like the word chameleon in that context. And actually, you know what I really love about that is, on the one hand, I'm like, "Yeah, that makes sense," someone who wants to understand your business and your customers.

But actually what you mean is and the internal politics and all the nuances and all the red tape that we need to, navigate and cut through, not just who's your buyer, how do we get them to look at your video or your ad campaign or your website, but also how can we be a partner to help push things through internally to get things done right based on the business context of what your client deals with day to day.

I like that because it... that is where it really becomes a partnership, not just a, "Sorry, dude, that's your problem. You sell it through to C-suite and then call us back," but actually arming them with "Okay. Well, based on what I understand of your business, here's how we get this through. Here's how we make the case that this is the right move to make."

And I think you said something in the green room or when we were prepping, but it's also, your team's not gonna pine for credit. That's cool, you, you take that. You let your agency partner make you look good, not just externally to your customers, but internally as well in terms of what you're able to achieve and, decisions that you make.

Tammy Valentine: Absolutely. The marketing directors and, CMOs look good all the time just because they're able to get more done, and it's pleasing to their stakeholders, and it's the stress off their plate, and it's a third of the cost. And so that's something that we've really done a good job of, and we want them to win.

We believe it's a selfless thing, and servant leadership is something that I'm very passionate about. And so I... if, if my client wins, then everybody wins, and that's all I really care about.

Galen Low: I love that. And it's hard to argue with the value prop of, a fraction of the stress, a fraction of the costs, right?

That's what we all want actually right now. Love this. Thanks so much for this. Just for fun, do you have a question you wanna ask me?

Tammy Valentine: Absolutely. So, you study all of this, you have built this huge community, of digital project managers. So I would like to know for, in your POV, where do you see AI in five years from now, and how will it impact digital project managers across the globe?

Galen Low: Ooh, big question. Okay here's what I'm supposed to say. I'm supposed to say that AI is gonna level everyone up, and we're gonna be more strategic, and we're gonna be making decisions while all of the sort of grunt work, the administrative work gets handled for us, not as we're prompting it, but agentically, decisions are being made, work's being brought to us, we're reviewing, fine.

And yes, I do think that is true, but I think what actually is going to happen is that give it, you know First, let's start with the next two, three years. I think we're gonna realize the realities of how much AI won't solve all the problems, because a lot of the problems are actually human problems.

And I think it's gonna tilt it a little bit more towards, well, I'm hoping, maybe optimistically, I want it to help us focus on how we work together, like an emphasis on collaboration and all the messy human stuff that, I'm finding we're using AI to move quickly in between, but then you still hit these stages where you're like, "Well, it's still decision paralysis," or, "We're still fighting about it in the boardroom," or, "We still have so-and-so on the team who doesn't quite get what the mission is," and AI isn't solving any of that.

So I would project that AI will, over the next couple of years, bring into sharp relief the fact that human collaboration is hard, has always been hard, and won't get solved through technology, and hopefully bring the emphasis together on how can we all work better together. And then what I'm not supposed to say, but I'm gonna say anyways is, I actually think that will blur or blend project management, especially in the digital world.

I think it'll blend that into the way we work together. In other words, I think that should be an understanding that everyone on the team has. Not expecting this one person to have all the answers and know how to deliver value through teamwork. I think it's gonna become more of a team sport, and I'm hoping, optimistic me, is the roles will change as a result.

We don't know what they're gonna be yet, but your job title's gonna be something probably different. But the net benefit is that we're solving the big problem, which is at the end of the day, we want to collaborate to create value that's greater than the sum of its parts. If that means focusing and becoming obsessed with how humans work together, using AI as this foundational layer to not distract us from the bits where we're actually interfacing, then I think actually that progresses humanity.

So anyways, that's my big but maybe not textbook answer to, yeah, where I see AI going, not just project management, but I think for everyone. I think it's going to force us to focus on the messy bits that the technology won't solve. I don't know if that answered your question, but I really, I do appreciate your question.

Tammy Valentine: No, that was really good. Yeah, I think that it's going to just kinda continue, and we're gonna just see better and better and better. I'm interested to know how it's going to influence, just decision-making in general, especially for younger generations. So there's the worrisome side of that, but then there's also the proactive side of that too of how everybody will be better for it.

Galen Low: Yeah, it's this moment, an opportunity to reinvent. As much as, spinning back on the sort of generational differences that, by the way, every generation has had, but, instead of us expecting the next generations to follow in our footsteps and build on top of what we've built- Actually, there's an opportunity to actually throw it all away and think through how it can be done better in the new context that we have with AI, with, whatever geopolitics, with, economics, with all that stuff. There's probably new ways to do it.

Tammy, thank you so much for spending the time with me. I always love chatting with you. I am super excited to get this out to my listeners. And for folks who are listening, hope you got loads of value from this, as much as I have. And Tammy, I've just said, had so much fun.

For my listeners, where can people learn more about you?

Tammy Valentine: Our website, luckytamm.com. It's with two Ms. We're actually gonna be rolling out a new website soon, so luckytamm.com or LinkedIn, LuckyTamm Marketing Group. We've got our company page, and we've got lots of updates there.

Galen Low: It's fun to follow your in-house videos for LuckyTamm, actually.

I'm enjoying those shorts as well. Kind of tongue in cheek, but I think they're really clever. Yes, I will add those links into the show notes for my listeners. Go out there and follow what LuckyTamm's doing, and yeah, connect with Tammy.

Tammy Valentine: Thanks, Galen. Really appreciate it.

Galen Low: Thank you. All right. That's it for today's episode of the Digital Project Manager Podcast.

If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you want even more tactical insights, case studies, and playbooks, create a free account with us at thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.