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In-house Marketing Team Structure
Your ideal marketing team structure
Businesses need marketing so they can grow; we all know that. But the problem with building an effective marketing structure is that the world of marketing is continuously changing and evolving. A marketing structure that was perfect for your business five years ago may now be obsolete in the current market.
One of the most significant changes in recent years has been the rise of digital marketing and how it fits with traditional marketing efforts.
So, in the current market, how should you structure your marketing team?
Does your team size affect your marketing structure?
First and foremost, your team size is going to affect your strategy. However, this is not the only factor that will determine the size of your marketing team. There are three considerations:
- The size of your business
- The number of marketing tasks you have
- Your marketing budget
Generally, these factors overlap, so you’ll know pretty early on what your business needs. Then, when you know how many staff you wish to employ, you can start building your marketing team.
Always keep in mind that successful marketing comes down to talent. So, it’s incredibly important that any person you employ, fits both your job specification and your company culture. Otherwise, you could be making a costly mistake.
The one-person team
In most cases, a small business will be looking to employ one marketer that can handle all marketing-related tasks. This person will not be a specialist; instead, you will need a “jack of all trades” who is flexible and has experience in numerous aspects of marketing.
Here you will expect your marketer to understand:
- Content creation (including blogs, email sales funnels, offline print and social media)
- Generating campaigns across multiple channels (including offline and online)
- Data analysis
- Search engine optimisation
- Creativity (this can range from logo ideas to competitions)
- Possibly PR if you don’t have someone else in place
This role can be incredibly challenging for one person alone, so it’s essential that you dip into your budget and employ someone with experience in a similar position. As tempting as it is to hire a graduate for a smaller salary, you’ll get a higher return on your investment for choosing experience here.
Alternatively, you could choose to hire an external marketing agency rather than employing your own marketer.
The small to medium sized marketing team
If your business allows for a small marketing team, then this is when you can start hiring marketers who have more specialist skills. Most notably, you can employ both offline and online marketing experts.
A small marketing team structure will generally have the following employees:
The team leader:
Someone to manage your team, keeping everyone organised and busy; setting goals and measuring results. This person will be the decision maker who will liaise with other departments in an organisation to develop strategies for the marketing team. Because it’s a small team, this leader will also need to perform some of the marketing tasks themselves.
This position is an ideal promotion for the ‘one-person team’ you may have initially hired. Or, if you’re building your team from scratch, aim for someone with a similar multitalented experience. This role needn’t be a manager role; instead this can be a role for a senior marketing executive, which is not as high-paid as a manager.
The social media and content specialist:
Every business now operates various social media channels, and you should employ someone who can handle all aspects of them. This will include posting, replying and engaging with customers and ensuring your company brand is upheld.
You will also need this person to get involved with blogs for your website (which will include SEO) and any other content creation you may need, such as email marketing, advertising, press releases, case studies, brochures and maybe corporate communications like speech writing.
Optional skillset for a third team member:
The third person in your small team will depend on your business needs. Perhaps you need an offline marketer who can handle your physical marketing efforts, such as flyers, adverts and posters. This person might represent you at trade shows and could be in charge of distributing branded items like tote bags or coffee cups to advertise your business. They might also handle cold-calls and develop partnerships with other companies.
If you are focused on the digital marketing side, you may wish to employ an inbound marketing specialist. Although this can be a part of your social media executive’s specification, social media can be a time-consuming role, especially if you have a large number of channels that require a lot of engagement. By having a marketer not focused on social media, they can instead work on items like PPC, SEO and digital campaigns.
What happens when your marketing team grows?
As your business gets bigger, so should your marketing team, which means that you can begin to split roles into more specialist areas. At this point, you will need to start thinking about managers and the hierarchy, i.e. who reports into whom.
For a large business, your marketing department will be headed by the marketing director; this might be followed by a head of online and a head of offline marketing. The roles beneath these will depend on your business and what you would like your team to achieve.
Here are some common roles you might employ:
Online marketing
- Strategist
- Content Creator
- PPC Specialist
- Graphic Designer
- SEO Specialist
- Front-end Developer
- Email Marketer
- Social Media Executive
Offline marketing
- Market Researcher
- Event Management
- Communications Executive
- Sales Executive
- PR Executive
It’s important to note that not every business will need a separate marketer for every role. You may wish to combine a few of them depending on your budget and strategy.
Overall, there are no ‘one size fits all’ approaches to building your ideal marketing structure. Rather, you should outline what you’d like to achieve through marketing and then create a team to accomplish this while keeping in mind your budget and team size.
Finally, when building a more substantial marketing team from scratch, it’s advisable to appoint your head of marketing first and then use this person’s experience to help shape and employ the rest of the team.
If you're looking to expand your marketing team, consider Aaron Wallis for a specialised sales and marketing recruitment agency.
More relevant marketing recruitment articles & guides
Marketing Recruitment Guide
In-house vs Marketing Agency Campaigns
Managing a Marketing Team
Digital Marketing Interviews
Recruit Marketing Staff
by Rob Scott
Managing Director
About the author
Rob Scott
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