Do you want to build a high-performing marketing team? Do not look any further! In this definitive guide, we offer you strategies, structure and advice to achieve the success you are looking for.
We know how important it is to have an efficient and effective marketing team. It is the key to achieving your business goals and outperforming the competition. In this article, we will provide you with the tools necessary to build a strong, high-performing team. From creating an effective recruiting strategy to identifying the key skills and roles you need to have covered, we’ll guide you step by step through the process of building your marketing team.
Additionally, we’ll give you tips on how to motivate and retain your team members, as well as establish a collaborative and successful work culture. We will also explore best practices in terms of organizational structure and how to optimize communication and collaboration between team members. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to upgrade your current team, this guide is a must-have if you’re looking to maximize the potential of your marketing team. Start your journey to success today!
Let’s start at the beginning: What does a Marketing team do?
A team is defined as a group of people with a common goal. We cannot move forward without being clear about what that common objective is, why is this team in the company? Or more commonly known as the question: What are you doing here?
Let’s respond quickly and firmly, because no one has a guaranteed position. According to Philip Kotler, Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market, profitably. In this sense, this group of people we are talking about is in charge of an enormous and fundamental task for the company: discovering markets, creating and delivering value to customers, generating profits. Nothing more, nothing less.
If we wanted to “bring down” this definition, we could generate a more specific and concrete list of responsibilities:
- Discover new markets.
- Discover opportunities in current markets.
- Create new forms of value to deliver to markets.
- Design strategies for delivering value.
- Communicate and position the brand and its products or services.
- Analyze and measure communication and positioning results.
Roles of a Marketing team in 2023:
Teams are made up of people, we already know this. A fundamental part of their good performance is that those people are the right ones. That is why we ask ourselves what are the fundamental roles that we must cover.
- Director / Manager / Manager:
In every team there is one or more leaders. The main function of the leader is to build the team and make it work. In this department, that or those leaders will be responsible for achieving the general objective of the department. Fundamentally, for this they must select objectives and build metrics to follow. Then define a strategy that can be transformed into an action plan to achieve the results. Finally, you must constantly identify needs and opportunities and report what you have done to the rest of the company. - Brand Manager:
In some companies, several brands coexist. When these brands have an important dimension, each brand can have a person in charge, who is the final decider in relation to the actions of each of them. This role may have its own team or make use of the resources of a general team from across the company. - Project Manager:
All actions and tasks of a team can be organized into projects. The Manager of these projects is the person who will be in charge of organizing what wants to be achieved into manageable tasks and organizing these tasks into times and responsibilities to guarantee the desired results. This role must then ensure the correct execution of what was planned and attend to any deviations or modifications that the agenda requires. It is a fundamental role that makes every project and team work and move forward. Initially it may be a responsibility that the leader assumes, although as the team grows, it will be desirable to delegate to allow the leader to think strategically and step away from the day-to-day. - Social Media Manager:
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Linkedin, Pinterest, social networks are becoming more and more important as we dedicate more and more time of our lives to these platforms. Those responsible for social networks are in charge of defining specific strategies for these spaces, as well as coordinating the different related resources that we mention below. - Community Manager:
Social networks are large communities in which small and medium-sized ones coexist. Each brand works to build its own: a space where certain people interact, consume or share content on a certain topic or tone in general. CMs are the people in charge of building these communities and keeping them active and functional to the brand. In terms of tasks, they must select, develop and publish the content and interaction dynamics that achieve the desired communication objectives hand in hand with the construction of the desired community. - Influencer Marketing Manager / Analyst:
The dissemination of content on social networks increasingly depends on the promotion of advertising or the collaboration of profiles with a large number of followers and reach. These profiles are called influencers and they usually collaborate with brands (that’s what most of them make a living). It is important to have a role that coordinates actions with these people to ensure they are aligned with the selected communication strategy. It is usually a role shared with another Social Media role. - Graphic designer:
Communication is increasingly visual. With each passing day, we dedicate less time to each content and receive more. That is why it is important that messages have graphic elements capable of communicating efficiently in different contexts. That is the job of the graphic designer who will be responsible for developing graphic communication pieces, both digital and printed. - Photographer:
The construction of content increasingly requires quality original material. The photographer is responsible for obtaining the raw material of communication, the images. This is usually an external role, which is usually hired on a part-time basis or on a project or hourly basis. This is due to the variability in demand and the specificity of the task (the best event photographer is usually not the best at photographing products in the studio, and vice versa). - PR / Public Relations:
Many Marketing objectives require relationships and agreements with other companies and institutions. This specific role is responsible for building these alliances or collaborations and maintaining them over time. - Filmmaker:
An increasing proportion of communication depends on audiovisual content. Competition for attention forces us to be original in animated formats. For this, it is essential to have someone responsible for the generation of audiovisual images. Among us “the one who films”. Even more so than the photographer, this is usually an external role, usually hired on a part-time basis or on a project or hourly basis. due to variability in demand. - Video editor:
Raw images and videos require adjustments in most cases, sometimes tiny and sometimes transcendental. This role is responsible for processing audiovisual material and transforming it into finished content ready to publish. It is also usually an on-demand hired role, except in marketing/advertising agencies or content production companies. - Copywriter / Storyteller / Screenwriter / Editor:
Someone must write, and specialists do it best. For this paragraph, in order not to extend too much, we mix different functions and talents, with the same guiding axis: writing. These people are in charge of writing scripts, texts for social networks, advertising titles, articles, and other types of content that have the use of the word in common. - Paid Media Specialist:
Achieving results with content depends on 2 variables: effectiveness and exposure. In other words, on the one hand, how capable are the contents of achieving what we want the user to do, and on the other hand, how many people (the correct ones) and how many times we manage to get them seen. For this second point on digital platforms such as Google, Facebook or Instagram, we depend largely on advertising or paid advertising. The paid media specialist is responsible for managing that budget to achieve the objectives with the best possible efficiency. - SEO Specialist:
Appearing in the top positions on Google (and other search engines), that’s what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about. It consists of a strategy through which we try to improve the rating that search engines make of our content, to achieve better positions in the search results. Of course, it is a specialty and an important role to avoid dependence on paid traffic, especially in the medium and long term. It is usually an external role, at least in the beginning, but essential for large-scope projects. - Mail Marketer:
Far from perishing, email continues to be an economical and efficient contact tool for many companies. Building databases that grow and remain healthy, while executing campaigns with relevant content that converts to visits and sales, is the main responsibility of the people who conduct this aspect of Marketing. It is a role that may initially share functions with others, or outsource, but that on a large scale justifies specialization.
Clarification: Development / Programming:
More and more marketing teams (all teams) require hours of development/programming to meet their objectives. Sometimes they need a landing page to receive traffic from a campaign, sometimes modifications to a website that is not performing well, sometimes simply the implementation of a pixel or measurement tag. In line with keeping this article specific and not going into too much detail, we leave the roles related to programming out of the team, but we clarify that it is important to have assistance in this aspect, whether internal or external if we want to work in digital environments.
Structure:
It is often a challenge to establish the roles of a Digital Marketing team and find the right people to fill each space. However, the task does not end there, establishing the ways in which these collaborators will work together is a fundamental part of the work and is usually a task that never ends.
In theory we can say that there are several forms of organization with different titles: Hierarchical, matrix, functional, project-based, geographic, etc. Each of them prioritizes different variables when defining responsibilities and relationships between members of a team. We are not going to describe each of these ways in this article (we are going to write about it). Yes, we are going to comment on the aspects that we believe are interesting to consider in the team formation stage and kindly invite you to better study this aspect, which is usually underestimated.
The important thing is to understand that the structure that we know and have as a rule in most cases is hierarchical, which responds to a vertical organization chart, in which power is delegated from the top down and all collaborators are ultimately dependent. of a single leader. And in Marketing, this structure can generate problems: the needs for super-fast work dynamics, the requirement for creativity, the impact of compatibility between people, brands and products, forces flexible, agile organizations that work better under other systems.
The hubs:
Hub is a well-known term but not always well understood. Speaking of team structures, the hub represents a work cell, a small team, capable of solving a set of tasks, which can focus on a brand, project or product or another while maintaining its productive capacity. Modern organizations usually opt for HUB-type organizations, sets of independent cells that collaborate with each other and can be reorganized according to need, in turn coordinated by a central coordinating hub that defines the general functioning of the teams and their responsibilities and resources. The trend is toward autonomy for those teams so they can operate efficiently without the brakes of bottlenecks in traditional management teams.
We insist, what we have here is nothing more than a trigger to study the topic of structure, which we understand as fundamental for the proper functioning of a Marketing team.
Key aspects, what every good Marketing team should have:
- Technical Knowledge: Each member must have solid knowledge in their area of expertise. To be able to perform in the best way in each of the activities they carry out.
- Strategic thinking: The team must be able to think strategically and align their actions with the company’s business objectives. They must be able to develop plans, identify opportunities and make decisions based on constant market analysis.
- Creativity: Creativity is essential in digital marketing when developing innovative ideas and engaging content to find ways to stand out in a competitive digital environment.
- Comunication: Each team member must have effective communication skills to interact with the target audience and convey clear and persuasive messages.
- Work team: A successful digital marketing team must be able to work collaboratively, sharing ideas and knowledge to achieve common goals. Each team member must be able to collaborate with other departments and adapt to the changing needs of the digital environment.
Some learnings from more than 12 years in the area:
- Always be recruiting:
In sales there is a well-known motto: always be closing. It indicates that a good salesperson should always be focused on closing deals. In Marketing we postulate our own maxim: You are always recruiting. This is a dynamic industry, where people rotate a lot. There is a lot of demand and less supply, roles that are constantly created and redefined, very varied proposals and expectations, and constantly new opportunities. No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to avoid rotation 100%. That is why a fundamental piece of advice is to have a structure to recruit efficiently and in an agile manner, and to keep it constantly in operation. Whether because the team grows or because it rotates, you are going to need people who take time to find. Therefore, always be recruiting. - Predisposition, autonomy in learning and independence kill knowledge:
Wallet kills galán, it can give rise to debate. But that good predisposition, the ability to learn by one’s own means, and the ability to organize independently, kill knowledge, is, at least for us, an indisputable maxim after years of work. A predisposed person, capable of learning and organizing his work, can always save what he does not know, if he has enough time to do so. However, a person with knowledge but without everything we mentioned will never be able to solve the problems that he does not know about, and believe us, in an area as dynamic as this, these kinds of problems will arise. - Marketing is service:
It is obvious in terms, Marketing is a service, according to the RAE: “a provision that satisfies some human need and does not consist of the production of material goods.” But we want to highlight another point here, related more to the origin of the word service and its meaning. Service comes from the Latin servitium, composed of the root servitum, supine of the verb servere (to attend, to care for, to serve, to be a slave, to adapt to another or something else) and the suffix itium related to him or the person. What are we going for? We summarize: We need people with a vocation for service, with a clear propensity to resolve issues by collaborating with others. The root of the word speaks of attending, caring, adapting. That is what we look for in the people of this team, it is an aspect that, when overlooked, creates problems. - Always be learning:
We close the use of maxims with this one (we already got a taste for it), which is quite popular and undisputed but is still worth highlighting. We are in an area of extreme dynamism, in which tools and methods appear constantly and the paradigm of what to do and how changes all the time. The key to not becoming obsolete is permanent updating, always learning. The recommendation in this sense is to set temporary (and better physical) spaces for this task, so that the routine does not devour this priority.
Summary and conclusion:
An ideal digital marketing team should be made up of highly trained professionals specialized in different key areas. But for its formation, prioritizing these aspects over the predisposition to service, the capacity for self-learning and autonomy is a mistake.
Building and maintaining a marketing team in these times is an immense challenge that requires time and learning. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, it’s part of the journey. In the end it justifies the effort, you will be building the human capital essential for the future of your company.
We hope this guide can help you in the next steps. We try to share what we learned to make your path easier. Or so that you at least feel that others also went through your doubts. We wish you all the success.
At Digital JUMP we have assembled a team of highly qualified digital marketing professionals to optimize and exploit the digital strategy of our partners. If you need us to help you, do not hesitate to contact us. We will wait for you!