How to Build a Marketing Team Structure That Drives Results
A well-structured marketing team is crucial for achieving business objectives in today’s rapidly evolving business environment. With the marketing landscape evolving rapidly, businesses must adapt to these changes to stay ahead of the competition. In 2024, marketing teams must be equipped with the necessary skills and expertise to create effective marketing strategies that resonate with customers at every stage of the buying journey and enhance customer engagement.
In this blog, we’ll explore the importance of a well-structured marketing team, the changing marketing landscape in 2024, and the role of the customer buying journey in shaping the future of marketing. By the end of this article, businesses will be equipped with the knowledge and tools needed to create a successful marketing team that can achieve their objectives in 2024 and beyond.
How to Set Up a Marketing Team
Step 1: Define Marketing Team Roles
Defining marketing team roles is a vital aspect of creating a successful marketing team. Traditionally, marketing team roles focused on creative and promotional activities. However, with the rise of digital marketing and data-driven strategies, modern marketing teams require a broader range of skills and expertise.
Some examples of essential roles in a modern marketing team include:
Project managers
Project manages break down marketing tasks and delegate accordingly. This role is responsible for managing the team, solving problems, and resourcing.
Content strategy experts
Content strategists are responsible for creating and managing content across various marketing channels such as social media, blogs, and email marketing
SEO specialists
SEO specialists ensure that the website is optimized for search engines. This ensures that the product, service, and content pages are visible to potential customers using Google, or other search engines
Data analysts
Data analysts are responsible for collecting and analyzing data to inform marketing strategies and make data-driven decisions
Social media manager
Social media managers create and manage social media campaigns, interact with followers, and analyze social media metrics
Creatives
Creatives design marketing materials. These include creative digital assets like landing pages, banners, and offsite materials.
Website managers
Although it’s not directly a marketing role, it’s nonetheless essential to include a website manager within the marketing department. This role is responsible for handling the website’s front and back end development.
Often, marketing campaigns require making adjustments to the site, adding new pages, digital banner designs, etc. A website manager ensures that these are implemented correctly
Factors to Consider When Determining Team Roles
When defining roles in a marketing team, managers must consider factors such as:
- Company size
- Industry
- Goals
A small business may require a smaller marketing team that can handle multiple roles, while a large corporation may require a more extensive team with specialized expertise. The particular industry of the business will also impact the type of roles required in the marketing team.
For example, a company in the fashion industry may require individuals with expertise in fashion design, while a company in the healthcare industry may require individuals with expertise in healthcare marketing with medical passion.
Ultimately, the goal of defining marketing team roles is to ensure that businesses have the right people in the right roles with the right expertise. Having a team with the right skills and expertise can help businesses create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with their audience and drive engagement.
By defining marketing team roles based on company size, industry, and goals, businesses can create a team tailored to their specific needs and achieve their objectives in 2024 and mitigate the challenges of cross-functional teams.
Step 2: Decide the Team Structure
Once you’ve defined the marketing team roles, and the size and scope of the department, it’s then time to decide how exactly to set up the team structure.
There are multiple ways to set up a marketing team, these include:
- By Channel
- By Product
- By Region
- By Segment
1. Marketing Department Structure by Channel
Structuring a marketing team by discipline is the more common approach. In this format, teams within the marketing department are grouped by their marketing channel. I.e. social media, organic, PPC, offsite, etc.
Each channel will be given the requisite marketing specialists and resources required to successfully promote the brand and its products within their respective channels
For example, the social media managers will have their own team, led by a social media team leader. This team is responsible for all social media related activities and will typically include content creator, social media analysts, and account managers.
Likewise, the content marketing team, containing a team leader, content creator, writers, publishers, etc. will form their own team.
Benefits of the structure:
Structuring the teams by discipline allows them to work quickly and autonomously. Each team will have the necessary skillsets and resources to complete their tasks, and can work to achieve KPIs specific to their marketing channels.
2. Marketing Department Structure by Product
The other type of marketing team structure is by product. This approach is often preferred by larger companies that have multiple products that require a bespoke marketing strategy.
This method involves segmenting the marketing department into teams, each responsible for promoting a specific product or service.
For example, a tech company like Apple may choose to have specialized teams to promote the iPhone, Mac, and iPad.
Each team will have all the required marketing skills and resources needed to promote the product across all channels. Unlike the “by channel” approach whereby each team’s KPIs are based on channel performance, instead teams will have goals related to sales and revenue for the product that they’re marketing.
Benefits of the structure:
The primary benefit of this approach is that marketers can fully immerse themselves into understanding the customers and the product specifications.
3. Marketing Department Structure by Region
This method works similarly to the “by product” approach, but it divides teams based on target regions, rather than by product.
For example, the company will establish bespoke teams to market the brand to the North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Middle East, etc.
Each team will contain the full spectrum of marketing specialists, solely focused on promoting the brand within their specific region.
Benefits of the structure:
This structure enables marketers to tailor their approach for each region. It’s often necessary to adjust the language, tone, messaging, and target channels for different places.
Brands that operate in a multilingual capacities can ensure that each team has native speakers to ensure clarity and accuracy of their content.
4. Marketing Department Structure by Segment
Finally, this approach separates marketing teams by customer segment. This method is favored by brands that have a diverse range of customers across multiple industries or roles.
For example, a company might promote the same product to lawyers, HR reps, sales managers, and finance workers. In this instance, each group will have specific needs that are addresses by different product features. Also, different customer segments may respond differently to messaging, and marketing techniques. They may also view content on different channels.
Within this marketing structure, teams are empowered with the roles and resources they need to promote the brand to specific customer segments.
Benefits of the structure:
The benefits to this type of marketing structure are clear. Each team can fully focus their efforts on one specific customer group. They can fully immerse themselves in the target industry and tailor their efforts accordingly.
Step 3. Establish Communication Channels
Whichever marketing structure you choose, it’s vital to ensure smooth lines of communication between teams. Often, teams will need to collaborate on campaigns, and align on goals, targets, and achievements.
One strategy for improving communication within a marketing team is to hold regular team meetings. Team meetings can be used to discuss progress, share ideas, and resolve issues. They also provide an opportunity for team members to give feedback and ask questions.
Another way to foster effective communication is through digital collaboration tools. Team chat platforms such as Spike, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Chat provide a way for team members to stay in touch and collaborate
Project management systems like Trello, Asana, and Monday can help team members stay organized and ensure tasks are completed by deadlines. Both types of tools can also provide a centralized location for team members to access project information and updates.
Step 4: Align Marketing Team with Business Objectives
Aligning the marketing team with overall business objectives is crucial for creating a results-driven marketing team. The marketing team’s goals should be designed to support the business’s overall objectives.
One way to align marketing team goals with business objectives is to ensure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals).
For example, if the overall business objective is to increase revenue for a particular product or service, a SMART marketing goal could be to generate a specific number of leads through a targeted marketing campaign in a given quarter or month.
A marketing team can contribute to overall business objectives in many ways. For example, they can increase revenue by generating leads and sales, improve customer experience by creating targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with customers, and expand market reach by increasing brand awareness and visibility.
Measuring success is also critical for creating a results-driven marketing team. By regularly evaluating the success of marketing campaigns, businesses can determine whether they are achieving their objectives and adjust their strategies as needed.
Adjusting strategies may involve tweaking marketing campaigns, optimizing marketing channels, or adjusting marketing spend.
Another valuable framework for creating a results-driven marketing team is the FAFO framework (Find, Analyze, Focus, Optimize). This framework involves finding opportunities, analyzing data to identify key metrics, focusing on those metrics, and optimizing campaigns based on data-driven insights.
By using the FAFO framework, businesses can create a marketing team focused on achieving results and adjust their strategies as needed to achieve their objectives.
Summary
A well-structured team is essential for achieving business objectives in 2024 and beyond. As the marketing landscape evolves, businesses must adapt their marketing teams to stay competitive in the market.
Defining marketing team roles, creating effective communication channels, aligning marketing goals with business objectives, and building a diverse and inclusive team are all critical components of creating a successful marketing team.
By prioritizing these areas, businesses can create a marketing team equipped to develop effective and targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with customers at every stage of the buying journey.