How To Structure A Marketing Team For SaaS: 5 Time-Tested Approaches

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by Jacob Solomon Jan 30, 2023 News
How To Structure A Marketing Team For SaaS: 5 Time-Tested Approaches

There is a VP of marketing at the store.

Getty.

Many people wonder what the best structure is for their marketing team. Businesses can scale faster and achieve desired targets with the right team.

There is no one-size-fits-all structure. I have put together a list of five best practices that can help you form your marketing team.

It is important to consider what your ideal team might look like early on. Finding people who fit with your values is important. The hiring process will take a bit more time, but it can be worth it.

It can take two to four months to find the right candidate for a managerial position so not having a team hiring plan can be costly. It's important when the marketing function needs to grow quickly.

When it's time to hire, start hiring plan conversations with the leadership so you're all on the same page.

2. Hire with existing leverage points in mind.

The number one goal for the whole company should always be your guiding light because hiring plans should be crafted with early business wins in mind.

Don't forget to use channels that capture the existing demand when generating new demand. If you want to strengthen your appeal to these low-hanging fruits, you need to hire the right leaders or specialists.

If you have seen early success with your content efforts, you may want to strengthen your marketing team with a good content strategist and also use conversion experts to take your content to the next level.

The best way to make your marketing team more efficient is to hire people with your leverage points in mind.

3. Balance in-house and outsourced talent wisely.

Young companies tend to underestimate the power of hiring a marketing contractor, as well as the balance between specialists and generalists.

Balance is important when hiring external contractors. generalists are people who can experiment with tactics and channels.

Agencies or contractors at early stages should usually replace specialists with their own experts. It's important to figure out the core competency of the agency so you don't waste your money and time waiting for what they can't deliver.

Once early stage tests show what works, the in-house team will get bigger and you can use specialists for key channels.

A better defined leadership structure as well as a different set of skills are required at later stages of marketing. As a leader, you can focus on strategic initiatives and not assign tasks because experts own their domain.

4. Prioritize hiring functions based on growth stage.

It's important to balance your team structure to achieve both short- and long-term results. You need to define your priorities based on the channels you use.

Search Engine Optimisation is a long-term investment. It has good potential, but it takes more time to see results. It's a good idea to bring in a specialist early if you know that you're going to have a big part in your strategy.

It's a good idea to have specific hires for each growth stage in order to make sure you have both long- and short-term goals. Demand generation and content functions will be the front-runners when you map your marketing foundations.

If you want to maximize your impact and prove marketing's value to the business, you need to hire a conversion maximization specialist.

Brand and PR specialists will become a priority as you look to strengthen your brand perspective. It can be difficult to get internal buy-in and budget for marketing when you hire this function early on.

5. Create structure based on alignment with sales.

It makes sense to put a business development representative into marketing if you want to align functions on the sales pipeline. There are pros and cons to this approach.

Improved accountability is one of the benefits of this approach. Sales and marketing teams tend to work together on feedback loops.

The approach is dependent on having the right comp plans around meaningful metrics and putting in place growth paths for the reps to keep them motivated.

It is important to have a dedicated BDR leader who can devote enough time and energy to the project. We can't afford someone doing this part time because it's getting more and more complex.

Assemble—and manage—your team carefully.

With a wide range of responsibilities and need to plan for a future that can be hard to predict, hiring presents a huge challenge for both of these people. Creating a team from scratch may seem like a huge challenge, but starting small and growing at the same pace as your brand is important.

The marketing function will become bigger and better as the business grows. Don't forget to hire the right talent and manage them the best way possible regardless of size or model.

Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation only community. I don't know if I qualify.