How to build a marketing dream team for your startup
A well-rounded marketing team can make or break a startup and that’s why it is essential to understand the structure of a modern marketing team, what to look for when hiring and how to keep a long-term plan in mind.
One of the many pressure facing fast-growing companies is how to grow a marketing team in a sustainable and effective way. Over the last 5 years at LendInvest, I’ve grown the Marketing team from 1 (me) to 9.
There are many different ways to build a high-performing, growth-focused marketing team. In this article, I’ll share my experience of building a department from scratch, from who and how to hire, to outsourcing skills and developing your in-house team.
In-house vs agencies
When I first joined LendInvest, my initial responsibilities involved creating and driving campaign execution across online, social and industry events. My day-to-day responsibilities broadened as I uncovered other areas of the business that needed support, from website development to building a customer database and creating email campaigns.
There was a freelance designer on hand to support any of our creative needs but since we were an early stage startup we didn’t have the budget to rely on that support full time. When it came to email, MailChimp templates were our saviour but with minimal brand identity it was difficult to produce professional marketing material for our growing customer base.
These restrictions made it easy for me to decide who my first ‘in-house’ marketing hire should be, a year into the role. Job description? Someone who could do all the things I couldn’t.
Bringing graphic design in-house meant boosting our organic marketing channels as we were able to serve more appealing and regular content to our audiences. My first team member had experience in search marketing which meant we were able to upgrade our paid per click marketing channels and begin to use data to inform our decision making.
We worked with a large PR agency for the first couple of years to assist with our corporate communications and build relations with the media. We quickly learnt that bringing PR in-house meant someone would be able to live and breathe the company, brand and our products as they were fully immersed in the company’s ethos.
Fast-forward five years and we only use agencies for media buying, in order to secure the best advertising rates.
To ‘build’ or to ‘buy’, that is the question?
Ultimately, the option you choose will depend on a number of factors, such as business priorities, objectives, targets and financial costs.
Most agencies are structured to match big businesses therefore if you choose to outsource your marketing make sure you find an agency that matches your size. If you’re working for a high-growth business then the risk is you’ll have to move agency once a year but with that comes new ideas and fresh perspectives.
Nobody understands your business better than your own people do. Depending on how niche your industry is, it may take an agency some time to get up to speed, and even then, internal staff will always have more immediate access to in-house experts and can, in turn, produce more in-depth, technical and authoritative content.
Needless to say, the marketers you hire in-house will have a number of skills and services they can provide. If you hire a designer, don’t expect them to write copy — you’d need to hire a copywriter for that. Ramping up your in-house team quickly can be difficult because your ideas are bound to your specialities. With an agency, ideas can flourish, and strategic direction can be set without limits based on a team’s proficiencies.
What are the ingredients to build an effective in-house team?
The right team dynamic can have a huge impact on productivity, business growth and employee retention. In today’s competitive startup ecosystem, marketers must adapt themselves to ever-changing technologies and marketing strategies.
Shortly after making my first marketing hire, the team rapidly grew from 2 to 8 in the space of 6 months. Series A allowed us to hire both generalist marketers and specialists, broadening our internal capacity to produce design work, manage event logistics, run social media marketing and execute performance marketing campaigns.
There’s often a debate among marketing leaders about how to assemble your marketing team — with specialists or generalists, or both.
My advice? If you’re a small business looking to build a marketing team of one to five people, hire marketing generalists. Hiring a generalist means you are covering a wide range of bases while expending a modest amount of resources. It’s a great option if you’re looking to build a marketing strategy from scratch, or if you’ve prepared a marketing plan and need a small team to implement your vision.
If your team of generalists identify specific strategies for growth marketing beyond the purview of their role, then it may be time to bring in a specialist. We hired multidisciplinary designers to expand our design capabilities, meaning we no longer needed to rely on video production companies. We brought in a full time Events Manager to take charge of shaping, planning and executing external-facing events and critical internal events. We took our social media presence to the next level by bringing in a specialist to work alongside performance marketing and PR to manage organic and paid social campaigns.
As a rule, specialist roles should be added into your company only when your existing team of marketing generalists have identified a need and mapped out how the specialist role will address that.
One of the first challenges experienced by fast-growing startups is the need to hire quickly without compromising your unique startup culture. My advice is to avoid fast hiring to solve short term problems. Consider hiring 5 seniors, instead of 10 juniors.
If you want to build a killer marketing team it’s more important that the individuals are adaptable rather than whether they are generalist or specialist marketers. Always, always, always hire for attitude and train for skill.
How do you attract top marketing talent?
At a startup, you need employees that are in it for the long haul and fit your unique culture. When you’re a small company working on a product that only a handful of people have heard if, convincing top talent to join you is no easy feat.
The first step to attracting talent is nailing down your company’s cultural values and making the most of your social presence. Offering equity is a good way to attract right-fit potential employees as it provides long-term reward and ownership.
Building a mission-driven company will help convince potential employees that they want to join your startup, and will attract inbound leads who are interested in your product, team and company culture. However, when it comes to hiring the best people, you can’t wait for them to find you: you need to look for them too.
We relied on industry networks, social media channels and platforms such as Work in Startups when we first began to grow the team.
Don’t underestimate the power your customer marketing can have on your recruitment marketing. Launching our first above-the-line marketing campaign helped raise our brand awareness and ultimately boosted our recruitment efforts as we became a recognised brand.
What does career progression look like in a startup?
One of the most commonly asked interview questions is what does my career progression look like and it’s true, when you join a startup you will find a lack of structure when it comes to professional development opportunities.
Startups are an attractive prospect to marketers hoping to discover the “next big thing”. The opportunity to work for a disruptive underdog and have a direct impact on a company is often overshadowed by the fear that it might not go to plan and you’ll leave with a failed startup on your CV.
The opportunity to grow at a startup are rife. When I joined LendInvest I was a graduate marketer with less than a year’s experience. My growth wasn’t stunted by levels of hierarchy preventing me from taking leadership over projects, nor was my lack of experience leading my first above-the-line campaign a blocker for getting the job done. Every employee at a startup has the opportunity to add value to the business and if that means leading a project you’ve no experience in it’s likely you’ll be trusted to get on and do it.
Startups allow you to progress your career at the same speed the company is growing.
What leadership qualities do you need to build the most effective team?
Over the past 5 years, I’ve learnt how to better manage people and delegate responsibilities. If you join a startup as the first marketer you’ll become a one-man-band, you do everything yourself (and your own way), but when people join you have to start trusting them to do the work their own way.
When building out the team I always looked to hire people with different skills to me or who are better at some things than me. If you surround yourself with good people you make the job of growing a team a lot easier, and fun!
As a leader it’s your responsibility to be a visionary for your team, how you come together and how you bring people along the journey. Hiring for diversity of thought will help bring different perspectives as you approach new projects and tackle problems. Lead from the front by demonstrating enthusiasm, being humble and authentic.
Start showing results
Managing a marketing team is one thing but creating one from the ground up in line with rapid business growth requires additional focus. In my experience, the biggest challenge in building a team is that there are endless possibilities, and no “right” way to do it.
Whether you decide to build an in-house marketing team or rely on agency partners you’ll always need a brand team to strategise and someone to enable the strategy to be delivered.
Hopefully my tips for making your first hire through to the recruitment process and selling your vision will act as usual tactics as you begin to define your team structure. Your next challenge? Start showing results.
