Help! I need marketing support and don’t know who to hire!
Sound familiar? I work with a lot of clients that either have no marketing team or a very small team. But eventually, as they grow and their marketing plans solidify, conversations about hiring come up.
I love engaging in these conversations because it’s such a logical flow from developing your marketing strategy. Once you understand how and where to reach your audience, you will have a better sense of the skills and expertise you need on your team to execute that strategy.
Keep in mind marketing has different responsibilities depending on your business strategy and growth stage. Do you sell directly to consumers or to other businesses? Has your marketing strategy already been tested and solidified or are you still testing and learning? The answers affect the type of skills and experiences you should look for in your hires.
If you’re just starting out, look for scrappy generalists who know how to strategize across the marketing funnel, how to be creative and analytical, how to experiment and pivot quickly to figure out the right approach. Avoid perfectionists or people who have too much experience in one particular aspect of marketing - you’ll need someone who is action-oriented, comfortable with ambiguity, and ok with an 80-90% approach. These are the people who can help you find the quickest path to product-market fit. Keep in mind they won’t be an expert on everything, so early days can still be a good time to keep engaging freelance support to fill in gaps.
As you grow, start to hire specialists to double down on what’s working. Is your social media strategy taking off? Consider hiring a social media manager who can refine your content, community building, and paid strategies. Or maybe email is working really well for you. Try to find an email marketer who can help you automate, segment your audiences, and build a plan for a/b testing. Avoid hiring people who are too senior. These team members should still be focused on execution and experimentation.
Eventually you will want to focus on refining and defining your roles. This is when you’ll need seasoned individuals to manage and lead the team and ensure best practices in operations and analytics. Systems and procedures will become more important, and you may find a greater need to focus on culture and individual growth opportunities.
As with most areas of marketing, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Marketing means different things to different companies and the talent you need will shift as you grow. But make sure you are hiring the right people for the stage you are in and the right people to execute on the strategy you’ve developed.
