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Marketing Team Size by Company Stage

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 4:23 am
by anikaakhi
Marketing Team Structure #2: Jeffrey Mack, Senior Director of Marketing at iCIMS, on How to Scale Marketing at Startups
Recent experiences shared by Jeffrey Mack, Senior Director of Marketing and Demand Generation at recruitment platform iCIMS:

Mack’s marketing hiring advice includes:

Hiring a SEO expert content marketer.

Build marketing operations as soon as possible.

Work closely with designers.

Find someone to do product marketing (even if that person is you).

He also recommends startups capture existing demand by focusing on search. This may mean hiring an SEO expert or a paid search marketer (PPC expert).

JeffreyMack’s Marketing Team Building Formula
Source: Twitter
Marketing Team Structure #3: The Four Marketers Every Startup Needs, According to VaynerMedia CEO Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk
While Vaynerchuk now has a team of 30+ marketers helping him create and publish content on social media, he believes he only needs three to four marketers to start scaling content marketing and monetizing it.

The Math Guy – This person knows how to run and manage ads.
The Art Guy – This designer knows how to stand out in a feed.
The Video Guy – This videographer can shoot and do post-production.
The “Word” Guy – This person can handle short-form copy and long-form content.
Gary Vee’s Secret to Building a Marketing Team
Source: LinkedIn
Why It Works:

“It’s all media, it’s always media,” Vaynerchuk said. “In today’s digital age, there’s no reason to do anything other than act like a media company.”

“In today’s digital age, there’s no reason to do anything other than act like a media company.”

Marketing Team Structure #4: CMO Dave Gerhardt Reveals the Three Marketers He’d Hire First
If Privy CMO Dave Gerhardt were the GM of a new marketing team, here’s who he’d hire first:

The Promoter – You can also call this person a content marketer. This person can write and distribute content.

The Designer – This is a cross-channel creator who can help you move fast.

The Math Guy – This is the person who can set up funnels and optimize conversions.

Dave Gerhardt’s Tips for Building a Marketing Team
Source: LinkedIn
Marketing Team Structure #5: SparkToro Co-Founder Rand Fishkin on Building and Scaling a Business
In a recent article, Rand Fishkin makes a detailed case for hiring consultants and freelancers to “do what you can” in the early stages of a business (and later stages!).

Here’s why:

“My goal for SparkToro (his latest venture) was to reach profitability as quickly as possible and then move into the expansion phase. We have limited funding, but we have enough initial investment to get consultants and agencies moving forward with low fixed costs, high productivity, and minimal emotional/management bandwidth.”

Whether you hire in-house marketing talent or, like Rand, opt for marketing freelancers and agencies, it’s helpful to know what other companies are hiring and why.

Rand Fishkin’s Marketing Team Building Formula
Source: SparkToro
How big should your marketing team be?

While we can’t answer this question without understanding your business goals and existing talent, Peters gives us a good foundation for understanding marketing team size based on company stage and goals:

Source: MJ Peters
Another way to think about marketing team size is as a percentage of total headcount. Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs, says 10% of headcount is a high ratio.

How does the structure of a marketing team change as it grows?
Small marketing teams are often led by a CMO, director, VP, or head of marketing, who assigns the specialists to sub-teams led by managers or team leads.

While the marketing leader’s title depends on experience, company size austrian mobile number , and internal factors, their job is to set strategy, hire the right talent, and put their team in the best position to perform at the highest level.

A marketing leader is often an experienced generalist and a great people manager—they are willing to get things done, but often exercise the necessary restraint so that team members can do it themselves.

Ryan Deiss, founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer, laid out their 2017 marketing team structure (verbatim) on the company blog. Their 12-person team is divided into three marketing teams (editorial, acquisitions, and monetization), led by a director and a VP of marketing.

Marketing org chart example
Source: DigitalMarketer
Once a company reaches the enterprise level, its marketing org chart becomes more complex.

More complex example of a marketing org chart
Source: CoSchedule
For example, Leela Srinivasan leads six teams at Survey Monkey: