How to Structure a Modern Marketing Department

We engage with a lot of marketing leaders.  Some have come from other companies and taken over the role.  Others are in the seat for the first time.  Either case, Year 1 is tough.  It’s make or break.  The question we hear most often is “Can I make it with the current team?”  My colleague John Staples wrote a great blog on hiring the best talent. In this post I want to focus on the marketing department’s org chart.

What should the org chart for your marketing department look like?  What are the roles you need to fill?

Not all marketing departments are created equal.  Structuring your team depends on your industry, your offering and your customer.  The overall business goals also play a major part.  These factors all contribute to formulating your marketing strategy and consequently your org chart.

Whatever you call them, here are three roles your marketing department cannot do without.

CONTENT CREATION

Because of today’s Informed Buyer, the majority of your peers are shifting to inbound marketing.  They are also investing in content creation to engage customers earlier in the buying process.  Therefore, your marketing team needs someone focused on buyer research and content creation. Usually the people who are your best researchers are your best content creators too.

1. Researching – This person has overall responsibility for buyer research.  Who is the ideal customer?  What is important to them?  What are their needs?  Why and how do they buy?  You need someone well versed in Buyer Personas and Buying Process Maps.
2. Creating – This person also spearheads content creation.  Their goal is to know what resonates with buyers:  Blog posts, webinars, white papers, etc.  And based on the buyer research, when the content resonates most.  Generally, marketing leaders struggle with whether to outsource or use internal SMEs.  Either way, you need to cultivate the ability to consistently create great content.  The key is creating content that drives buyers to act.  Your content should highlight (1) a problem exists, (2) it must be solved and (3) you’re the only solution.

DEMAND GENERATION

You also need someone responsible for launching, measuring and optimizing all demand generation channels.

1. Launching – With buyer research & content in hand, what channels should you deploy?  What are the best demand generation levers to pull to stimulate inquiries?  Here you need an SEO and Social Media expert.
2. Measuring – Marketing automation delivers the ability to measure campaign effectiveness.  You can now track leads through the entire marketing & sales funnel.  What campaigns generate the most leads?  What campaigns produce the most sales opportunities?  What campaigns create the most new business?  Your marketing team needs someone tracking and measuring your campaign ROI.
3. Optimizing – The key to Inbound Marketing is getting found.  Producing a world-class blog and awesome content isn’t enough.  It needs to be optimized to improve our organic search results.  Part of the buyer research mentioned above should include ‘keyword strategies’.  Understanding what terms and phrases buyers use to begin research is critical.  Optimizing is all about maximizing being found.

LEAD MANAGEMENT

Stimulating demand and creating inquiries isn’t enough.  Marketing leaders are expected to generate a steady flow of quality leads for the sales team.  Therefore part of your org chart must include lead management.  World-class lead management includes a process that captures, scores and qualifies leads.  Lead management also includes people.  And whether it’s a team of 1 or 20, this person has overall responsibility for nurturing marketing leads until sales-ready.


George de los Reyes
http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com/