The field of marketing is evolving rapidly, and it can be challenging to keep up, especially if you're the only marketer in the company. Expanding your marketing team is one way to bring in all the necessary knowledge and skills. But what does the ideal modern marketing team actually look like? You will discover that in this blog.
Building a modern marketing team not only helps alleviate workload but also enhances the performance of your marketing efforts. Every team member leverages their talents to excel in their respective areas of the modern marketing strategy, ultimately achieving strong results together. Hence, they transform from generalists to specialists! In this blog, I will share my perspective on what the ideal marketing team looks like and how the roles are divided within that team. Of course, I am also curious about your ideal modern marketing team!
Different roles in the modern marketing team
Do you want to shape the marketing team in your organization? Then it is good to know which functions your team should consist of. Below you discover the six most important members of your modern marketing team.
1. Strategist
Modern marketing starts with a good growth strategy. Maybe you are that same strategist who makes a plan for the rest of the team, or maybe it is better to look for someone who can do that for you. The strategist is someone who enjoys research. He or she gains knowledge on a particular subject, for example your ideal client or the brand story of your company, and can translate their findings into a growth strategy.
What should the strategist primarily be able to do? Translating good ideas into a presentable plan.
2. Project manager
While the strategist allows their thoughts to roam free in order to formulate a strategy based on various perspectives, ideas, and goals, the project manager enjoys structuring the resulting activities. Consider the project manager as the orchestrator of the whole process. This individual translates the strategist's plans into manageable tasks and distributes them among team members. They organize what needs to be executed and delivered, while closely monitoring the schedule.
In modern marketing campaigns, where marketing automation plays a role, it also requires collaboration with sales, account managers and the commercial director. Because once the campaign delivers leads, they become involved in the lead management process. Here you can read how that works exactly.
3. Creative team member
A team (despite the discipline) functions best if it consists of different characters, usually called team roles. You can describe this as Belbin does, based on colours such as described by William Marston, or in your own words. It is an art to get these characters to work together as good as possible. The role of the creative team member is a good example of this.
The creative team member needs to have the talent of translating a thought our strategy into attractive content with the right tone-of-voice that speaks to the target group. But he or she also thinks about the role of this content in the operations of the other team members and roles within the company. For example, in collaboration with sales. A double-edged position where creativity is highly valued.
4. Technical expert
A marketing strategy consists of different parts. From content such as webpages to external tools that measure and automate those activities. Who connects the lot? That is the technical expert. This team player needs to be knowledgeable about the CMS, marketing automation tools, and should be able to set up social media accounts, and provide the lot with the right tracking codes so that the results are measurable.
The technical expert needs to provide a place for everything, but does this without endangering the message that is to be transferred. Also, he or she ensures that the tools are user friendly and are tailored to providing insights that the analist has to extract from them. In summary, the technical expert might need to be able to work with a long list of tools. Transferring to an all-in-one marketing platform can be a solution when you notice you need at least five technical experts to join your modern marketing team.
5. Analyst
Modern marketing is data driven and that means that someone needs to keep an eye on the results. The analist keeps an eye out and ensures that you can view insights in a comprehensive marketing report. He or she knows the objectives of every campaign and can inform the projectmanager and strategist about this at any moment. He or she understands that modern marketing can be a marathon instead of a sprint and can put numbers into a positive light. In addition, he or she can provide his or her report with a summary or narrative so that the strategist can use this report in their session with the (commercial) director.
Where do you find these marketing team members?
The ideal modern marketing team consists of the above mentioned players. I see the team members as a well-oiled machine with only one purpose: letting the company grow. The projectmanager is a connecting team member and the strategist checks and ensures the quality of the output.
This all sounds good, but i realise that not every B2B company has the luxury of having a (minimum) five member marketing team. But that does not have to be necessary. You can 'test' your modern marketing approach by hiring a team remotely. This way, you build your own growth stack, which fills up all disciplines and helps your company grow thanks to modern strategies.
