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Smart Marketing Tips: How to Build a High-Performing In-House Marketing Team
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs a digital marketing agency, we understand there are clear benefits to having an in-house marketing team for your business. There’s no one who knows your brand, philosophy, and products/services better than you. Your people know who you are and where you want to go. All you need is a great marketing strategy and proper execution to get you to your destination.
In the third installment of Your Marketing People’s Smart Marketing Tips, we’ll discuss the types of employees you need on your in-house team for your marketing to thrive.
Read on to discover our best tips to building a top-performing in-house marketing team and how to divide responsibilities among your team members.
And, if you missed the first two posts in our series, make sure to catch up on how to create your annual marketing budget and the dos and don’ts of content marketing planning in the year ahead.
The Key Players
The key to building a successful in-house marketing team is to hire a diverse group of people whose strengths (and weaknesses) complement each other. Depending on your marketing budget and how many employees you can afford, your team members may have to wear multiple hats. To build a top-performing team, you’ll need members with strengths in strategy building, data analytics, creativity, and execution.
1. Strategists
Your strategists are the ones who think about the project from a higher level in order to develop the best solutions. They are responsible for establishing your workflows and delegating tasks to other team members.
Strategists must be organized—a team with a lot of moving parts but without organization won’t be able to move forward to accomplish goals. They specialize in project management and keep the project moving along, from initial concept to completion.
2. Data Analysts
In today’s marketing landscape, it’s no secret that data is king. Wherever possible, the ideas and plans of your marketing team should be driven by the data. How did each channel perform last month compared the previous year? Which CTAs got customers to click-through to your website or sign up for your newsletter?
In addition to overseeing reporting and data analysis from past campaigns, analysts use the insights to help the team develop strategies to improve your current campaigns (Google Analytics for SEO, for example) and new ideas to test on those that are forthcoming.
3. Creative Thinkers
In this technology-driven world, marketing is constantly evolving, and marketers must also evolve to stay relevant. Your creatives are the people who think outside of the box and consistently stay on top of trends in the marketing realm.
While it’s important to let the data to drive your campaigns, they should be centered on creativity. If your focus is creating a brand voice for your business, the creative thinkers are the people who strategize ideas to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time. For example, they’ll discover where your social audience is spending their time online. Creatives also keep you abreast of what your competition is doing and offer innovative ideas to stay ahead.
4. Executors
If the strategists, data analysts, and creatives are the people who develop the plan, the executor is the one who puts it into action. Your marketing team needs members who can swiftly execute tasks, while simultaneously making sure the quality level remains high.
Executors ensure campaigns are completed in a timely manner by keeping other team members on task. In order to get your marketing moving, you need people who are capable of doing their part to see it through.
Organize Your In-House Team
Once you have your key players in place, you’ll need to decide how to divide up the responsibilities, from the everyday tasks to planning future campaigns and initiatives. When assigning roles, some things to take into consideration include experience, specialties, workload, willingness to learn a new marketing area, etc. Does one person have a stronger background in improving organic rankings through SEO, while someone else specializes in lead conversion through email marketing?
If you have the budget for a larger in-house team, consider breaking your team members into specialized groups to focus on different areas of your marketing strategy. Create a point person for each marketing channel you’re working within, and assign other team members to help within those groups. Some small groups to include are SEO, paid search, email marketing, social media, and creative content.
Make sure your marketing team members understand and are confident in their responsibilities before diving into the work. Schedule time for training, especially if you are planning on utilizing marketing channels your team members are not experts in. It may not be easy to make time for professional development, but in the long run, it’s essential for your team’s success.
When to Seek Outside Help
Maybe your marketing budget doesn’t cover the number of team members you need or you have campaigns that require swift execution but don’t have the in-house resources readily available? Whatever the case, hiring an outside agency as an extension of your in-house team can be beneficial for your brand’s marketing efforts. Meet our team of digital marketing specialists to learn about our best tips for improving your strategy for each of your channels.
Consider this: Your in-house employee(s) will serve as the point person for your various channels. He or she can be the strategist who communicates details about your brand and goals, while the agency’s team members serve as creatives, to develop winning content and target your ideal audience; data analysts, to maintain reporting and discover what’s working, what isn’t, and why; and executors, to ensure the project is completed on time, on budget, and meets or exceeds high-quality standards. Get started by contacting Your Marketing People now.
