Marketers are among the most misunderstood professionals in the market. Most companies expect them to be renaissance professionals who will take care of every major aspect of your product or service promotion, from strategy to content creation, social media management, and placement. Many traditional companies have gone as far as hiring just one SEO executive to build organic traffic from scratch within a few months since they believe it to be a one-man’s job.
Just like any other aspect of your business, you need the right structure and talent mix in your marketing department to maximize your brand presence, increase foot and online traffic, and generate more sales to scale and grow. The only way to do this is by building an efficient marketing team to serve as a solid foundation for all your strategies and campaigns.
In this post, we’ll share how to build an effective marketing team by filling six essential roles to serve as a solid foundation for your department.
6 Roles You Need to Build an Efficient Marketing Team
1. Strategy Leader/Marketing Manager
A strategy leader or marketing manager is essentially your marketing team’s coach whose function is to collaborate with a different department, set targets and KPS, and manage every aspect of the planning and execution. They will handle everything from ROI calculations to budgets, contingencies, strategic level meetings, and interdepartmental communication. Overall, the success and failure of your marketing strategies rest in their hands as they’re liable for every element of your marketing ecosystem.
2. Content Creator
The key to successful promotions and advertisements lies in your messaging. A content creator is responsible for creating and designing content that aligns with every aspect of your brand, from its colors to products, values, history, and services. They’re liable for planning what goes on your website, magazines, packaging, product descriptions, blog, etc. However, this is only 50% of their responsibilities. Another important aspect of their role is brand positioning and regular engagement evaluation to determine overall performance, especially on social media and search engines, such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
3. Graphic Designer/Video Producer
Graphic designers and video producers have become essential for modern marketing teams due to the popularity of visual content on social media and websites. Their job is to collaborate with content creators or writers to create designs following their specifications and bring creative ideas to visually optimize digital content, such as product descriptions, blogs, and landing pages. Apart from technical skills, they need to have excellent time management skills to meet deadlines and foster an efficient marketing team.
4. Website Management
Website management is one of the most important roles in the digital age, as most businesses now require some online presence to remain relevant in the new normal. This role is generally not carried out by one person but a team of individuals carrying out different management aspects, such as SEO strategists, web developers, and CMS managers. Search engine optimization is one of the essential marketing activities to improve organic search engine rank and help your target audience find you online. SEO experts mainly monitor web analytics using tools like Google Analytics to perform keyword research use their findings to work closely with content creators, designers, and producers for optimized content development. Similarly, web designers or front-end developers design (redesign), develop, and maintain websites according to industry standards and lay the foundation for content creators and other professionals to display their content and visual components.
5. Social Media
Twenty years ago, this role didn’t even exist, and today, social media managers are the voice of organizations on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Twitter, among other platforms. These professionals are considered long-term key members of modern marketing departments. They serve two essential roles – to ensure all social channels remain consistent with the respective brand and act as customer service to answer customer queries and complaints on social media to increase engagement. Monitoring customer and visitor feedback are essential for modern organizations as it helps them identify trends, pain points, and demand – all factors they can use to pivot their marketing strategies.
6. Digital Channels Manager
A digital channels manager is not too different from a social media manager. However, their job revolves around figuring out which digital channels are more suitable for their brand. For example, many brands are suited to using Instagram or Tiktok instead of Facebook or vice versa. Some brands can thrive on email marketing, while others rely on SMS marketing to send quick, real-time alerts to consumers. A digital channels manager uses analytics and knowledge of digital marketing platforms to determine which platforms to dive into and help create a strategy around those specific channels.
Wrapping Up
Marketing as an industry is rapidly evolving, and traditional concepts, teams, roles, and strategies are either changing with it or becoming obsolete. With the global online shift acceleration, you need to transition your marketing departments to keep pace with the new behavioral patterns, tools, technologies, and marketing strategies in the modern landscape. With the roles mentioned above, you can organize your marketing initiatives and develop/implement a profitable marketing strategy. Twenty years ago, content creators, social media managers, and SEO executives didn’t exist, but today, they’re essential to every digital marketing team. Plus, these roles are just the beginning of building an efficient marketing team. You can further expand by bringing in data analysts, more writers, project or product managers, and consultants to further expand and scale your business.
by Bobby J Davidson
I love our companies and we love what we do. For more information on the Davidson Family of Companies, visit www.bobbydavidson.com/about. Sign up for my Newsletter at the bottom of this page.