When it comes to your company brand, customer acquisition and retention, your marketing team is the crucial cog in your business wheel. Companies of all sizes heavily rely on their marketers to help them expand. This is reflected in the fact the Australian digital advertising market grew by a massive 22% from March 2021 to March 2022 and is now worth $13.9 billion. This is staggering growth that clearly illustrates just how important the right marketing team is for your business. With that in mind, how does your current squad stack up? If you’re unsure whether your current team is well-rounded or you’re looking to build a mix of Marketers from scratch, what follows are some key tips from our Macpeople marketing recruitment specialists. They’ll help you figure out the correct balance of your team, so you can then start to find the right candidates to fill your key digital, marketing, creative and communications jobs.

Get the Structure Right

Today’s marketing teams are almost unrecognisable from those of the past. SEO experts were not the norm for a marketing team back in the 90s but that’s expected. The technology was too new and the digital landscape hadn’t really rolled out back then. Now, you’d need an SEO specialist somewhere in your marketing team to be able to keep up with your competitors. So, what does a contemporary marketing team look like? There are many answers to this question, but we find it helps to break it down into marketing categories. They might include:

• Brand and strategy
• Content marketing
• Creative
• Customer experience
• Marketing automation and lead generation
• Social media, community and influencer management

Due to sizing and budget constraints, some companies don’t have the full range of these departments. However, most still have a team member or two in marketing jobs representing each category. When it comes to structure, there are numerous ways to set up your team. What follows is one idea we’ve pulled together from observing some of our most successful clients’ marketing structures. The structure: Category > Team Lead > One or team members In more detail, this might look like:

Brand and Strategy

This crucial role involves setting the strategy for, and direction of, all your current and future marketing activities. You can then add in a few other team members to work alongside your CMO, such as a Market Analyst who will help you understand all segments of your target audience, and uncover what is and isn’t working for you, alongside suggesting ways of improving your marketing campaigns and/or proposing new ones that will yield a better ROI.

Content Marketing

One of the most demanding and sought after creative jobs is Content Marketing Manager. They’re tasked with the hefty but exciting role of ensuring the company brand voice is consistently applied throughout the organisation, thereby creating a strong commercial brand identity. They also manage the content team, the wordsmiths responsible for producing written content. Depending on your needs, you might employ a Copywriter, Technical Writer and an SEO expert.

Creative

Your Creative Director takes the content team’s words and makes them shine on the page, as well as the big, small and computer screen! Creative jobs within this department include Videographer, Web Developer and Graphic Designer.

Marketing Automation and Lead Generation

The Manager in this department details with the distribution side of things, making sure all that great content actually gets seen. You might have a team member with the skills to develop and manage your digital media strategy. Additional team members work on implementing it via paid channels, as well as email marketers who can analyse your data, set up funnels and optimise your conversions.

Social Media, Community and Influencer Management

According to Statista, the Influencer market generates a higher engagement rate and ROI than any other type of Australian digital advertising. This is likely largely due to Gen Z’s preference for the influencer marketing segment. Keep in mind they account for 18% of the Australian population, and by 2030, they’ll make up the largest section of the workers – 34%. As such, employing a Social Media Manager is a must. They can oversee a paid social expert, as well as team members with specific skills in community and influencer marketing.

Customer Experience (CX)

A Marketing Customer Experience (CX) leader deals with the consumer journey. Much of this is done by analysing customer interactions and feedback and developing appropriate solutions. In the past few years, there’s been a rising demand for those with CX skills This in part, is thanks to some major upcoming advertising industry changes. Specifically Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies by mid-2024 to increase consumer privacy. To continue to have online advertising success, advertisers will have to work out new ways to boost their collection and use of first-party data (information captured with direct customer consent). No matter how you choose to structure your marketing team, it’s important to keep front of mind that success comes with collaboration. All parts of your marketing team will need to work with other departments within your company, especially when it comes to planning and processes. We recommend encouraging as much cooperation as possible from the get-go.

In-House Team, Freelance or a Bit of Both?

One of the most important considerations to make is whether you go it alone and set up an in-house marketing team or whether you outsource exclusively? You can also mix it up and do a little of both, with permanent in-house employees concentrating on the day to day marketing you need and an outsourced expert for the more niche categories. Our answer is that it depends on a multitude of things, namely your product, your company size and your budget. Some companies who are just starting out prefer to only take on freelancers, as they’re skilled up and ready to go and cost less than full-time employees. Others have enough work in their pipeline that permanent hires make the most business sense. It’s a decision that takes some planning but once you have your team together, you can ensure that your marketing success is real.

Summary

In our experience, what matters most when trying to build a strong marketing team is that it consists of the right people for your unique needs. Employers need a team that can collaborate well across all marketing avenues to promote, propel and prime their business to and for success. While experience understanding target markets and marketing specialties is good, we’ve found those the really succeed in the creative industries possess some key traits. They’re hardworking, intelligent, responsible and problem solvers … who also happen to have a huge dose of curiosity. We can help with that. As Sydney’s premier creative recruitment agency, we have some amazing talents to fill a range of digital, marketing, creative and communications jobs in freelance, contract and permanent capacity. Please connect with one of our Marketing Specialists if you’d like some assistance in building or scaling your marketing team.