Marketing teams are central to business success. They are tasked with everything from building awareness of your brand, promoting products or services, and providing customer service and engagement in public forums. But with the changing face of marketing, today’s team looks very different from the teams of 20, 10 or even 5 years ago. As you build your team, make sure to read our ebook on implementing consistent KPIs—so you can justify the budget spent on your hires and campaigns.
With the fast-paced evolution of modern marketing, your team needs the talent and knowledge to keep up. Could your current team members be lacking in must-have modern marketing skills?
1. Data Scientist & Data Analyst
2. SEO Strategist
3. Content Marketer
4. Visual Designer
5. Tech Expert
6. PR
Embracing Data-Driven Marketing
Build Your Modern Marketing Team
For the purposes of this article, let’s focus on the marketing needs of mid-market companies (those with annual revenue anywhere between $10 million and $1 billion).
Certain businesses may choose to combine or rearrange some of the following positions. But to best prepare your company’s marketing team for success you’ll need staff who can fulfill the following roles.
1. Data Scientist & Analyst
Think of this person as part of the core of your marketing strategy. They’re tasked with data gathering and analysis, and they provide insights on current marketing strategy performance, vital for the modern marketing team.
Check out the ultimate guide to data management.
“Historically, marketing has always been a mix of art and science, and the 2020 marketing team has a more modern way of leveraging the ‘science,’ says Fortune 500 Product Marketing Executive Anndrea Moore.
Data scientists also play the important role of using data to identify strategies to improve marketing effectiveness, communicating with the entire team for maximized impact.
Learn more about how data driven marketing works.
2. SEO Strategist
SEO (search engine optimization) is an essential component in marketing, and it's incredibly multi-faceted.
An SEO strategist does more than just SEO analysis. They also develop inbound and digital marketing strategies as they relate to SEO. The person in this role works closely with the data analyst, content marketer, and PR pros on your team. They may also work in tandem with UX designers and web developers to ensure your site content remains SEO optimized during redesigns or other website changes.
Guide to writing SEO optimized content.
3. Content Marketer
This person needs to be versatile and comfortable working across multiple channels, like blog writing, video marketing, social media, and podcasts. They facilitate, manage, and create the content that represents your brand both on your site and posted elsewhere — such as in guest posts or on social media.
Your content marketer will collaborate with multiple other team-members, but likely their most consistent partners will be in SEO and design.
See top content marketing trends to watch this year.
4. Visual Designer
Strong design and visual brand cohesion help bring your marketing messages to the next level. A talented visual designer will handle everything from creating ad layouts and social media graphics, to large scale projects such as expo banners, webinar slides, and ebooks.
If you're lucky you'll find a designer who is also adept at video editing, but given how important video is becoming in modern marketing, it might be a good idea to add a video marketer to your team as it's own separate role.
5. Tech Expert
Tech is the way of the modern business world! Don't get caught on your back foot without adding a savvy tech expert to you marketing team. This is someone who can write code, manage website hosting, and oversee website maintenance and marketing funnel optimization.
6. PR
Your PR person will handle brand management, as well as the public perception of your brand. This role works closely with all marketing team members to establish consistency in the brand image across all platforms.
Learn more about using social media for PR.
Remember that these roles don’t all have to be in-house. Depending on your budget and needs, you may want to hire freelance or remote workers for some of these roles.
Embracing Data-Driven Marketing
Rapid changes in marketing, and the technology now available to help make key marketing decisions, means you need a talented, cutting-edge team. Modern marketing brings countless opportunities for customer acquisition and retention.
Chatbots, video marketing, and data-driven personalization are major marketing trends right now, and they give you the chance to strategically position your company. Equip your business with a team that can take advantage of new and evolving marketing trends. It’ll help your business stand out from all the noise and truly engage with your target audience.
As you build or change up your team, keep in mind some top marketing areas that you should be focusing on:
1. Customer experience
The focus of marketing is shifting, and there’s increased value placed on providing a quality customer experience. This means your team will need to have attentive awareness of what your customers and audience want in terms of brand engagement, the tone of your marketing copy, and the types of offers that hit their inbox. With improved customer experience through marketing, you can build brand awareness and loyalty in your audience.
2. Numbers, patterns, and trends (aka data)
Our increased ability to gather detailed data on customers and audiences allows for greater marketing personalization. This may mean targeting specific ads to specific audiences, altering marketing messages and delivery forms according to past customers’ purchasing habits, and an increased awareness of pain points based on an audience’s spending habits. Data-driven marketing is closely linked to customer experience marketing. Data can be a powerful tool, but it’s only as good as your team’s efforts to ensure you’re collecting and using data to your advantage effectively.
3. AI and automation
AI and automation are streamlining marketing while also making for more engaging interactions with audiences. For instance, chatbots can now provide prompt responses and even some customer service during times when a response from a team member isn’t possible.
AI can also improve website performance. By monitoring customers’ actions in real time, AI can make personalized recommendations and even help to identify which customers may be more likely to purchase certain products or upper-level service packages.
Read more about using AI in marketing.
Your Marketing Team and Modern Marketing
Modern marketing advances offer nearly endless potential whether you’re building a brand, unrolling a new product, or looking to increase customer retention, but you need a team who understands how to use these tools to their full advantage. By taking the time to build a modern marketing team, you can keep up with evolving opportunities and fully use these new technologies and trends to your benefit.
Curious how Meltwater can help take your marketing team to the next level? Request a 15 minute demo to find out!
