# Marketing Org Reference Team structure, hiring sequence, agency decisions, marketing ops, and cross-functional alignment — by company stage. --- ## 1. Marketing Team Structure by Stage ### Pre-Seed / Seed (< $1M ARR, 1–10 people) Don't hire a marketing team yet. The founders are the marketing team. What to do instead: - Founders write content, do sales calls, go to events - The goal is learning the ICP and finding the channel that works, not scaling anything - One contractor or agency for specific output (design, SEO audit) is fine First marketing hire trigger: You have a repeatable sales motion and need to scale it. --- ### Series A ($1M–$5M ARR, 10–30 people) **Org:** ``` Founding Marketer (Head of Marketing or VP Marketing) ``` One person. Generalist. Capable of writing, running ads, setting up HubSpot, producing a report. Their job is to find what works. **What they own:** - Content and SEO foundation - Paid channel experiments - Sales enablement basics (1-pager, deck, email sequences) - Event presence (1-2 conferences) - Marketing attribution setup (get this right early) **What they don't own yet:** - Brand redesign - Analyst relations - Partner marketing - Field marketing team **CMO vs. VP Marketing at this stage:** VP Marketing. An experienced operator who can build and execute. A CMO's strategic value isn't fully leveraged until there's a team to lead and a budget to allocate. --- ### Series B ($5M–$20M ARR, 30–80 people) **PLG-first org:** ``` VP Marketing ├── Growth Marketing (acquisition loops, activation, PLG analytics) ├── Product Marketing (positioning, launch, sales enablement) └── Content & SEO (organic engine) ``` **SLG-first org:** ``` VP Marketing ├── Demand Generation (pipeline creation, paid, digital) ├── Product Marketing (positioning, competitive intel, enablement) ├── Field Marketing (events, regional, ABM) └── Marketing Operations (CRM, attribution, reporting) ``` **Community-led org:** ``` VP Marketing ├── Community & Developer Relations ├── Content & SEO └── Product Marketing ``` **At this stage:** Marketing ops becomes critical. Without it, attribution is guesswork and the sales team blames marketing for bad leads. --- ### Series C ($20M–$75M ARR, 80–200 people) ``` CMO ├── Demand Generation │ ├── Paid Media │ ├── SEO & Content │ └── Marketing Operations ├── Product Marketing │ ├── Core PMMs (by product line or segment) │ └── Competitive Intelligence ├── Field Marketing │ ├── Events │ └── Regional / ABM └── Brand & Communications ├── Brand Design └── PR / Analyst Relations ``` **At this stage:** - The CMO is a board-level communicator, not a campaign manager - Each function has a dedicated leader (director or VP level) - Marketing ops owns the attribution model and reports to CMO directly - Analyst relations becomes important (Gartner, Forrester, G2 category positioning) --- ### Growth Stage ($75M+ ARR) Marketing becomes a portfolio of specialized functions. Each major channel has a team. Brand is a serious investment. Analyst relations is a dedicated role. International marketing teams form. The CMO's job shifts from building the machine to: - Setting marketing strategy across a complex portfolio - Representing marketing at the board level - Owning brand and category leadership - Cross-functional leadership with CRO, CPO, CEO --- ## 2. Hiring Sequence ### Who to Hire First **The generalist content + demand gen marketer.** Must-haves: - Can write (blog posts, emails, landing pages — not just briefs) - Can run paid campaigns (Google, LinkedIn — not just "I've managed agencies") - Can operate a marketing automation platform (HubSpot, Marketo) - Comfortable with data (can build a funnel report without asking an analyst) This person builds the foundation. They're not a specialist yet — they're testing channels and building the process. Avoid: Hiring a brand designer first. Or a community manager. Or a social media manager. These are specialties that compound on a foundation that doesn't exist yet. ### Who to Hire Second **A specialist in the channel that's working.** If organic search is your top lead source → hire an SEO/content lead. If events are driving pipeline → hire a field marketer. If outbound is working → hire an SDR manager or demand gen specialist. Don't hire a generalist #2. By now you know what's working. Depth beats breadth. ### Who to Hire Third **Product marketing.** Why third and not first? Because PMM output (positioning, sales enablement, launch) is most valuable when there's an audience to position to and a sales team to enable. Before that, the founding marketer does "good enough" PMM work. PMM hire profile: Has done positioning work before, has run a product launch, has built sales decks that sales actually uses, comfortable with win/loss analysis. PMM:PM ratio benchmark: 1 PMM per 2–3 PMs. If you have 6 PMs and 1 PMM, you have a messaging and enablement problem. ### Who to Hire Fourth **Marketing operations.** This is consistently hired too late. By the time most companies hire marketing ops, attribution is broken, leads are being lost in handoffs, and the CRM data is unreliable. Hire marketing ops before you think you need it. Marketing ops profile: HubSpot/Marketo certified, SQL capable, understands multi-touch attribution, has integrated CRM + sales engagement tools before. ### Hiring Decision Triggers | Hire | Trigger | |------|---------| | Generalist marketer #1 | Sales motion is repeatable, need to scale lead generation | | Specialist #2 | One channel is clearly outperforming — double down | | Product marketer | Sales team is losing deals to positioning confusion or competitor gaps | | Marketing ops | Running 3+ campaigns simultaneously with manual tracking | | Field marketer | Events are in the strategy and attendance > 2 conferences/quarter | | Head of Marketing / VP | Team is 3+ people and needs an org owner | | CMO | Company is Series B/C and marketing needs board-level representation | --- ## 3. Agency vs. In-House ### Framework Keep in-house what compounds. Outsource what's episodic or specialized. | Function | Agency | In-House | Notes | |----------|--------|----------|-------| | Brand design | Early stage | Series B+ | Agency fine until redesigns become frequent | | Paid media | < $50K/month spend | > $50K/month | Agency margin eats returns at scale | | SEO strategy | Audit only | Ongoing execution | Strategy once, execution continuously | | Content production | Overflow only | Core writers | Your voice must be yours | | PR / comms | Almost always | $100M+ companies | Specialists required for media relationships | | Marketing ops / CRM | Never | Always | This is your data infrastructure | | Analyst relations | Initial strategy | Ongoing | Relationship-based — needs dedicated owner | | Video / creative production | Always | Rarely | Episodic, specialized equipment | ### Agency Red Flags - They want to own your ad accounts. (Always keep ownership. No exceptions.) - SLA is "5 business days for creative requests." For a performance channel, that's too slow. - Reporting is impressions, CPM, and "brand lift." Where's the pipeline? - They can't tell you your CAC from their channel. - They won't share the actual data — only their dashboard. - Your account manager changes every 6 months. ### Agency Evaluation Criteria 1. **Proof of work in your category** — ask for 3 case studies with actual CAC and pipeline data 2. **Who actually does the work** — senior pitch team ≠ junior execution team 3. **Account ownership** — all accounts, pixels, analytics must be in your name 4. **Reporting cadence** — weekly data, monthly strategy, quarterly business review 5. **Exit terms** — how do you offboard without losing your data, accounts, and history? --- ## 4. Marketing Ops and Tech Stack ### The Minimum Viable Stack | Layer | Tool | Purpose | |-------|------|---------| | CRM | HubSpot / Salesforce | Contact database, pipeline, source of truth | | Marketing automation | HubSpot / Marketo / ActiveCampaign | Email, nurture, lead scoring | | Analytics | Google Analytics 4 + Segment | Traffic, behavior, event tracking | | Attribution | HubSpot / Attributer.io / Dreamdata | Multi-touch pipeline attribution | | Paid | Google Ads + LinkedIn Ads | Performance channels | | SEO | Ahrefs / Semrush | Keyword research, rank tracking | | Chat/conversion | Intercom / Drift | In-product + website conversion | **The integration that breaks most:** CRM ↔ Marketing automation ↔ Sales engagement. When these aren't synced properly, leads are lost, attribution is wrong, and marketing and sales fight about pipeline. Fix this first. ### Marketing Ops Ownership Marketing ops must own: - CRM data quality (field standardization, deduplication, routing) - Lead scoring model (and quarterly review against conversion data) - Attribution model (with documented assumptions) - Campaign tracking (UTM governance — no UTM = no attribution) - Tech stack evaluation and contracts Marketing ops must NOT own: - Strategy (they enable it, not set it) - Content production - Campaign creative --- ## 5. Cross-Functional Alignment ### Marketing + Sales The most important cross-functional relationship in a SLG company. Where it breaks: | Problem | Root Cause | Fix | |---------|-----------|-----| | "Marketing sends us bad leads" | MQL definition is unclear or wrong | Define MQL jointly, score against conversion data | | "Sales doesn't follow up on leads" | No SLA, no consequence | Define SLA (e.g., 24-hour response), track in CRM | | "Marketing doesn't understand what customers care about" | No win/loss sharing | Weekly call: sales shares 3 deal insights, marketing shares 3 content results | | "We don't know what's working" | Attribution is broken | Marketing ops fixes attribution before next budget cycle | **The SLA agreement (document this):** - Marketing commits: X MQLs/week meeting defined criteria, 48-hour SLA from form fill to SDR outreach - Sales commits: All MQLs contacted within 24 hours, disposition logged in CRM within 5 days ### Marketing + Product Where it breaks and how to fix it: | Problem | Fix | |---------|-----| | PMM learns about launches 2 weeks before ship | PMM joins the product planning process at the roadmap stage, not the sprint stage | | Feature launches with no messaging | Launch tiers: Tier 1 (major, full launch), Tier 2 (minor, release notes + 1 post), Tier 3 (internal only) | | Product doesn't use customer insights from marketing | Monthly session: PMM shares win/loss themes, competitive intel, ICP data | | No feedback loop on messaging in-product | PMM owns in-product copy review, not just external comms | ### Marketing + Customer Success Customer success is marketing's best source of truth: - **ICP validation:** Which customers are expanding? Which are churning? This refines who you target. - **Proof points:** CS-sourced case studies and testimonials outperform vendor-written content 3:1 in conversion. - **Messaging test:** If CS is answering the same question 20 times, marketing hasn't explained it clearly enough. - **Referral programs:** CS owns the relationship; marketing owns the mechanics. Design them together. Cadence: Monthly meeting between CMO and VP/Head of CS. Agenda: retention trends, expansion patterns, at-risk customers, NPS themes.