In a conversation with my friend and colleague Joe Chernov, VP Marketing at Kinvey we were exchanging some of the most asked questions we both received within our teams and from peers in the industry. With Joe being the content marketer of the year you wouldn’t be surprised to know that one of his most asked questions is:
How do I start a successful content marketing program?
The second question he’s asked most often is:
How do you structure your marketing team?
Shocking? Maybe not.
As I asked around to my colleagues it became clear that Joe’s experience isn’t an anomaly. In fact, my personal experiences are similar to his and as I started doing more research it’s clear that optimal organizational structure for your marketing team is a hot topic. Startups want to build a successful team and large organizations want to optimize theirs. What was shocking is that there isn’t a large body of practical content supporting this topic.
Over the past several years I’ve been fortunate to lead marketing organizations for enterprise and mid-market businesses. I’ve been a part of building teams from scratch at startups like Involver (now a part of Oracle) and optimizing with teams at Webtrends and now Mindjet. During this time I’ve developed an organizational playbook that can scale to virtually any size of business, is highly adaptable, and has a proven track record for success. Below is my playbook and I’m hopeful it starts a conversation or sparks an idea for your own team.
One thing is certain. The rate of disruption and change is going to increase in marketing. I think your marketing organization should support the ability to adapt to those changes and be successful. I’d love your feedback on how we can make this playbook better.
