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Marketing incorporates such a broad spectrum of growth- and promotion-related activities within a business that the job of a marketing manager is quite complex. Managing a marketing team effectively calls for wearing multiple hats—and wearing them all well.
There’s plenty to juggle, from hiring and training team members to sourcing marketing tools and resources, creating strategies, and measuring key metrics. Knowing how to implement sound marketing strategies and best practices both internally and externally to ensure your team remains productive and engaged could make a world of difference.
This guide provides marketing managers with the information they need to structure and nurture formidable marketing teams, develop effective marketing strategies, and measure the success of their teams and campaigns.
Marketing management involves overseeing a business’s marketing efforts, including making decisions, setting goals, developing plans, and executing them. A marketing manager is responsible for spearheading the company’s marketing efforts and managing the wider marketing team. This role encompasses market and competitor research, strategy development and implementation, budgeting, team training, and more.
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One of your primary objectives as a marketing manager is to step up as a leader for your team—managing and leading aren’t one and the same. A leader inspires teams and cultivates a positive, supportive work environment that encourages collaboration and personal growth.
Here are a few key aspects to becoming an effective leader for your marketing team:
Learn more about being a marketing team leader:
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Because the broader scope of marketing comprises several facets, the depth of your team and the roles you fill will depend on your company size, needs, and budget. However, there are a few core responsibilities you’ll need team members for to cover your bases.
When building a solid marketing team, look to at least fill the following central roles:
Your team structure will depend on your company’s size and needs, including whether you’ll only employ full-time staff or hire freelancers or agencies to complete some of the work. It’s best to structure your team in a way that makes the most sense for your organization and matches your marketing approach.
Some of the more prevalent marketing team structures are as follows:
Recruiting the right people for your business requires careful thought and preparation. It’s best to develop a hiring strategy and plan so you’re clear on the roles that must be filled and how their duties might correspond with other team members’ duties.
With a clear plan in place, you’ll find writing job listings, shortlisting candidates, and conducting interviews far easier. Remember to start by looking at your internal talent. If an existing employee fits the desired profile, you’ll save time and provide the employee with a new avenue of growth.
Once you’ve sourced the ideal candidate and they’ve accepted your offer, it’s time to familiarize them with your systems and processes. Make sure you develop a structured onboarding plan for new hires well before bringing in a new employee. With an onboarding plan in place, there’s a better chance that your new team member and their teammates will enjoy a smooth integration.
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Do you often find yourself thinking, “There’s got to be a simpler way to do this!”? With your CRM, there likely is!
Explore our guide to automating and streamlining your marketing processes.
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Communication and collaboration are the pillars of a marketing team’s success, which is why holding regular team and one-on-one meetings is essential. Set up daily or weekly standups highlighting achievements and focuses, as well as discipline-based or function-based meetups outlining project progress and action items.
This method enables team members to uncover their strengths and weaknesses, learn to manage their time effectively, and understand their contribution to the team. It also ensures that everyone on the team knows what the rest of the team is working on and allows them to collaborate more easily.
Employ an agile mindset and tackle projects in sprints, holding a team discussion after each sprint to identify ways to improve for future projects. This approach gives your team more opportunities to learn and grow, allowing them to adapt quickly to changes in the market.
Invest in tools and resources that streamline project management, such as a CRM that allows you to set up workflows with stages and required tasks. Using a system like this ensures your team knows exactly what they need to accomplish next and the steps they need to take to get there.
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Depending on your business, your marketing team may include remote team members, individuals in different departments, freelancers, or an outsourced agency team. You’ll also typically work closely with your sales team. As such, several things must be considered to ensure these diverse teams work together well.
On the whole, it’s best to define common goals across the team and ensure all involved can operate through a unified digital platform for smooth collaboration and information sharing.
Leading a cross-functional team may mean managing teams across multiple business areas or working closely with management from other departments. Maintaining discipline- or function-specific leadership roles within each department ensures team members receive more specialized support and training.
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With the many marketing resources and tools available, choosing the right solutions to support your team and business can be tough. That said, it’s always best to source tools and software that align with your business goals and marketing objectives.
Consider bringing in tools that enhance team collaboration and make communication with clients and colleagues effortless. Software for managing projects, workflows, and integrations with other tools is another advantage, especially if it allows you to automate tasks and activities.
Ensure you have the means to track, analyze, and report on team performance and marketing goal progress, even if it means investing in additional resources. And it’s always handy to have access to software that gives you and your team the ability to upskill.
Learn more about the importance of adequate tools and resources for managing marketing teams:
Team members who view their work environment in a positive light and work harmoniously with each other tend to be happier, more productive employees. These are some of the best ways to instill positivity and camaraderie within your team:
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A significant part of team development lies in providing a platform for ongoing training and skills development. Adding to a team member’s skillset benefits the company and provides them with a means to progress along their chosen career path.
Encouraging continuous learning is essential, and recognizing passion and abilities that may suit a slightly different role or career path than initially intended is an advantage. That said, ensure that all skills development supports your business objectives.
While structured third-party courses are beneficial and often recognized by the outside world, utilizing experts from within your organization for additional training can also benefit the team. Remember to reward team members who achieve training and developmental milestones to keep them motivated.
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Personal and professional development requires a fair amount of motivation and drive, which doesn’t always come naturally to everyone. As a marketing manager, it’s your job to inspire your team members to want to grow and achieve more.
Offering the resources to develop skills and improve, as well as fostering a positive work environment, can have the desired effect. However, playing to each team member’s strengths and interests where possible gives them the opportunity to shine, provides job satisfaction, and motivates them to continue achieving.
This goes hand in hand with recognizing and rewarding accomplishments when they occur and doing so in a public forum where possible and appropriate. Giving your employees the room to establish ownership and accept accountability for projects can also be a tremendous motivation.
Getting a regular team-building roster off the ground requires buy-in from leadership, as well as from your team. It also calls for some creativity to ensure your team-building events are enjoyable and provide the team-bonding results you desire.
One way to ensure your team is on board is to get them involved in contributing ideas and planning your team-building activities. When brainstorming ideas, bear in mind that team-building events should promote trust and understanding between teammates.
It’s also important to remember that your activities should be inclusive and cater to a diverse group of individuals. Make sure that everyone on the team is happy with the agreed-upon activities and that none of your team-building pursuits cause anyone discomfort.
Another core factor in team development is goal-setting—whether it’s department, team, or individual goals. As the marketing team manager, your initial focus should be on setting goals that contribute to the company’s goals and are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
To ensure this, it’s best to work closely with your team and each individual team member and guide them in setting their goals. But try to allow for some flexibility, so your team can adapt quickly when market, product, company, or team changes occur.
Remember to offer your team the resources they need to achieve their goals, which may include additional training or specific software. Once completed, be sure to recognize their accomplishments and encourage them to set new goals, promoting continuous improvement.
Your experience will provide you with the means to determine overall team member performance, but there may still be interactions and issues you’re unaware of. This is where peer feedback comes in handy, which is why establishing regular team feedback is crucial.
Feedback can be teammate-to-teammate or team member-to-manager, anonymous or not. Open the lines of communication for feedback in its various forms to ensure you gain a holistic view of how your team is doing.
Reinforce the need for constructive feedback from your team and take note of what you feel is valuable or should be addressed. Then, work on what actions should be taken and how you’ll take them, carefully approaching each situation appropriately.
When conducting official team evaluations, there are a few central elements to bear in mind. Marketing managers should consider the following with each review:
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As a marketing manager, you are responsible for spearheading marketing strategy development. While strategy development can be a sizeable beast to tame, following a proven process makes creating and executing a successful strategy easier.
Step one is to carry out thorough market research to establish and gain a comprehensive understanding of the following:
This research should help you narrow down your product or service’s benefits, how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors, and where you’ll position yourself in the market. Use this information to develop strategies to connect with your target market and communicate your unique value proposition.
Outline your business goals and let them inform your chief marketing objectives around the strategy you’ve developed. Then, establish relevant KPIs to determine how you’ll track your progress and measure your success.
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Once you’ve drafted your marketing strategy, it’s time to identify the tactics you’ll employ to execute it—in other words, how you’ll reach prospective customers. Don’t be afraid to use a mix of different marketing channels to give yourself the best chance of connecting with your target market.
When selecting your preferred channels, imagine your customers’ journey and consider how you can engage with them at different points. Before you reach the planning phase, reflect on how your messaging will differ at each stage and per channel.
Remember to ensure that your marketing efforts align with your strategic goals, organizational goals, and allocated budget. Focus on high-impact tactics first to maximize your resources and garner the best results.
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Now that you know what you want to do and how and where you want to do it, it’s time to determine when you’ll take action. Your marketing plan should comprise a detailed outline of short-term and long-term goals, key responsibilities, deadlines, and the finer details about how team members should execute the marketing strategy.
To formulate a solid plan, establish the following vital elements:
Once you’re clear on all the above elements, you can draft a comprehensive document outlining your plan. This document will be shared with your team and used for training and campaign guidance.
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With your marketing plan in place, it’s time to rally the troops and communicate its core logistics. Training and in-depth Q&A sessions may be necessary to ensure that everyone on the team understands the plan and goals you hope to attain.
Create a physical or virtual visual project board that highlights your campaign objectives, milestones, and timeline to keep it top of mind. Using a project management tool will make assigning tasks and tracking progress far easier. Make sure each team member understands their role and responsibilities and has the tools and information needed to complete all the required tasks.
Reiterate the importance of sticking to the deadlines detailed in your plan and encourage team members to meet and provide feedback regularly. This way, you can keep your finger on the pulse, ensuring everything is on track and making quick adjustments when things don’t go as planned.
Learn more about executing a marketing plan:
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With the help of data insights, businesses can identify patterns and trends to inform marketing strategies and create personalized campaigns.
Check out our guide to using dats insights to inform marketing strategies to learn how. gather data insights with your CRM.
Managing a marketing budget is a considerable responsibility and is the least attractive aspect of the marketing management role for many. But there’s no need for your campaign budget to cause you stress and sleepless nights.
Looking back at past campaign expenses and unexpected costs will give you a good idea of what you may need to bring your current plan to fruition. But it also depends on what your company can afford to put aside for your campaign, which means you may have to be selective about marketing channels and prune some of your plan’s “nice to have” segments.
Always budget for unforeseen expenses with a small contingency amount because campaigns rarely come together exactly as you planned them. Track expenditure the same way you track campaign progress and metrics, reviewing what you’ve spent, whether you still have enough to see your plan through to completion, and if adjustments need to be made to ensure you remain within budget.
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Before tracking your marketing KPIs and analyzing results, you’ll need to decide on the most important metrics for you and your team. Ultimately, the KPIs you choose to monitor should give you a holistic view of whether your marketing strategy is working and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
These are the primary KPIs marketing managers should keep an eye on:
Bear in mind that distinguishing KPIs between your different traffic sources will help you determine which marketing channels drive the most visitors, leads, and conversions.
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Bringing the above metrics together into reports will help you spot customer trends, isolate weaknesses, and identify wins. Because marketing encompasses numerous internal and external touchpoints, segmenting the KPI metrics by marketing type, campaign, and time period is best.
These are some of the more crucial reports marketing managers should aim to draw up and analyze:
Learn more about reporting on core marketing KPIs:
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Marketing teams handle everything from lead generation to PPC advertising, social posts, emails, videos, and much more. As a marketing manager, you’ll need to ensure your team has all the tools required to be productive and deliver highly effective marketing deliverables.
The following is a list of the most essential marketing tools your team will need to delight prospects and encourage conversions:
Finding a good CRM solution is possibly the most crucial of all the tools and software mentioned in the above list. With the right CRM system in place, you’ll have the tools you need to organize and store complex customer and lead data, manage and segment mailing lists, set up email drip sequences, automate tasks, and track, analyze, and report on a host of vital metrics.
Learn more about the different marketing tools available to marketing managers:
Finding the right CRM solution for your marketing team and business needs is easier than you might think. The first step is determining the features and functionality needed to elevate your marketing efforts and influence growth. Then, it’s about finding a solution with the required features and optimal pricing that aligns with your budget.
Choosing an advanced CRM system like Nutshell provides a wealth of features to help you reach your marketing goals, including robust email marketing tools. These are some of the principal features you should look for in a CRM system:
Learn more about choosing the right tools and software for your marketing team:
Compare CRM pros and cons to ensure your team gets the ideal CRM solution for your business needs.
In addition to the tools and software needed to run a successful marketing department, you should also find the best resources available for marketing managers and their teams. Unearthing great marketing resources can help you and your team enhance your knowledge and keep you abreast of industry trends.
Some of the more common types of marketing resources used by marketing managers to stay ahead include:
Learn more about finding the best marketing team resources:
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