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Three tips for building your own marketing department

Are you also thinking about hiring a marketing manager or the first person in your marketing department? Every day, we help companies make their marketing function work at its best. In this blog post, we share three pieces of advice that we suggest you consider when building your own marketing department.

1. Commitment more important than experience

Marketing today is a field that changes frequently and quickly, and the strategies that worked a year ago may not work today. Target groups move from one medium to another and do so faster than before, and updates in social media and search engine algorithms make it increasingly important to be aware of the new ways of working with digital marketing.

It takes a lot of drive today to stay at the forefront of knowledge and it is becoming less important to know the strategies and tactics that have worked historically. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to hire or engage people with experience, but that the most important measure is commitment and keeping them up to date.

A common question we ask at job interviews is which marketing blog/podcast/book you've recently read/listened to and what's on your reading list for the future. This usually gives a good idea of how interested the candidate is in staying up to date with all the news in the field of digital marketing.

2. Focus on strengths

A dream candidate to hire is someone who is a specialist in EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, that candidate usually only exists in a dream world. Often you can generalize marketers as either generalists or specialists, i.e. that the person is either really good and has deep knowledge in a narrow area or that the person knows a little bit of a lot.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to hiring either a specialist or a generalist. The important thing is to understand what the strengths of each are.

A generalist is usually good at coordinating and putting together marketing plans and strategies. They can often see in a comprehensive way what is needed to achieve goals and which parts need to be produced and managed. The disadvantage is usually that they do not have the specialist knowledge to do everything themselves.

A specialist is often the opposite of a generalist in that they are good at implementing and producing what they specialize in and doing it really well.

The disadvantage is usually being able to see the whole picture and to take care of the other elements required to succeed in the field of marketing. When faced with the choice between a specialist or a generalist, choose the one that best suits your business.

If you are a generalist who wants to have an overall view of the market and create a marketing plan and strategy, you should find a specialist in the area that requires the most production or knowledge.

If you want to outsource the marketing work entirely, a generalist is usually the best choice in most cases, as a generalist is often good at putting the whole thing together. The disadvantage is that the production often needs to be supplemented from other suppliers to get the quality and quantity required to succeed with the marketing work.

3. Set clear goals

The most important tip is to set clear objectives. Just as with anything else that is to be implemented, there should be a plan and a clear picture of what you will get out of the activity to be implemented, in this case building a marketing function.

Questions to ask yourself are:

DoI needa marketing function?

Should I have an internal marketing function or is it better to have an external provider?

What will a marketing function realistically be able to contribute? (Number of leads, number of deals, etc.)

Is there a budget to build a dedicated marketing function?

Do I have the stamina to wait 6-12 months before I can see clear results from my marketing efforts?

Then, whenhiring a person to be responsible for marketing, these are good objectives to clarify to the person you are hiring. What is expected of the person?

In many cases, we meet potential clients who have unrealistic goals of what marketing for a given budget can achieve. It is therefore important that the person hired is given the opportunity to give their assessment as to whether the objectives are realistic to achieve with the budget and resources available.

Summary

When building an internal marketing function, you should pay close attention to the person's drive and commitment to marketing so that you are always up to date with the latest in digital marketing.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of hiring a generalist and a specialist and choose the one that suits your business best.Make sure to set clear and realistic goals and find out if an in-house marketing function is the best option for you.

Want to find out if Contitude can complement your intended marketing function or simply be your full-service digital marketing provider?

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