Due to the complex work environment of many companies, they like to use outside agencies to get work done for them. These agencies have great skills, there's no doubt about it. However, nothing compares to having a high-quality in-house marketing team.
You have to make plenty of difficult decisions when designating an in-house team. Today we are going to learn what you need to do to build a strong marketing team. It's your job to make sure that everything runs smoothly, and the best way to do that is by making smart business decisions about who you hire and how you use them within the company.
Here are four tips to think about when you start to build your in-house marketing group.
1. Consider workload.
Your in-house team is there because you trust them. No one knows the business like they do. But you can't put all of the work on them at once. If you're using outside agencies in conjunction with your in-house team, you have to consider the workload. Where is your team going to thrive, and what can an outside agency do to make their jobs easier? The problem that often occurs is that business owners will get an in-house team and fire all their agencies. The new team can't handle the workload, and the marketing quality suffers.
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2. Hire the right people.
It's important that you hire the right people for your in-house team. Obviously, they should show that they are skilled and fluent in marketing, but what exactly should you look for?
During the interview process, ask your potential in-house hires if they are revenue-driven and understand how to target personalized markets. If they say they are, ask them to give you an example.
Your potential hire should be able to explain to you how revenue growth works and how to keep track of growth over time. They should also have experience working in various markets. Ask them if they have experience using and monitoring social media ads, email marketing, and SEO.
In general, your marketing team should have specialties (such as researching and implementing SEO keywords), but your whole team should understand the way that each marketing piece fits together. For example, your social media marketers need to understand how SEO improves ranking, views and revenue.
Finally, it's always a good idea to keep your in-house marketing team exclusive. Don't let them move around to other facets of your business. Their one and only focus need to be improving your brand marketing.
3. Ensure you have training time.
Training a marketing team in-house is no easy task. It can take six months to a year to properly train one person (or a team if you hire multiple people at once). It's crucial that you have the time and money to give them proper training.
Training should involve giving them the full rundown of everything you expect from them, every aspect of the business, and a time when you crunch a ton of numbers. Your new team should walk out of training with plenty of notes by the time training is said and done.
There are numerous free marketing classes online you can put your new hires through. These courses can help them brush up on their skills, or learn new tricks to add to their already varied skill set.
Whether you use Google's marketing classes for general courses, HubSpot for courses with certification or anything else, make sure you provide excellent marketing training to your in-house team.
4. Create small specialized groups.
Depending on the size of your in-house team, you may want to consider breaking it down into smaller groups. Set it up so that one group handles the social media side of things, another group handles website content and SEO, and another group handles physical ads and offline marketing.
When you put your in-house marketers into small groups, they tend to work better because they are focused on one aspect of marketing instead of the big picture. For example, you're going to want a content marketing team. As the name implies, this team is going to create content for your website's blog. They should know about SEO keywords, the audience they're writing for, and how much content they need to deliver on a consistent basis.
You should also develop a social media marketing team. These members of your team will post and share content, engage with your audience, and work on building a bigger following.
A small group is more productive and can get more done than a larger group that handles everything. You can always swap the people in the group for better productivity, but generally speaking, this method is an excellent choice for those who want to have complete control over their marketing strategy.
Conclusion
There's no doubt that building an in-house team comes with its own set of challenges. On the other hand, it's an excellent choice for business owners who want quick, responsive control over their marketing plan.
These tips are designed to help you figure out how to start building your team today. It's going to take some time to work out the kinks, but when everything is flowing smoothly, you'll see why people are switching over from full-time marketing with ad agencies and not looking back.