Hiring a Marketing Team for Your Small Business

marketing team

For many small businesses, recruiting the right marketing staff can be a daunting challenge. A business owner wants a team to take the enterprise to the next level, and they face the choice of either going for top experienced professionals or getting inexpensive but inexperienced staff.

So what option is best for small businesses? Here are some tips for hiring a marketing team:

Make sure the new sales team is well-equipped to handle new business.

The entry of the marketing team will revamp lead generation efforts, resulting in new customers and sales. You need to make sure that the existing sales force can efficiently handle any new leads arising from both digital and conventional marketing efforts. They need experience in dealing with customers at different stages of the buying process and closing deals successfully.

If the sales team lacks the skills, consider either training them or recruiting a more competent team. Also be sure that the sales team can work together with the marketing team to guarantee the marketing efforts and costs do not go to waste.

Set a clear and realistic marketing budget.

It cost money to adopt a digital marketing strategy that incorporates social media, mobile, affiliate marketing and blogging. You need to be certain you have the budget to make the efforts successful. Some of the marketing expenses the small business is likely to incur include staff salaries, advertising, content creation and distribution, email marketing, and paid searches. The amounts to spend on each vote head varies depending on the industry rates, qualification of the professionals and the marketing campaign applied.

First decide how much it costs to have an entirely functional marketing team and allocate amounts enough to plan and execute the marketing efforts from start to finish. A little market research and questioning of the potential marketers will help find out the costs.

Should you hire strategic or tactical marketers?

Before hiring a marketer, you should find out if you want a marketer to plan for current short-term campaigns or one to handle long-term marketing campaigns. Since business marketing will most likely need a shift throughout the company’s lifecycle, a safer bet is to get a marketer who is both strategic and tactile. Another alternative is to go for a marketing consultant instead of hiring a full-time tactical employee, but first learn the pros and cons of hiring the consultant over a full-time employee.

Set realistic expectations for your marketing team.

Some small business owners find it difficult to set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound marketing expectations. They think that simply by hiring a competent marketing team, sales performance will improve overnight. As a result, the desire for a qualified team right off the bat clouds their judgment. Eventually, the manager piles too many expectations on the marketing team only to end up disappointed when the expectations do not actuate. To avoid falling into such a trap, set clear and realistic goals that your marketing team can meet.

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