building and managing a marketing team
TRANSCRIPT
Building and Managing
a Marketing TeamTIPS ON HIRING, ORGANIZATIONAL
STRUCTURE AND MANAGEMENT
Mike VolpeStartup Growth Advisor and Angel Investor
Former Employee #5 / CMO at HubSpot
@mvolpe
I joined HubSpot in 2007 as the fifth
employee and grew the marketing
team to 90 people. I love chocolate,
lead generation, whiskey, Excel, red
wine, marketing metrics and Jay Z. I
have advised and invested in more
than a dozen different startups and
hired over 100 marketers.
I’m Mike Volpe.
That’s @mvolpe on Twitter.
Hi.
AGENDA
1. Desired Skills
2. Sourcing
3. Screening and Interviewing
4. Organizational Structure
5. Management and Incentives
1 Desired Skills for Your
Marketing Team
Desired Skills for Great Marketers
Digital
Analytical
Reach
Content
DIGITAL
Look for people who
speak “digital” without
an accent.
Digital natives or
immigrants are both
fine as long as they
have full digital
citizenship.
ANALYTICALEveryone should be
more analytical than
the average person
in their role
elsewhere.
Even a writer should
want to evaluate
their performance
using metrics.
REACH
Great marketers
leave evidence that
they have a
gravitational pull.
They have done
something that
“attracted” people
to them or their work
before.
Find people who
create content by
their nature, not arm
twisting.
You do not want
content creation to
be a chore.
CONTENT
SKILLS BY FUNNEL STAGE
CloseConvertAttract
Key Skills• Blogging
• Social Media
• SEO
• Writing, Design,
Creative
D A R C
Key Skills• Optimization: LPs,
CTAs, Workflows
• Analytics
• Lead Scoring
D A R C
Key Skills• Product expert
• Teacher / trainer
• User testing
• Messaging
• Persuasion
D A R C
2 SOURCING GREAT
MARKETERS
SOURCING MARKETING HIRES
Always be hiring.
1. Referrals
2. Conferences
3. Networking events
4. Online networking
5. LinkedIn
Keep a list of the top 10-30
marketers you think are A+
players and stalk / nurture
them.
3 SCREENING AND
INTERVIEWING
Screening CandidatesScan the application / resume
• No AOL or Hotmail email addresses and no paper resumes
• Demonstrated track record of success and growth
• Domain expertise and inbound marketing experience /
certifications
Google their name
• Strong LinkedIn presence, check for mutual connections
• Decent sized digital footprint
• Decent quality digital footprint
Interviewing Marketers
1. Funnel Question
2. Lead Scoring Question
3. Website Homepage Question
The Funnel Question
“Pretend you're the CMO for
this company, and you have
to decide on what your
marketing team should
focus. What do you do?"
25,000 Visitors
250 Leads
100 Sales Ready Leads
25 Opportunities
5 Customers
The Lead Scoring Question
“I just emailed you an Excel file of 10,000 leads with data like
company size and industry for each of them, and you can see
the 200 leads that became customers. How can you use that
data to make a lead score to help us prioritize leads in the
future?”
The Website Homepage Question
“The CEO likes version
A, the COO likes version
B, and the company is
evenly divided. Which
homepage do you
launch?”
Millions Love Our Company
Text text text Text texttext Text text text Texttext text
Text text text Text texttext Text text text Texttext text Text text
[Video]
Make More Money With Us• Text text text Text text
text Text text text Text
text text text text
• Text text text Text text
text Text text text
• Text text text Text text
text Text text text Text
[Picture 1]
[Picture 2]
4 ORGANIZATIONAL
STRUCTURE
Organization by Team Size
AttractAttract,
Convert
+ Close
Team = 9Team = 3Team = 1 Team = 18
Convert
Close
Attract (2)
Convert +
Close
OR
Attract (5)Blog = 2
Offers = 1
SEO/SM = 1
Design = 1
Convert (2)
Close (2)
Attract (9)Blog = 3
Offers = 2
SEO/SM = 2
Design = 2
Convert (6)By Persona, Geo or
Sales Team
Close (3)PM / SE Split, or by
Product
HubSpot Mktg Org Over Time
2012(25 ppl)
2009(8 ppl)
2007(2 ppl)
2014(70 ppl)
VP• Lead gen &
inbound
background
• Management of
15
College Grad• 2 internships
• Generalist
ToFu Team• 3 people
MoFu Team
• 3 people
Teams by
Channel (email,
blog, social)
MoFu Teams by
Personas
Prod Mktg
VP/Dir Content
VP/Dir Funnel
VP/Dir Product Mktg
VP/Dir Brand & Buzz
(detail on next slide)
HubSpot Marketing in 2014
Dir. Product
Mktg (~12)VP Funnel
(~30)VP Content
(~12)
Dir. Brand &
Buzz (~13)
Results / Metrics• Website visitors
• New contacts
generated
Activity• Blog articles
• Ebooks &
webinars
• Other content
Results / Metrics• Marketing
pipeline
• Sales goal %
Activity• Lead nurturing
• Lead scoring
• Sales alignment
• Optimization
Results / Metrics
• Sales test scores
• % sales selling
various features
Activity• Product content
• Sales
enablement
Results / Metrics
• PR hits
• Event #s and
feedback
• Satisfaction of others
Activity• PR & Events
• Creative: Videos,
graphics, design
CloseConvertAttract
5 MANAGEMENT AND
INCENTIVES
Monthly Cadence
Goals for
month set by
CMO
Team decides
on activities
Team
executes on
activities
Team reports
on metrics /
activity
CMO
Feedback to
Teams
No Commissions in Marketing
• Incentives tied to a specific metric (“e.g. “leads”)
Lowers lead quality
Reduces collaboration
Stifles creativity and big thinking
Focuses team on short term, not long term
• More:
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-incentive-
compensation
Drive by Daniel Pink (book)
My Management Philosophy• Goals: Clearly explain to people the outcomes and results we want
and why we need them for the business
• Metrics: Let the metrics crack the whip for you
• Hiring: Hire the right people, get rid of the wrong people
• Mentoring: Mentor people by offering advice, context and
perspective
• Management: Get out of the way, rarely tell anyone what to do, let
them surprise you
Thank You!
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