Most people asking how to set up a digital marketing team start with the org chart: which roles, how many people, agency or in-house. I'd start one step earlier. The first question is what the business actually needs marketing to do, and what each activity is worth to a paying customer. If that's clear, the team almost designs itself. If it isn't, no structure will save it.
I've worked across very different businesses: an airline loyalty programme (Asia Miles), a hotel loyalty programme (Shangri-La Circle), a broadcaster and a bank. The industries had little in common. What I believe carries over is the discipline of being clear about the value each piece of work is meant to create; get that right and the industry matters much less.
Start with the job, not the jobs
Write down, in one sentence each, the two or three outcomes marketing owns this year. "Acquire customers who open an account and use it within a month." "Get existing members to do more with our partners." Then, for every activity you're considering (paid social, SEO, email, events, content), ask which of those outcomes it moves and how you would know.
When I was CMO at the launch of Fusion Bank, a Hong Kong virtual bank, we acquired 40,000 customers in four months. For a launch like that, the useful measure is whether people open accounts and come back, not how much noise the marketing makes.
The core skills a small team needs
For a team of three to six people, think in skills rather than titles. You need someone who:
- Owns the plan and the numbers. A lead who can say what the team is for, set priorities and say no.
- Makes the content. Writing, design and video, or the ability to brief and edit people who make it.
- Runs acquisition. Paid media, search and partnerships: the channels that bring new people in.
- Runs retention. Email, CRM and lifecycle: the channels that make existing customers worth more. In loyalty businesses this is often where most of the value sits.
- Reads the data. Someone who can tell you honestly what worked, not just what moved.
One person can cover two of these early on. What you can't do is leave one uncovered and hope.
In-house, agency or freelance
Keep in-house whatever is closest to the customer and hardest to explain to an outsider: the plan, retention and the data. Buy in what is specialist, spiky or easy to brief: production, media buying at scale, technical SEO. Freelancers are best for well-defined pieces of work with a clear finish; agencies for sustained capacity you can't yet justify hiring.
The common mistake is the reverse: outsourcing the thinking and keeping the production. An agency can run your campaigns, but it can't decide what your business is for.
The order to hire
- The lead first. Someone who will own the outcomes, not just the activity.
- Then the skill closest to your biggest outcome. If you need new customers, acquisition; if you have customers who aren't coming back, retention.
- Then data, before the team grows past the point where anyone can still see what's working.
- Content can usually start freelance and come in-house once you know the volume and voice you need.
What to measure from day one
Measure against the outcomes you wrote down, not the outputs. Accounts opened and used, not clicks. Members who did something new with a partner, not emails sent. If a report can't connect an activity to an outcome, either fix the measurement or stop the activity.
And review the team's shape every six months. The right team for a launch is rarely the right team a year later, when the job has moved from getting noticed to getting used.
The page this is about: Decisions — every figure sourced to the vendor's own page, with the date it was checked.