How to Build Your Marketing Dream Team
- Madeline Michaud
- Aug 8
- 13 min read
There comes a point in every business when there's just too much on your plate and you need to expand your marketing team. And no matter what size you are, it can feel like a "chicken-and-egg" scenario.
You need new business to afford new hires or contractors. But you need someone to get you that new business. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.
And on top of that, where do you even begin?
If you aren't a graphic designer, you definitely want someone to make your business standout and look professional.
But you are also burnt out on doing cold calls, networking, and posting on social media yourself.
And... there's that sneaking suspicion that you really should have someone doing something about your website. You're just not sure exactly what it is.
If this sounds like you, congratulations! You're going through the very normal growing pains every business has to go through.
The good news is, you're exactly where you need to be. And by the end of this blog, you're going to have the confidence and clarity about how to start building your marketing dream team.
So here's what we're going to do to get you there in this blog:
We'll walk through all of the skills a marketing team might have
We'll explore what skills your team need to have next
We'll help you figure out whether you need an employee or a contractor
How to figure out a budget for all of this
Where to find the people you'll vibe with who also bring the skills you need
A Nearly Full List of Skills & Roles Marketing Teams Could Have
There are countless skills that could be on a marketing team, but here are the most common. Don't worry, you do NOT need to hire someone for every role.
Ads - everyone is always wondering, "should I be doing ads?" Ad experts may specialize in a variety of channels: Google, Meta, or even good ol' radio and newspaper placement. The important thing is to find someone who will honestly tell you if a channel fits your audience and can continually adjust to maximize your cost-per-click (CPC).
Administration - someone who excels at the details and can keep every system updated.
AI Marketing - someone to make sure you're maximizing your marketing tools and staying on top of trends, with the caveat that you don't NEED to worry about this as much as you are.
Analytics - every tool you use spits out data. Someone needs to be able to dig through it, understand what it's telling you about your business health, and can translate it into actionable next steps for your whole team.
Branding - slightly different than graphic design, this person sees the big picture of the "brand story" and the difference between a single campaign and building a decades-old brand.
Community Management - some may disagree but this is a separate skill from social media. This person loves interacting with your community, asking and answering questions, and relaying that back to the team to build a strong, long-term fanbase. It might look like participating in Reddit forums, facilitating a Facebook group, or managing your customer's Discord thread.
Content writing - the person who writes all of your long-form content (blogs, white papers, etc.). They know how to keep people reading, even in the age where no one reads.
Copywriting - this is your snappy writer who specializes in ads, social media, and click-bait headlines (sometimes the same person as the long-form content, but to be honest, they are different skill sets).
Editing - every writer needs an editor. While every writer could be an editor too, there does need to be a separate person who reviews everything before it gets published. And a good editor is worth their weight in gold. Note that copyeditors check for things like grammar and spelling, while developmental editors also help with flow and readability. But you can get the same person to do both!
Graphic Design - from someone who doesn't specialize in this, find someone who does. Please. They will take you to the next level and in this highly visual age, finding the right graphic designer who gets you is one of the most important partners you'll have.
Influencer Marketing - this isn't just for big-name brands. Everyone is influenced by someone. Maybe they're a TikTok star, or maybe it's a trusted advisor. No matter your industry, there's someone whose word carries weight. Finding them and partnering with them can be as powerful as a word-of-mouth referral.
Photography - hire photographers. Just do it. Stock photos don't help you stand out. (And yes, I use them too!). But when you can, invest in good team headshots, good behind-the-scenes shots, and powerful product images. For service-based businesses, this is less important, but if you're selling a physical product, this is a non-negotiable.
Product Marketing - if you sell products, if you have many iterations of a service, sell digital offerings, or are a SaaS company - you NEED someone who specializes in product marketing. This is far more than writing product descriptions (that's your copywriter). This person knows how to work with sales, customer support, larger branding conversations, and how to position each of your products within the market for maximum sales.
Project Management - someone to keep everything on track and make sure the moving pieces stay in motion. Do not underestimate the importance of this one!
Public Speaking - ideally, business owners should have this skill. But whoever is going out and representing your brand needs to be comfortable with online and in-person spaces. From networking events to webinars to full-blown speeches-on-a-stage, this is the scary skill that anyone can learn (though not everyone loves to do it).
Research - love, love, love your research nerds. Even with AI here to help us out, you need someone who knows how to do proper research, especially in this age of misinformation. They may specialize in customer research, market research, or competitor research.
SEO (and AI search) - this person knows how to optimize the backend of your website to make sure it's fast enough, showing up in search results, and is stacked with the "goodies" that make the algorithms and large language models (LLMs) happy. They may or may not produce content too. But if they don't, they should work closely with your content team.
Social Media - really, social media is multiple skills. This unicorn-of-a-person will understand how to develop a social media plan that fits your team's resources. They (likely) have some mix of copywriting, graphic design, photography, and video skills. They should also understand when and how to partner with content creators. Depending on your offering, this person may specialize in B2C social media on Instagram, or they may specialize in managing Executive Presences on LinkedIn.
Storytelling - this is more of a skill that everyone should have, rather than a single person. Your marketing leader should especially understand brand storytelling and have a firm grasp on the psychology of marketing. Storytelling is how humans are wired and no matter what new tech pops up, this is the framework that will always, always work.
Strategic Marketing - you need a marketing strategist who can look at the whole picture and prioritize your marketing tactics. They should be able to articulate a 10-year vision as well as shorter-term strategies and most importantly, be able to draw up an action plan to hit those targets. I strongly recommend that this person comes with a background in multiple marketing skillsets, like copy writing, ads, and analytics. This person needs to be a generalist but with enough specialties that they know what works, and what doesn't, and when the team isn't hitting goals, what needs to change.
User Experience (UX) - depending on your industry, this might be a specific role. But if you're a small or solo team, this can also be a mindset. This person should be able to walk through your full customer journey, and parts of it, to identify potential roadblocks and opportunities to continually improve how your customers experience you. Clunky user experiences are the fastest way (besides insulting a customer to their face) to lose sales.
Video - businesses now need beautiful, long-form professional videos, as well as short clips you can push out on channels like Instagram Reels. It is absolutely worth it to find a partner who understands how to structure a story on video and how to cut it strategically.
Web Development - yes, you need a website. No, you don't need it to be perfect before you launch. But websites are a pain-in-the-a** to build if you don't know what you're doing. Save yourself the headache and hire an expert. They should also know how to optimize it for SEO/AI search and set you up for successful website refreshes in the future (because yes, you will need to refresh it - NOT REBUILD IT - every few years).
Web Management - this is probably the same person who developed it for you, but having someone you can call for routine maintenance, when the unexpected happens, and to troubleshoot regularly, is important and never more so than when your website unexpectedly goes down and you don't know why.
Are you overwhelmed yet?
That's okay! Keep reading, you've got this.
Now we're going to walk through what skills you need to focus on, and how to tell what's nice-to-have vs what's must-have.
(PSA - go hug your marketing friends, we really are asked to do all of these roles as a single person way more often than you would expect.)
The Most Important Skills to Have on YOUR Marketing Team
Let's start with who you already have on your team and what tools you're already paying for.
Ask yourself the following questions:
What marketing skills do I have?
What marketing skills are already on my existing team? (Employees or contractors)
What marketing tools am I paying for? (Like your website, CRM, and email)
Don't forget to ask your team if they have any unexpected skills, or skills they want to develop! They might surprise you!
Now, this might be the most important question to ask yourself:
What's burning YOU out?
If you're not sure, make a list of any marketing/sales-related tasks that you dread.
These are things you might have to do out of necessity but we really do want to get off your plate as soon as possible so we can keep you out of burnout.
If you're thinking, "cool but this really doesn't tell me what I need next," let me ask you this:
👉 Are you getting enough leads in the door?
👉 Are you converting those leads?
👉 And do you have a system for both of those steps?
If you need more business in the door, you need to start with talking to a marketing consultant who specializes in lead generation strategies that are tailored to your business, your available resources, and your industry.
Please, I beg of you, do not jump into one of those courses that promise to drive $1 million to your inbox if you just pay them $10,000 upfront. And do NOT answer the emails selling you cold outreach tactics promising the world for $0 upfront.
You need a strategy. You need a plan. And you need to understand each step in those so you can make the most strategic decision for your business.
As it happens, this is what Blue Spec Marketing specializes in, so you if you're not sure where to start, book a no-strings-attached consult and let's get your priorities sorted out so you can breathe!
The other main category most people end up needing to focus on is content creation. If you know where to find prospects and you have a solid offering already built out, you need to delegate your content creation so you can focus on building the other parts of your business. Finding a content marketer who has the strategic and writing chops to execute your vision is usually your best bet.
Bonus? Find someone who specializes in conversion copywriting. They'll help you optimize existing campaigns as well as build new ones that drives revenue.
Should I Hire a Marketing Employee or Find a Contractor?
If you're a small business (or a solo venture), the reality is you're unlikely to be able to afford a full-time marketing employee.
The time to hire internally for marketing is when you're ready to expand your market reach and need a point person to direct marketing strategy and can implement said strategy themselves, and with a team of contractors, freelancers, and agencies.
This almost always means your first marketing employee should be a marketing director. This person will need to be able to take command of all of your marketing plans, functions, and act as the hub of all of your outbound and inbound marketing efforts.
We'll get to the budget in the next section but spoiler alert: hiring a quality marketing director will cost you. And it's worth it! But only if you do it at the right time, with the right pieces in place.
That means, you're probably looking at putting together a team of contractors, or hiring a marketing agency.
I highly recommend starting with the following skills:
a strategic marketing consultant
a conversion copywriter
a graphic designer
a web developer
and EITHER a social media specialist, an ads specialist, or an SEO specialist
This group of skills will get you so far in driving new business and in getting the marketing tasks you hate off of your plate.
Whatever else you do, do not hire them all at once. Find the most important role that will make the biggest on your bottom line, and then add from there.
Now - the Building a Marketing Budget to Pay Your Marketing Team
If you have absolutely no marketing dollars to spend, I've still got you! Work through this post before you come back to this one: 17 Free Marketing Tactics that Increase Leads and Drive Revenue.
Okay, if you're still reading, you have a nice budget and you can totally hire people to do the work.
If You Want to Hire a Marketing Employee: Marketing Salaries and Hidden Costs
Let me be clear: I am all for internal hires. There are some things that simply can't be replicated in a contractor model, especially in established businesses that need internal subject matter experts and someone who can regularly interface with different teams.
That said, I'm also a big believer in hiring employees only when you can fully pay them thriving wages, benefits, and feel confident about being able to do so for at least a year or two.
Let's break it down further. Every employee costs you: wages, benefits, payroll taxes, training costs, and possibly recruitment costs.
Sticking with the Marketing Director role, in Minneapolis, MN, this will cost you:
Salary: the average Marketing Director salary is $110K and can go to $175K or even higher for large companies ($342K is a real Marketing Director salary, and not even that crazy of a one for big businesses).
Payroll Taxes: we're a marketing agency so taxes aren't our thing, so if you are going to hire, please go talk to a tax expert to get an accurate estimate for your business before you hire because this is an added expense many businesses hiring for the first-time don't account for.
Benefits: as an employer, you have to cover PTO, sick leave, and hopefully you're also also contributing to health insurance, HSA accounts, and retirement accounts.
Training Costs: this one really varies based on industry but no matter what, no can hit the ground tunning and bring in new revenue on Day 1. Account for time to onboard, go through needed trainings, and usually, a year before someone really has a handle on the job (though they should be driving results before their 1st anniversary).
Recruitment: if you're going to post your job on a job platform like Indeed, you'll be paying for it. You also might work with a recruiter, which can also come with a cost. Be smart with your recruitment budget and don't be afraid to start with asking your network for already-vetted professionals.
If hiring an employee isn't in the cards for you right now, the next thing to know about is the different pricing models for marketing contractors and agencies.
What to Expect to Pay: Pricing Models of Marketing Contractors, Agencies, and Freelancers
First, there are pros and cons of every model. The most important thing is finding someone who knows what they're doing, delivers results, and that you trust not to take your money and run.
(Also, if someone has bailed on you, I'm so sorry. This does happen a lot, unfortuantely. And it's heart-breaking. And you can rebound from it.)
There are three main pricing structures you'll run across if you're outsourcing anything:
Retainer Models
Project-Based Pricing
Hourly Rate
Marketing Retainer Models
Most marketing agencies have a retainer model. It's easier to set expectations with clients and budget internally if you both know you're going to get/spend a set amount each month.
Expect these if you're hiring an agency with at least a few employees or will have a long-term ongoing relationship.
The biggest challenge with these models is unclear deliverables.
Clients can get frustrated if they feel like their budget is being used up without seeing any results.
And agencies can get frustrated if they're being asked to do far more work than what the allotted time can cover.
If you're working with a large agency who uses this model, don't be afraid to push back against unnecessary meetings, ask lots of questions, and make sure you're getting the deliverables you're paying for, in timely manner.
If you're working with a freelancer who has a retainer model, be sure to check what their policy is if you go over the set hours, or if you don't use them up in a month.
Project-Based Pricing
This is Blue Spec Marketing's preferred pricing model because we see it as the best way to maintain clear deliverables and scopes of work.
A client wants a website? They pay for a website. They get a website. It's pretty straight-forward.
But where it can get a little messier is if you have a contractor who's doing a lot of different tasks for you, have long-term ongoing tasks, or if new projects keep creeping in.
Having clear conversations with your project-based partner can help you both avoid last-minute time crunches and unexpected costs.
Hourly Rates
Both retainer models and project-based pricing models have some element of an hourly rate. After all, marketing is a service, not a product.
Your contractor may or may not tell you what their hourly rate is but it's worth asking about, especially for ad hoc projects or tasks that might go beyond the retainer or project you're contracted for.
Keep in mind! Contractors are small business owners. They have to pay for their own taxes, health insurance, tech, and more. A $25 hourly rate is never going to be a break-even price for them. And keep in mind, if you're paying at the low-end, the quality you're going to get is also at the low-end.
Marketing strategists can charge anywhere between $150 an hour to $500 an hour, while copy editors and junior specialists usually come in closer to the $75 an hour range. Don't let sticker shock stop you, a few hours of an expert's time is absolutely worth it whereas a rock-bottom priced contractor could set you back thousands of dollars and months of time.
Finding Your People: Building Your Marketing Dream Team
Once you know what roles you want to hire for, it's time to start finding those people.
Start with asking for referrals from your existing network and trusted business contacts.
You can look at places like Fiverr and UpWork, but honestly, it's going to be more frustrating and time-consuming than you expect.
Post on your LinkedIn and other social media sites that you're looking for a specialist and are looking to do some interviews and I guarantee, you'll get some good introductions.
No one can do everything on their own. If you're feeling overwhelmed by marketing, it's just your sign that it's time to delegate. No one knows your business better than you do, so find someone who knows the marketing side and can execute your vision and help you, your business, and your marketing team grow.
Want to talk through all this with someone?
Send us an email and let us know what marketing roles you're considering hiring and what questions you have!
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