Let’s face it - you have this brilliant idea/product/service and you are ready to bring it to the world! You realize you need someone to help you spread the word and immediately think marketing. But rushing to hire a CMO is a mistake no matter how great your idea, product or service may be. We get it - we’ve been there, and been that marketing hire. But it’s important to take a step back and understand when and how you should think about your first marketing role.
Founders we have worked with sit in one of two courts:
Court 1: They have a strong understanding of marketing
Court 2: They know nothing at all
What remains the same between both sides is the anxiety around all the areas of marketing and what to focus on first. We do know one thing for sure - founders have a lot to do and trying to run a full scale marketing program should not be one of them.
When to hire
First, consider your budget. Yes, there are many things your marketer will do that will not require budget, but to do things right - money is always needed. If you do not have a marketing budget line assigned yet, or that budget is less than $100,000 for the year - you should hold.
Second, what stage are you in with your product/service? If you are still in development and not ready to bring your product/service to market, there are probably a few things you need to do before you “launch” and you may not need a full time marketing role yet.
Things you will need locked down before you launch include an established audience analysis and a brand (visual ID, positioning and communication architecture). Hiring a marketing person for these items can be premature. We’ll talk specifically about the roles you should consider as your first hire, but in general your marketing hire would need to bring in a specialized agency for this work so you should consider finding an agency and overseeing that yourself.
Third, do you have organized sales and product teams? Your marketing hire will rely greatly on both teams to do their job well. The last thing you want is your new marketing person spending all their time doing sales or lost without an established product to market.
The different types of marketing hires to consider
OK, you’ve got a marketing budget, a brand and your sales and product teams are in place. Now who do you hire? We’ve identified three options we see work best for startups, depending on the stage of their business. However it’s important to point out that you want a “jack of all trades” at a startup. Just like you, you need a partner on the team who will “roll up their sleeves” and do things outside of their comfort zone. Some of the items not in the job description you can rely on them for include: event marketing, PR/comms outreach, copywriting and owned media marketing. The right candidate will thrive in this environment - again, we know because we were those marketing hires once upon a time!
Product Marketing: Whether you are b2b or b2c, you have a product and/or service that requires the four P’s of marketing. To some degree, you move in order of those P’s - so a product marketer can bring the skills to determine product positioning, messaging and pricing. Additionally, this person will be proficient in creating content for the growth of your brand and business.
What to expect from your product marketing director:
Work closely with product development
Market research, consumer and product insights
Pricing and packaging strategies
Product documentation
Sales collateral
Content marketing
Read more about Product Marketing Manager Skills
Growth Marketing: If your product is ready to go to market, then you are ready for a growth marketer. Honing into those two other P’s, Promotion and Place, this marketer is going to focus on growing and scaling your business.
What to expect from your growth marketing director:
Work closely with CEO and Sales team
Data-driven consumer acquisition
Customer engagement and retention
Read more about the Growth Marketing Role.
What level to hire: This usually comes down to budget, but you should aim to hire a director who has the potential to become your CMO in two years (and sometimes sooner). In NYC a director level marketing role ranges from $125 - $180k/year, so keep that in mind. Regardless of level and which role you choose, the individual should be able to cross over into all areas of marketing and have a passion for getting into every tactical approach to support your business.
PRO TIP: Hire someone you trust. Regardless of who you hire, there should be a high-level of trust between CEO/Founder and marketing. The more the marketer knows what’s going on, the more they can do. The more you trust them to do the job well, the less you worry about the small details that get you where you need to go.
Tools for hiring
We believe you can find the right person to be your first marketing hire when you follow some basic guidelines.
Start building relationships early - and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Remember that pro-tip about trust? We mean it. Start your search before you are fully ready and get to know the type of individuals you would want on your team. And make sure you are actively engaging in more than one relationship in case one does not work out.
Let marketing hire marketing. We marketers who want to work at startups have had our share of interviews that turn us off from the company. Why? Because founders are using the wrong interview tools and asking the wrong questions. What’s worse, without the right interview, you will not hire the right skills. Benji Hyam proposes this: Would you trust a marketer to hire a developer? An accountant to hire a product person? Read more
REMEMBER: There are great recruiters dedicated to marketing and worth the cost to get the right people - use them.
Know what to look for when hiring! We love Lisa Schneider’s breakdown of 7 things to look for when hiring marketing: Initiative, Creativity, Numeracy, Legal Grounding, Testing Chops, Social Media Savvy, Curiosity Read more
Give your candidate a project A good candidate for your team will be excited to show off their work. Here’s some ideas:
Write a blog post (we recommend giving them a topic/outline)
Create a one-sheet project brief
Initiate a website requirements doc
Outline a digital marketing plan based on your google analytics (you would need to give them a report or access to GA, but it would be worth it)
NOTE: It would be worth having the candidate sign a quick NDA before doing any work.
At fivefoottwo, we make it our mission to transition early stage startups from an outsourced team to an internal marketing team. Our company is founded on the premise that companies are spending too much money on marketing hires before they are fully prepared to stand up a marketing program. Our philosophy is to build you a strong, well rounded marketing foundation so your future marketing team is set up for success. Take the right steps when it comes to your marketing and you will be headed in the right direction.