Building a great digital marketing team can be tricky. It requires carefully defined roles and responsibilities, the right mix of talent, and strong leadership to keep the team in sync and aligned with the company’s goals.
While we believe there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for a digital marketing team structure, there are essential functions that digital marketing teams should cover. Before we start diving into the responsibilities and characteristics of each role, we have prepared this visual to illustrate the perfect digital marketing team structure:
With this in mind, let’s deep dive into the various roles of the team:
Digital Marketing Director
Building a great digital marketing team starts with the Digital Marketing Director. This role is responsible for building and managing the digital marketing team. He/she is leading all digital marketing initiatives from campaign ideation to execution, measurement and optimisation. The role involves ensuring all digital efforts are integrated with relevant company functions to achieve company objectives.
Some day-to-day responsibilities of the Digital Marketing Director to expect include developing an overall digital marketing strategy and see through campaign implementation, building, leading, and managing a team of Digital Marketers. It also involves setting digital marketing KPIs and monitoring team progress, ensuring digital marketing campaign and organisational objectives are met. In addition, Digital Marketing Director also sources for and works closely with creative and online marketing agencies to ensure the digital marketing objectives and strategies are clearly communicated and aligned.
Digital Marketing Manager
The Digital Marketing Manager is responsible for the day-to-day execution of the digital marketing strategies. He or she coordinates within the team and between the team and all of its stakeholders. Making sure content is created in time, campaigns are managed and the defined targets are met by the team.
A typical day of the Digital Marketing Manager includes responsibilities such as managing processes, planning, coordinating with stakeholders and supervising all aspects of the digital marketing team.
Social Media Manager
The Social Media Manager is responsible for managing the company’s social media strategy and the day-to-day execution of it. A person in this role knows all ins and outs of social media and makes sure the company is represented in the best way possible. The role oversees the creation of content such as visuals, video and copy that will be shared on social media. And the publication of posts, paid social campaigns and engagement with the companies online community by follow-up on comments.
The role primarily revolves around translating business goals into actionable actions to be carried out by the social team. Duties include planning, implementing, and maintaining a social media presence that ensures a high level of web traffic and customer engagement. The perfect Social Media Manager is someone who stays up to date with the latest technologies and social media trends. He or she has excellent communication skills and is able to articulate the company’s views creatively.
Content Marketer
The Content Marketer oversees all content that is created for the digital channels. This person makes sure that content is aligned with the business objectives, content on non-digital channels and the company’s brand identity. This role requires the capacity to think creatively and attention to detail. The content marketer is involved when content has to be created for the company’s website, social media channels, online campaigns and other digital marketing channels.
Performance Marketer
The Performance Marketer is primarily responsible for the paid channels. This role focuses on campaign-specific results and drives the digital marketing team’s commercial performance. This person is an expert in using the paid options of social media and search channels to generate leads for the commercial teams. Using paid ads across platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, to target the companies specific audiences and lure them in with copy or content that is explicitly designed for them. They are marketing sharpshooters who need to know where to aim, when to pull the trigger, and, in case of a miss, how to land that second shot through remarketing.
Database Marketer
Database marketers use customer data to reach the right audience with the right message, designed to prompt them to take a certain action. The database marketer uses marketing automation tools and strategies to learn as much as possible about their audiences. In a way that they can segment the customer database and use email marketing funnels and conditional website content to reach audiences with the perfect message that drives them to action.
Digital Marketer
Depending on the size of the company, the team can consist of multiple digital marketers, all with their own focus and goals. For example, someone who manages the company’s content calendar and aligns with stakeholders, someone who manages reporting, dashboards and analytics or someone who manages specific campaigns.
What about the sourcing of your team?
To outsource certain digital marketing roles or not to outsource: that is the question most businesses ask themselves at some point along the way. You can outsource most aspects of digital marketing these days, which makes answering that question even more complicated. In our experience a hybrid team, consisting of internal employees and external agency staff is the best way forward. It will help you broaden your horizons and tap into expertise you wouldn’t have when your team would only consist of internal employees.
Learn more about the benefits of a hybrid marketing team in our recent blog.