Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

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The DIALOGIKdigital Team

About DIALOGIKdigital DIALOGIKdigital provides strategic digital marketing services to companies of all sizes. We work primarily with startups and their founders, investors and leadership teams to grow their new products and services. Startups have unique marketing challenges, so we offer flexible, customized services to address them. Our marketing strategies accelerate market visibility and win new customers. Visit us at www.dialogikdigital.com to learn more.

Meet The Author

Pam Kulik, Founder & CEO of DIALOGIKdigital, is a digital marketing executive who started working with startups in Silicon Valley during the Internet Boom. She founded DIALOGIKdigital in 2009. Pam’s expertise has contributed to the success of clients’ new companies and product lines by increasing their brand awareness, lead generation and social engagement results. She optimizes the best mix of marketing tactics for sales growth and improved marketing ROI. Visit our Web site for more details about her background.

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Hands-down, startup founders know their cutting-edge products better than anyone - but that doesn't mean they know how to market them.

Sometimes even the most well-funded startups and talented leadership team can lack a practical understanding of what marketing is, when to begin it, what to budget for it, and how to staff it.

Despite this, many founders and leadership team members sometimes place the future of their brand in the hands of a less expensive junior marketer, a senior marketer from a big brand who doesn't have brand-building experience, or someone with no startup

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team marketing experience, but a lot of

"Millennial enthusiasm.“ All of the above approaches are high risk (ask an any VC) and can lead to errors that take the company off course, from sales revenue to brand equity valuation for future funding rounds. This common "marketing blindspot" is a serious momentum killer. The good news is that you can avoid walking down this path by creating a team of smart marketing pros (e.g., in-house, agency, consultants) to manage your marketing needs, with the added flexibility to scale your budget.

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Building a Startup Marketing Team Following are some insights into the team-building process. I. Invite a senior marketer with startup and brand-building experience to join your Board

It's shocking that startups think only CEOs, CFOs, and COOs or only someone with an MBA are worthy of Board invitations. You should have a professional marketer in the mix that brings senior experience to your company's knowledgebase.

This Board member can help you build a marketing team, screen candidates, offer

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

referrals, provide budgeting guidance and more. II. Staffing: Consultants, Agencies or Full Time Employees? If you have Angel or VC-funding, you were likely required to have at least one or two PowerPoint slides in your funding presentation about a marketing strategy. The good news is that you now have funding. The bad news is that you have no idea how to find a marketer to build out the plan and execute to make your investors happy.

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Most startups engage in a hybrid marketing model that includes a mix of in-house talent, agencies and freelancers. Available budget and where the startup is in its life cycle determine this staffing strategy.

III. The Art of Recruiting: Business development and Sales people are NOT Marketers. (Really!)

Save yourself migraines by respecting these specialty areas and avoid tossing "marketing" responsibilities to Sales talent. You will be unhappy with the results. Only consider in-house people who have a marketing pedigree (e.g. marketing/PR titles). At minimum,

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

look for a candidate who has launched a few companies and products (in-house or agency-side). As you know, startup culture is very chaotic and hands-on. It's not a good fit for all personalities. Try to avoid selecting someone who has been at a global public company for 5+ years in a senior role. Skills stagnation and slow-moving bureaucracies can be a challenging adjustment for these folks - unless they're leaving for this reason and are ready to roll-up their sleeves and directly contribute to tactical program implementation.

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Then there are those who just "do strategy" or "don't write." (I'm not kidding.) Run fast from these folks. They aren't startup material. During the interview process, do your best to assess that chaos, speed, a 24/7 on-call lifestyle, and a preference for hands-on implementation are a "turn-on", and not a "turn-off".

IV. Interviewing: What To Ask & Expect

The process of interviewing in-house talent or an individual consultant is very different from interviewing an agency.

After you've narrowed down the respective candidates in each category,

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

prepare a list of questions for each and ask these consistently so you can evenly gauge expertise and experience.

V. Budgeting: Salaries & Consultants

Salary information based on title, experience level and location can be found on sites such as payscale.com and salary.com. Take a look so you're in the ballpark. Talk to other colleagues. Then figure out how much you can realistically offer in cash, equity and any other benefits to be competitive and win the candidate you want. (The cash portion will vary by region, as will the benefits package, such as % of ownership, options, healthcare, etc.).

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Not surprisingly, competition for experienced startup marketing talent is greater in the tech hub cities (NY, Bay Area, Boston and LA), so costs will be greater to reflect this supply and demand. Typically, the smaller the benefits package, the larger the cash and equity. If hiring a consultant, ask for their hourly rate range. If hiring in-house, ask what their salary/bonus/options expectations are during the interview process.

If you find someone who would be a great fit, work with them on a package that gets them where you both agree they should be by a certain point in time after coming on board, and put it in

Tips For Building A Startup Marketing Team

Big agencies will offer long, colorful presentations that showcase their creativity, along with some past client case studies to tout their successes (and have an espresso machine nearby). An individual will discuss how they've collaborated with past clients or in-house to create effective marketing programs, build a brand, describe their past roles, offer case studies and writing samples if they have senior experience, among other topics. When you ask your finalists for references, actually call them. You'd be surprised how many companies don't and regret it.

How To Select A Marketing Consultant

Get Started! Marketing has as many sub-specialties (e.g. PR, social media, lead gen, PR, etc.) as YouTube has channels. It’s important to prioritize the tactics that address your startup's immediate and long-term needs. With the help of experienced startup marketers, you will save you a lot of time and resources.

And if you're preparing to launch your company or new products and services, you should hire talent with extensive launch experience.

Next Steps

Questions? Contact us at 323.450.2309 or info@dialogikdigital.com.

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