Building and Managing

a Marketing TeamTIPS ON HIRING, ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE AND MANAGEMENT

Mike VolpeStartup Growth Advisor and Angel Investor

Former Employee #5 / CMO at HubSpot

@mvolpe

I joined HubSpot in 2007 as the fifth

employee and grew the marketing

team to 90 people. I love chocolate,

lead generation, whiskey, Excel, red

wine, marketing metrics and Jay Z. I

have advised and invested in more

than a dozen different startups and

hired over 100 marketers.

I’m Mike Volpe.

That’s @mvolpe on Twitter.

Hi.

AGENDA

1. Desired Skills

2. Sourcing

3. Screening and Interviewing

4. Organizational Structure

5. Management and Incentives

1 Desired Skills for Your

Marketing Team

Desired Skills for Great Marketers

Digital

Analytical

Reach

Content

DIGITAL

Look for people who

speak “digital” without

an accent.

Digital natives or

immigrants are both

fine as long as they

have full digital

citizenship.

ANALYTICALEveryone should be

more analytical than

the average person

in their role

elsewhere.

Even a writer should

want to evaluate

their performance

using metrics.

REACH

Great marketers

leave evidence that

they have a

gravitational pull.

They have done

something that

“attracted” people

to them or their work

before.

Find people who

create content by

their nature, not arm

twisting.

You do not want

content creation to

be a chore.

CONTENT

SKILLS BY FUNNEL STAGE

CloseConvertAttract

Key Skills• Blogging

• Social Media

• SEO

• Writing, Design,

Creative

D A R C

Key Skills• Optimization: LPs,

CTAs, Workflows

• Analytics

• Lead Scoring

D A R C

Key Skills• Product expert

• Teacher / trainer

• User testing

• Messaging

• Persuasion

D A R C

2 SOURCING GREAT

MARKETERS

SOURCING MARKETING HIRES

Always be hiring.

1. Referrals

2. Conferences

3. Networking events

4. Online networking

5. LinkedIn

Keep a list of the top 10-30

marketers you think are A+

players and stalk / nurture

them.

3 SCREENING AND

INTERVIEWING

Screening CandidatesScan the application / resume

• No AOL or Hotmail email addresses and no paper resumes

• Demonstrated track record of success and growth

• Domain expertise and inbound marketing experience /

certifications

Google their name

• Strong LinkedIn presence, check for mutual connections

• Decent sized digital footprint

• Decent quality digital footprint

Interviewing Marketers

1. Funnel Question

2. Lead Scoring Question

3. Website Homepage Question

The Funnel Question

“Pretend you're the CMO for

this company, and you have

to decide on what your

marketing team should

focus. What do you do?"

25,000 Visitors

250 Leads

100 Sales Ready Leads

25 Opportunities

5 Customers

The Lead Scoring Question

“I just emailed you an Excel file of 10,000 leads with data like

company size and industry for each of them, and you can see

the 200 leads that became customers. How can you use that

data to make a lead score to help us prioritize leads in the

future?”

The Website Homepage Question

“The CEO likes version

A, the COO likes version

B, and the company is

evenly divided. Which

homepage do you

launch?”

Millions Love Our Company

Text text text Text texttext Text text text Texttext text

Text text text Text texttext Text text text Texttext text Text text

[Video]

Make More Money With Us• Text text text Text text

text Text text text Text

text text text text

• Text text text Text text

text Text text text

• Text text text Text text

text Text text text Text

[Picture 1]

[Picture 2]

4 ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE

Organization by Team Size

AttractAttract,

Convert

+ Close

Team = 9Team = 3Team = 1 Team = 18

Convert

Close

Attract (2)

Convert +

Close

OR

Attract (5)Blog = 2

Offers = 1

SEO/SM = 1

Design = 1

Convert (2)

Close (2)

Attract (9)Blog = 3

Offers = 2

SEO/SM = 2

Design = 2

Convert (6)By Persona, Geo or

Sales Team

Close (3)PM / SE Split, or by

Product

HubSpot Mktg Org Over Time

2012(25 ppl)

2009(8 ppl)

2007(2 ppl)

2014(70 ppl)

VP• Lead gen &

inbound

background

• Management of

15

College Grad• 2 internships

• Generalist

ToFu Team• 3 people

MoFu Team

• 3 people

Teams by

Channel (email,

blog, social)

MoFu Teams by

Personas

Prod Mktg

VP/Dir Content

VP/Dir Funnel

VP/Dir Product Mktg

VP/Dir Brand & Buzz

(detail on next slide)

HubSpot Marketing in 2014

Dir. Product

Mktg (~12)VP Funnel

(~30)VP Content

(~12)

Dir. Brand &

Buzz (~13)

Results / Metrics• Website visitors

• New contacts

generated

Activity• Blog articles

• Ebooks &

webinars

• Other content

Results / Metrics• Marketing

pipeline

• Sales goal %

Activity• Lead nurturing

• Lead scoring

• Sales alignment

• Optimization

Results / Metrics

• Sales test scores

• % sales selling

various features

Activity• Product content

• Sales

enablement

Results / Metrics

• PR hits

• Event #s and

feedback

• Satisfaction of others

Activity• PR & Events

• Creative: Videos,

graphics, design

CloseConvertAttract

5 MANAGEMENT AND

INCENTIVES

Monthly Cadence

Goals for

month set by

CMO

Team decides

on activities

Team

executes on

activities

Team reports

on metrics /

activity

CMO

Feedback to

Teams

No Commissions in Marketing

• Incentives tied to a specific metric (“e.g. “leads”)

Lowers lead quality

Reduces collaboration

Stifles creativity and big thinking

Focuses team on short term, not long term

• More:

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-incentive-

compensation

Drive by Daniel Pink (book)

My Management Philosophy• Goals: Clearly explain to people the outcomes and results we want

and why we need them for the business

• Metrics: Let the metrics crack the whip for you

• Hiring: Hire the right people, get rid of the wrong people

• Mentoring: Mentor people by offering advice, context and

perspective

• Management: Get out of the way, rarely tell anyone what to do, let

them surprise you

Thank You!

If you liked this, you should:

Follow me on Twitter

www.twitter.com/mvolpe

Subscribe to my blog (1-2 articles

/ month or less):

www.MikeVolpe.com