How to Structure Your SaaS Marketing Team: Expert Tips

A great SaaS marketing team structure needs dedicated managers and specialists for each channel. Discover how to build a successful team and learn which roles to hire now.

Here, you’ll find:

• What makes a good SaaS marketing team structure
• Common mistakes when building a SaaS team
• Why the structure of your marketing team is important

Having the right team members with the right skills is critical to your SaaS company’s success.

In this article, we’ll explore tips for building an effective SaaS marketing team structure, including insights from Sam Yadegar, CEO of HawkSEM.

How to structure your SaaS marketing teams

SaaS companies often structure marketing teams based on shared goals, capabilities, and channels. Here are five types of SaaS teams to consider building:

• Demand generation team: Focuses on building visibility and traffic for a new product or feature. This team should have experts in search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, remarketing, and content marketing (consider hiring a digital marketing agency within your marketing budget to maximize results).
• Product marketing team: Focuses on product pricing, positioning, messaging, and storytelling to increase interest. This team should include a product marketer, content strategist, and copywriter.
• Growth marketing team: Focuses on customer acquisition and retention to maximize revenue. This team should include a growth marketer, data analyst, pay-per-click (PPC) expert, and user experience (UX) designer.
• Brand marketing team: Focuses on increasing brand awareness so your name comes up whenever prospects think of your industry. This team should include a brand strategist, creative assistant, graphic designer, and copywriter.
• Inbound marketing team: Focuses on generating incoming traffic from prospects in all stages of the journey. This team should have a content strategist, digital marketer, analyst, graphic designer, and content writer.

SaaS demand generation team

A typical demand generation team includes:

• Demand generation manager: Oversees all demand generation efforts and processes, including marketing strategies and channels and database and pipeline management.
• Social media marketing specialist: Creates a social media strategy for LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and other platforms, with the goal of attracting potential customers and using social selling techniques.
• SEO specialist: Develops and implements an SEO strategy to attract organic search traffic, including tactics like keyword research, on-page SEO, and technical SEO.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) specialist: Identifies ideal high-value accounts for your SaaS company and creates an outbound strategy to reach key figures using personalized messaging.

SaaS product marketing team

A typical product marketing team includes:

• Product marketing manager: Oversees every project and team member in this department and handles personas and messaging.
• Sales enablement specialist: Ensures the team creates content sales teams can use to convert more leads into customers (e.g., guides, product demos, tutorials).
• Product designer: Designs the interface of the product to ensure it’s intuitive and easy to use, plus improves the product and bugs based on customer feedback.
• UX writer: Works with the product designer to ensure the text on the product is accessible, easy to read, and intuitive for users.
• Product owner: Manages the product roadmap and works with the developers to get it accomplished (based on customer feedback from customer support)
• Service marketing manager: Keeps track of marketing metrics (e.g., launches, campaigns, customers, markets, etc.) to ensure everything’s on track with reaching company goals and provides insights to improve campaign outcomes.

SaaS growth marketing team

A typical growth marketing team includes:

• Growth marketing manager: Oversees the strategy for driving awareness and expanding the brand’s customer base, typically via PPC and social media.
• Conversion rate optimization (CRO) expert: Analyzes conversions on landing pages and other key website pages and runs experiments to improve conversion rates.
• PPC expert: Runs, analyzes, and optimizes search, display, shopping, and other types of advertising campaigns across Google, Bing, Amazon, and other networks.
• Data analyst: Manages and analyzes PPC and CRO data, applies statistical models, and identifies trends.

SaaS brand marketing team

A typical brand marketing team includes:

• Creative director: Oversees the design and style of all brand assets across channels like the website, email marketing, and social media.
• Brand strategist: Manages the brand’s positioning in the market by performing competitive research and conducting customer research.
• Public relations (PR) manager: Builds relationships with press outlets, influencers, and publishers and shares news and press releases with the goal of securing earned media.
• Copywriter: Writes copy for the brand’s website, including the homepage, product and service pages, about page, and pricing page.

SaaS inbound marketing team

A typical inbound marketing team includes:

• Content strategist: Uses business goals and keyword research to develop and oversee a content strategy that may include blog posts, lead magnets, video scripts, and more.
• Content writer: Implements the content strategist’s plan by writing short- and long-form content for the company’s website.
• Email marketer: Manages email sequences and builds behavior-based subscriber segments, distributes company news and content via newsletters, and analyzes results to improve performance.
• Graphic designer: Prepares graphics for your SaaS company’s website, marketing emails, and social media content using your brand’s design guidelines.

What makes a good SaaS marketing team structure

A good SaaS marketing team structure should have dedicated teams and managers for each channel.

Some key roles on a typical SaaS marketing team include:

• Head of marketing
• Managers or team leads to oversee individual contributors
• Marketing experts (individual contributors) to execute the tasks
• Agency partner for PPC and SEO
• Agency partner for product development work

With this setup, you have a lean in-house team doing the bare minimum to keep your SaaS marketing operations going. Then you save money by outsourcing PPC, SEO, and development to agencies, since this is something you want to scale up and down as markets and demand shift.

Designing your team hierarchy

Before you hire your marketing team, determine what structure will work best for your business. The typical organizational structure in a large company will look a little something like this:

• Senior level role: Includes Vice presidents, Chief Marketing Officers, and Director roles that oversee all marketing teams.
• Manager level roles: Includes Digital Marketing Managers, Growth Marketing Managers, Content Marketing Managers, Marketing Operations Managers, Social Media Managers, and Product Marketing Managers that oversee the marketing efforts in their division.
• Channel/division roles: Includes Digital Marketers, Product Marketers, Content Marketers, and Conversion Rate Specialists that perform the duties within their channel.

Who each role reports is clearly defined: Teams in each channel report to the manager of that division, and the division manager reports to the senior level manager.

Building a successful SaaS marketing team

In a survey conducted by Swipe Files, 48% of SaaS companies have a marketing team of one to five people. And another 34% have no team at all (team of one). So it appears many like to keep their marketing team size lean.

But this doesn’t mean they do it all themselves.

The same survey finds 51% of SaaS companies outsource to one to three freelancers and contractors.

Surprisingly, not many are leveraging agencies to maximize their outcomes (which we highly recommend). Only 18% work with one to five agencies.

Should you be a part of the majority? Absolutely not. Partnering with an agency presents an opportunity to do what your competitors aren’t by scaling up your operations — whether it’s content output or advertising efforts.

What if your team size is small because you’re a startup?

In this case, you want a more linear structure than a hierarchical one. For example, you’ll have a generalist marketing manager who can oversee the tasks of cross-channel teams. This may include a content marketer, web designer, user experience (UX) designer, copywriter, and SEO specialist.

Then as your SaaS company grows, you can use agencies and freelancers your marketing team members can leverage to maximize their efforts. They’ll need more hands on deck to push out more content, manage product and site optimization at a larger scale, and grow PPC ad campaigns.

Common mistakes when building a SaaS team

Who you bring (or don’t bring) aboard your SaaS marketing team can be the difference between launching effective campaigns and stalling your growth.

Here’s an overview of the most common mistakes SaaS companies make with their marketing team structures.

Not having a clear goal or mission for the team

Some SaaS businesses are focused on growth, while others want to build a media-style company. These two require unique teams to make either strategy a success.

Not hiring enough people for the team

Lean marketing machines can work, but only if you have the right core people on the team. You can always expand your operations by bringing on an agency to fill in the gaps and scale output as needed.

Not having the right mix of skill sets on the team

If your goal is to improve product marketing, then you need people on your team that know how to interview customers, analyze feedback, collaborate with the product team, and effectively communicate your product’s features, use cases, and case studies to prospective buyers.

Not hiring the right first marketing leader

Hiring your team’s first marketing leader is a crucial decision. You need an experienced marketer who can lead your company, oversee multiple channels, build a team, and outsource as necessary. Here’s what to look for:

• Industry experience: Look for a marketer with prior experience in SaaS. Even better if they have prior startup experience and if they’ve worked for companies in your vertical before.
• Leadership experience: Your first marketing leader doesn’t need prior experience as a CMO or VP of marketing. But they should have experience managing other marketers as a team lead or director.
• T-shaped marketer: In many cases, your first marketing hire will be a one-person team. You need someone who’s T-shaped, or who has both a breadth of essential skills and a depth of expertise in one area.

Not investing in marketing channel experts

Yadegar believes that having a single marketing manager or director overseeing and managing multiple channels — such as PPC, content, and email marketing — is a big no-no.

“Instead, partnering with the right agency gives a concentrated effort to each channel,” he explains. “The internal in-house marketing manager can focus on strategy and business goals, while the right agency partner takes on digital strategy and execution. It’s also challenging (and costly) to build out your marketing team to have a dedicated member for each channel.”

Your B2B SaaS marketing team doesn’t have to be entirely in-house. Hire who you need to keep your business goals on track and outsource to an agency that can execute those goals.

Think you have to wait until your team reaches a certain size before you consider outsourcing? Think again. Experienced agencies offer value at every growth stage.

“The right agency has seen many SaaS brands at different maturity levels,” explains Yadegar. “Some agencies can help very early on before you even build a team by helping construct the marketing strategy as well as resources needed. All the way to a marketing agency working with an existing team of 10+ in-house marketers that need help removing tunnel vision.”

Not hiring the right marketing agency

Not every agency will be the ideal fit for your SaaS company. So, how do you hire the right agency team to complement your own?

Yadegar recommends that marketing leaders:

• Review agency case studies to understand the types of clients they’ve worked with and the results they’ve achieved. Ideally, you’ll work with an agency that already has experience with your vertical.
• Understand the agency’s team structure and areas of expertise. Ideally, you’ll hire an agency that has seasoned team members with deep experience in the channels where you need the most help.
• Know the agency’s reporting style and cadence. Ideally, you’ll work with an agency that provides the data you need, along with insights and action plans.

Before contracting an agency, Yadegar recommends getting a detailed proposal first. When in doubt, ask for clarification to ensure your partnership includes exactly what you expect.

Why the structure of your marketing team is important

A properly structured SaaS marketing team ensures you have team members who can manage the various parts of a marketing strategy.

Without these key members, planning and executing your SaaS marketing team becomes significantly more difficult.

“SaaS companies structure their sales team to have a fluid pipeline — from the initial touch point of a sales development rep to an account executive,” says Yadegar. “Their marketing teams should also have a funnel-based structure.”

Yadegar notes there should be channel experts spearheading initiatives, while senior-level managers guide strategy (while still being hands-on). Then everyone reports to a Director or CMO.

“Taking an integrated approach with both sales and marketing can create a better customer experience,” Yadegar explains. “Coordinating from initial marketing ad copy all the way down to the pitch deck will help increase buyer trust”

Not having the right team architecture can lead to miscommunication with marketing efforts. This could result in confusing the target audience, since there’s no unified approach to lead generation and sales pipelines.

The takeaway

Your SaaS business is only as good as your marketing team. Without the right talents and characteristics, you’ll struggle with long-term success.

Your team members should also be adept at taking constructive criticism. In marketing, there’s a lot of experimentation, which means things won’t always go according to plan. Those who hold grudges or take feedback personally won’t thrive in a marketing environment, especially in a B2B SaaS company receiving dynamic insights from customers and analytics tools. Things move fast, so the ability to keep up will be critical.

Combining skills and characteristics will ensure you’re getting people who know what they’re doing and can play well together.

If you need help fleshing out your SaaS marketing team and filling in gaps necessary to grow your company, then let’s talk.