How Many People do In-House Teams Need to do Inbound Marketing Effectively

To drive optimal results for every one of your inbound marketing campaigns, you need an effective team in place, all specialising in different areas. It’s just not possible to do it all alone. We’re talking along the lines of The Avengers - the best in the business all committed to using their unique skill sets to make sure each campaign is a home run.

From pay-per-click (PPC) right through to content writing and search engine optimisation (SEO), here’s how many people you need to create an effective team.

Marketing Agency

The great thing about adding members to your in-house team is that you’re getting marketers that all specialise in different areas. You’ll have some dedicating their lives to code while others will be typing and researching away for hours. Click on the links below to jump to each job role to read more about them.

However, tight budgets mean you can't go out searching for a couple of people in each role. Instead, T-shaped marketers are being relief on as these types of marketers have broad knowledge covering a wide range of digital tactics with in-depth knowledge in a handful of areas - as opposed to just one.

So, these marketers aren't just doing inbound as they'll have skills in other areas too, such as events, for example.

Team Sheet Examples

To get you started, check out some example team sheets below to give you a rough guideline on the number of marketers you'll need and in which area.

Four People

One blog a week
One download per quarter (with email nurturing)
PPC and paid social
What you need: one writer, one designer and developers, one PPC/social specialist, one Project Manager, strategist and proofer.

Five People

Two blogs a week
Two downloads per quarter (with email nurturing)
PPC and paid social
What you need: two writers, one designer and developers, one PPC/social specialist, one Project Manager, strategist and proofer.

Six People

Three blogs a week
Two downloads per quarter (with email nurturing)
PPC and paid social
SEO
What you need: two writers, one designer and developers, one PPC/social specialist, one SEO specialist one Project Manager, strategist and proofer.

A Content Team

The success of inbound campaigns relies heavily on consistent and quality content. To do that, you’ll evidently need more than one writer as it’s more than just writing blogs for a full day.

Writers/Content Marketers

To do inbound marketing effectively, you’re going to need to invest in writers. The more campaigns you have, the more writers you’re probably going to need to keep up with the workload and the varying content tasks that fall on their desk.

Of course, blog writing is involved. In addition to that, there are downloadable pieces ranging from eBooks to pillar pages that need to be curated. There’s webpage copy that they’ll need to create as well as meta descriptions. By creating content here, that also means you’ll need people to proofread that content to make sure it’s optimised and error-free to help with campaign success.

That’s why it’s better to have more than one writer. They’ll come up with better ideas, they can all help with campaign planning and more to help convert visitors into leads through that content.

Content Designer

It would be a waste to have so much content coming out of your content team without it looking attractive. That’s why you’ll need a specific content designer in place who can grab all of those words and turn each blog or download into something that looks visually appealing.

While it’s important that the content itself has enough value to answer pain points, it’s just as important to have something your target audience will be enticed to read in the first place.

Content typing on laptop

Content Manager

To tie all of the above together and create a seamless process, you’ll need a Content Manager in place. This role is also vital towards successful campaigns as the Content Manager oversees the daily running of everything going on with the content team.

This includes constructing marketing strategies, reviewing all content, liaising with other teams and booking in work so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. As talented as your writers will be, there needs to be someone in place to ensure everything runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis.

Video Production

There’s now more emphasis than ever on video marketing for inbound success. So, there’s obviously a need for investing in video equipment, technology and a video producer to manage it all.

Video Producer/Editor

Sure, you can go out and buy all the video equipment and try yourself. If anything, it’s recommended that your whole team buys-in to video marketing. Just like every other role, though, you need that expertise to produce the best video content possible.

A video producer will provide innovative video content to strengthen your inbound marketing strategy. This involves doing storyboards, booking and running video shoots, editing footage and bringing it all together so that it helps to attract new leads and strengthen inbound strategies.

Your video producer can even be part of your wider content team, as work they do can often work hand in hand.

Design and Development

Just like content, design and development plays an integral role towards inbound marketing success. Content and graphics, in general, need to look appealing while websites using the Growth Driven Design (GDD) methodology need talented developers in place that understand the world of code.

Designers

Just like you’ll need more than one writer to create an effective content team, the same applies to your designers. This is because working on various projects can increase the workload so to avoid risking a dip in quality, consider investing in two instead - even if one is in a more senior role if the experience is there.

You need designers in place that can oversee every single design project from conception right through to delivery. Designers are important, as they’ll be on hand to create amazing visuals that the inbound marketing, GDD and content teams will all need.

It’s not just for blogs either. They’ll be engrossed in creating engaging visuals for downloadable pieces, call-to-actions (CTAs) and images that’ll be featured on websites. It all helps towards generating new lead clients to websites and that contributes to overall inbound success.

Designers on Mac

Developers

You need special skills to be a developer as they operate in an entirely different language. It’s not something just anybody can do. The developers you bring in will work closely with your designers as they build and tailor new websites by implementing GDD.

This involves general maintenance of websites while providing functionality support to ensure every website they create is to the highest standard.

To find the best developer possible, make sure they’re proficient in using programming codes such as CSS, HubL and HTML. These skills help massively towards creating brilliant websites that exceed expectations.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) Analyst

In inbound marketing, it’s all about catering to your personas and ideal audience. When you throw GDD into the mix, it’s vital you have a CRO analyst in place who is dedicated to seeing how users perform when on websites.

This is vital. By analysing user experience on websites by using tools like conversion funnels, visitor recording, heat maps and more, they’re able to determine how you can improve a website’s usability. Overall, it helps to shape ongoing development so your website sets you up for more inbound success.

A Design and Development Manager

Even if there are senior roles in the above, just like a content team, it’s important to have someone to report to. That’s why you should also have a Design and Development Manager in place who can oversee the daily runnings of the team.

Just like a Content Manager, they’re able to book work in, review tasks, liaise with other teams, clients and more. In general, it helps to have someone create a process that works perfectly.

PPC and Social Media

Social media is massive when it comes to inbound success. That’s why investing in PPC marketers and social media marketers are essential as they both very closely together during social media strategies.

PPC Marketer

A PPC marketer is needed so that they’re able to manage paid search and paid social media posts. This helps to see if the budget is being spent in the right place when it comes to paid ads.

PPC marketers are there to use PPC to boost the right traffic to websites, increase sales and manage advertising costs. Without PPC marketing, you’re likely to be losing out on valuable traffic and revenue.

Social Media Marketer

As we mentioned, social media is key to inbound success. That’s why social media marketers are needed so that they can develop effective social media strategies. This includes them driving results forward with the best social media content, management and analysis.

It’s not just about sharing the blogs your content team writes either. They’ll be searching for trustworthy websites for relevant news about your industry to share so that you get the best reach and results.

SEO

SEO all revolves around attracting more traffic by improving your website’s rankings. Working alongside inbound marketing, you need bodies with expert SEO knowledge that have the tactics and knowledge of how they can help you excel in that area.

SEO Marketers

You’ll need SEO marketers so that they make sure you have the best organic visibility - as it’s not all about that paid search. They’ll be tasked with researching keywords so your wider teams know what to target as well as looking into data to see where other improvements can be made.

They’re important to bring on board as their specialism is looking at the technical side of your website. This way, they’ll ensure all of the correct factors and methods are in place so that you can remain an organic success by enhancing your visibility on search engines.

Inbound Strategists and Marketers

To really succeed and excel at inbound marketing, you not only need marketers that work on the day-to-day aspects, but perhaps even strategists that shape your campaign plans. It’s just so that you can distribute the workload more evenly but to have the additional support that’s needed.

Marketers on computers

Inbound Strategists

You’re going to need an inbound strategist in place so that they’re able to piece together your campaigns. This includes innovative download pieces so that they can help to generate traffic and increase lead conversions.

By having someone in place to put together the foundations of an effective inbound campaign, you’re able to have someone to rely on when it comes to keyword research, persona creation and buyer journeys. All of this is vital as it helps to achieve qualified lead traffic as well as ROI.

It all helps with growth, and growth does equate to success.

Inbound Marketers

Marketers are needed to help create those all-important campaign plans. You need them because they’ll be able to analyse the performance of each campaign you create and they can determine ways to improve click-through and conversion rates on your web pages.

They’re also in a position to create email workflows for each stage of the buyers journey, set up landing pages, CTAs and more so that they can help convert your contacts into better leads.

Project Managers

Finally, to tie all of the above together and to make sure you have one seamless and effective operation in place, you’ll need a Project Manager. You might even need coordinators working under the project manager if you’re a much larger company that needs a bigger team to create and manage your campaigns.

Project Managers and Coordinators

The fact is, you can’t chase up every task or team member to see where everything is up to. Things can get lost in communication and it’s not an efficient way of working - it can slow your entire process down.

By having managers and coordinators in place, you’ll know that there are roles in place to make sure every campaign is running smoothly. They’re able to make sure each project is delivered on time while working with the wider team to manage capacities so that each individual within your inbound marketing team can deliver results on time.

Using an Agency

As you can tell, it’s not just about having people to fill those roles. You need to find the time to find the right fit and have the right skill set who can excel in those roles. The problem here, though, is potentially going over your budget by paying a salary to everyone in your team. This is why it can be beneficial to outsource your inbound marketing efforts to an expert agency.

Some of the benefits include:

You pay for a diverse set of skills.
You get newer and different ideas.
They’re always ahead of the curve.
You invest in expertise.
Cost-saving in the long run.
Help you to stay relevant to your industry.
They offer measurable results.
They’re passionate about inbound success and achieving growth.
They have the necessary tools to use.

Learn More About the Inbound Process

Even if you do decide to use an agency, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to learn about inbound marketing. It’s great to have that knowledge which you can implement yourself down the line ranging from tracking URLs right through to the importance of blogging.

There’s plenty to get through but we can’t fit all of that useful information here. So, we’ve made life easier for you by creating an easy-to-read guide.

To learn more about inbound marketing and what else can be done to drive results and create successful campaigns, check out the link below.

How Many People do In-House Teams Need to do Inbound Marketing Effectively