7 Keys to Unleashing Your Marketing Team

Marketing teams are a breed of their own. 

They don’t consist of a single function, skill, or experience.

Rather, marketing teams are a delightful blend of equal parts art and science. 

You see, they bring together the creative realm—think copywriting, design, and branding—with the scientific aspects of marketing, such as channel optimization, forecasting and budgeting, and predictive analysis. 

For those who have spent any time in marketing, then you know first-hand that marketing team members are just as diverse as the tasks they tackle.

That’s why it’s crucial, as a marketing leader, to appreciate the dynamic nature of your marketing team if you want to position them—as well as your team and company—to succeed.

Consider this:

The way you nurture the art of marketing is markedly different from how you manage the science of marketing. So, your approach to these two domains should also be distinct, yet integrated.

Throughout my career, I've had the chance to build and manage two marketing teams: one for a FinTech startup and another for a privately-owned, bootstrapped SaaS company. Additionally, I've led smaller teams and worked within larger ones.

The insights I've gleaned on how to best position marketers for success come from a blend of hands-on experience, attending classes, reading voraciously, and learning from some of the best in the industry. Notably, Todd Henry's book Herding Tigers: Be the Leader That Creative People Need by Scott Henry helped me synthesize much of what I'm about to share with you.

So, without further ado, here are my seven steps to cultivating a high-performance marketing team:

1. Serve your team
2. Foster psychological safety & open communication
3. Establish well-defined expectations
4. Entrust and empower your team
5. Facilitate collaborative excellence
6. Inspire a culture of development
7. Cultivate efficiency and responsibility

Let’s get started. 

1. Serve your team

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

This piece of advice was shared with me years ago by a man who was like a father to me during my high school and college years. At first, it didn't make a significant impact, but it has served me well throughout my professional career, especially in leadership positions.

Do you know what else? 

According to a Gallup poll, your team members want to know if you, or anyone at your company, genuinely cares about them as individuals.

So, don't dismiss this as a passing fad or business trend (i.e., “bring your whole self to work”). 

Caring about the people you lead is foundational to unleashing the full potential of your team.

As a marketing leader, it's essential to care for the people you serve. 

Opinions may differ on how much we should or shouldn't share in the workplace, but in general, I believe that if you're leading people, you should care about them on both personal and professional levels. Don’t be afraid to share things about yourself and appear vulnerable—it’s actually a strong leadership trait.

Here's how:

• Be inclined toward people
• Be available
• Embrace servant leadership
• Publicly praise

Let me explain.‍

Be Inclined Toward People

Are you interested in pursuing a leadership position? 

If so, I would argue you should be inclined toward people.

I'm not saying you have to be exceptionally gregarious or extroverted. Instead, you should have a general inclination toward working with people and being interested in them. 

Here's why:

When you're leading people, you'll spend more time with your team members than doing the work yourself (or at least you should, depending on the context). Your days won't always go according to plan. Things will come up, mistakes will happen, changes will occur, and schedules will be altered.

While these disruptions can be frustrating, it's important to remember that dealing with people can be messy. Embracing this reality can help you avoid perpetual frustration, which brings me to my next point.‍

Be Available

One guarantee of leading a marketing team is dealing with personal problems among your team members. This is natural and should be expected.

In fact, one study suggested that leaders in some industries spend as much as 2.5 hours per week addressing personal issues within their teams.

While this number may vary depending on team size, the underlying principle remains the same: as a leader, you will have to be available to handle personal problems, whether you like it or not.

Why? 

Because you're working with people, not machines, and life is challenging. 

Since you spend a significant amount of time with your team, it's no surprise that you'll have to address issues as they arise. If this responsibility doesn't appeal to you, then you should reconsider your desire or position as a leader. However, if you're willing to help others, be prepared to learn how to handle various situations. 

• Be available
• Be flexible
• Ask insightful questions
• Listen attentively

You don't have to be the source of all answers. 

Often, simply being available and willing to listen can go a really long way.

Embrace Servant Leadership

As a marketing leader, you possess the power to hire and fire. 

However, having this power doesn't mean it should be exerted forcefully.

Keep in mind that marketing teams are unique. 

If you haven't realized it yet, using power isn't the most effective approach to inspire someone to perform at their best. That's why I advocate for embracing servant leadership.

If you're unfamiliar with this concept, servant leadership is an approach that prioritizes your team’s:

• Well-being
• Performance
• Personal and professional growth 

This leadership style emphasizes influencing someone through trust, respect, and collaboration, rather than relying on power to command others.

For marketing teams, servant leadership is particularly effective in creating a supportive environment that fosters both individual performance and teamwork.

• Ask your team what you can do
• See if there’s anyway you can help them
• Let them know you’re there to support them

For further study, here are some recommended books on the topic:

• The Servant as Leader by Robert K. Greenleaf
• The Secret by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller
• The Serving Leader by Kenneth R. Jennings and John Stahl-Wert
• Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Publicly Praise Your Team

There's one thing a marketing leader doesn't do: all of the work. 

Why bring up something obvious? 

Simple. 

Because when it comes to discussing your team's work, performance, and results, you should take the time to publicly praise those on your team who contributed to the work.

Whether it's in group Slack channels, marketing team meetings, or company-wide updates, be sure to take the time to thank your team in general, or to highlight individual contributors when it's relevant and you're able. This recognition goes a long way toward boosting morale and a sense of belonging and accomplishment among your team members.

2. Foster Psychological Safety & Open Communication

This is a big one for me on a personal level, as well as a servant leader. 

I’ve experienced the power psychological safety and open communication can have on both myself and the teams I’ve served.

What exactly is psychological safety?

Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Amy Gallo explains:

“Team psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.”

Here’s the reality:

No one's perfect.

I make mistakes.

You make mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes.

And if you or no one on your team are making mistakes, then there's a good chance you’re not pushing boundaries or moving fast enough. To be clear, in marketing you want your team to, as the entrepreneurial world likes to say, “move fast and break things.”

So, as a marketing leader, you should:

• Challenge your team
• Encourage them to push the envelope
• Encourage them to take risks
• Give them room to make mistakes
• Don’t belittle them publicly
• Make it safe to share mistakes or concerns
• Give them room to share their ideas
• Invite their feedback on what you’re doing
• Provide them room to fail

These are just some ways you can create a psychologically safe environment with open communication. 

And, for what it’s worth, here’s one thing I’ve shared with my team members:

It’s okay to make mistakes and experience a level of underperformance—just be proactive in thinking through how to resolve the challenges.

I wanted them to know I wasn’t too concerned about mistakes in general. Instead, I wanted to create an environment where we owned our numbers, shared them transparently, and then identified ways to remedy underperformance or fix a mistake.

So, don’t worry if something isn’t going as planned, or if you made a mistake. 

Instead, focus more on the issue, clarify action steps, and then share the plan.

Yes, underperformance and some mistakes can be bad.

But you know what’s worse?

Not knowing why or not doing anything about it.

Model and encourage your team members to openly discuss what's not working well, why that might be, and the steps they'll take to enhance their performance.

However, we can't stop there.

We must find a way to balance psychological safety and open communication with challenging work, ensuring a dynamic and effective marketing team, which leads us to the next point.

3. Establish well-defined expectations 

‍

Leading a marketing team is similar to overseeing a construction site.

In both cases, everyone should have a specific role and responsibility, and clear expectations are critical for success. 

In construction, teams rely on blueprints to guide their work. Every individual on the site has a specific role and responsibility. If expectations are unclear, workers may duplicate efforts, leave gaps, or create an unstable structure.

Similarly, in marketing, your team relies on a marketing strategy to work from and you must provide your team with clear expectations. This ensures that everyone understands their responsibilities, the desired outcomes, and how to collaborate effectively.

Surprisingly, many employees feel uncertain about their expectations. 

According to a Gallup poll, only about half of employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work.

If you're leading a team or aspire to lead one, it's your responsibility to set up your team for success by establishing clear expectations. To be honest, this hasn't always been my strong suit. 

For instance, I’m not a trained HR professional. In two of the organizations I’ve served as a Director of Marketing, I didn’t have HR support. So, what I learned, I had to figure this out on my own and get what help I could (and this is totally okay, and quite frankly, I enjoy learning and figuring things out). 

Before getting into creating clear expectations below, remember, what I’m going to share should be anchored in a psychologically safe environment. 

With that being said, to establish clear expectations, focus on clarifying three areas:

1. Role
2. Responsibilities
3. Goals

Here they are. 

Role

A team member's role is simply their job title.

Responsibilities

A team member's responsibilities make up their job description. 

To ensure clarity, consider the following questions:

• What is their primary goal?
• What are the top 3-5 things they’re responsible for?
• What is the scope of work they own?
• What tasks and outcomes are they responsible for?
• Do they know what their workload will look like on any given week?

The answer to these questions are normally how I craft an initial job description. 

Now, if you're struggling to define responsibilities, envision conducting an annual review. 

What are the 1-3 things you'd assess your team members on? 

This exercise can help you pinpoint their responsibilities.

Goals

Set clear goals for your team members (e.g., OKRs, Waterfall Goals, KPIs). 

Regardless of what approach you take, ensure their goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound). 

For example:

• Increase website traffic by 75% in Q1 2024.
• Increase email open rate by 40% by Q2 2024.
• Increase the CTR of our brand campaign in Google Ads by 25% in Q3 2023.
• Generate 100 new leads in Q3 2023.
• Publish 20 new blog posts in Q1 2024.

Collaborating with your team members to develop goals is one thing. 

Holding them accountable, well, that’s an entirely different ballgame. But don’t worry, you’ll figure out how you can best handle this part of the deal. 

Before you create goals, keep this one thing in mind:

Marketing goals should align with overall business objectives. 

So, begin with the business goal, then determine your marketing team's primary goal, and finally, establish individual team member goals that contribute to your overarching marketing objectives. In short, everyone’s work should individually contribute to or influence your marketing teams’ goal. 

Pro Tip: For smaller organizations, be prepared to adapt team members' roles, responsibilities, or goals as your overall business strategy changes. Embrace flexibility and work closely with your team to adjust their work accordingly.]

4. Entrust and empower your team

Don’t be a micromanager.

For starters, micromanagers are terrible. 

And, more importantly, micromanagement stifles creativity, performance, and creates an unhealthy environment within a marketing team. 

Technically, I could end this section here.

However, let's explore some nuances and details.

Here's what I've learned about trusting your team members:

• Pilot the plan, pass on performance
• Hire skillful, interdependent, and driven individuals
• Provide them with trust, freedom, and time

These points assume you're equipping your team members with the necessary software and tools to do their job, as well as developing a marketing strategy and clarifying expectations so everyone knows what to do.

With that said, let's dig in.

Pilot the plan, pass on performance

If you want to lead and serve a marketing team, one of the most critical questions you need to answer is this:

Can you comfortably spend more time guiding the work rather than executing it?

If not, that's perfectly fine.

Although you might feel pressured for various reasons to pursue a "promotion" that entails leading a team and managing the work, you don't have to accept it if you prefer being directly involved in the work.

However, if leading a marketing team is your goal or current responsibility, please consider the following:

Your primary focus should be on directing the work, not handling all the tasks yourself.

The specifics of this approach will vary depending on the situation.

Your role and organization will determine how much work you must do. This is typically the case in small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) or smaller marketing teams, which is what I personally prefer. In other scenarios, you may devote most of your time to overseeing the work.

Regardless of the circumstances, when leading various team members, your responsibility is to set them on the right path (strategy), clarify their expectations, and then step back.

How can you achieve this?

By granting them the freedom and flexibility they need to produce their best work.

Hire Skillful, Interdependent, and Driven People

The first part of this is relatively easy.

When hiring for a position, provide a technical assessment to ensure the candidate can do the job. For many positions, you can offer a candidate interviewing for a position a paid assessment. This will give you a good idea of what it’s like working together, and it’ll also let you know whether or not someone can technically do the work. 

The next two aspects are a bit trickier.

It's challenging to determine if someone will be interdependent and driven. However, you can identify signals that may indicate these traits.

Part of this process involves getting a sense of the person. Additionally, try to find the best questions to ask.

Initially, when reviewing a resume, look for results they produced. For example, you would want to focus more on a candidate who says they “grew organic traffic by 200%” in one year versus the candidate who simply says they “grew organic traffic.” This signal shows that the candidate thinks strategically and tactically about their work and its purpose. If they can do this, they're likely driven.

Here are some interview questions I've found helpful:

• What's your story? (gives me a sense of their personality)
• Do you prefer to work independently or as part of a team?
• How would the people you work with describe what it's like to work with you? Why?
• Have you ever had a disagreement at work? How did you resolve it?
• What do you like to do for fun?

While there may be other, better questions to ask, these have helped me initiate conversations and assess candidates over the past five years.

Also, consider having the interviewee meet someone from your marketing team and another department. This approach provides different perspectives on cultural fit.

Once you've hired the right person, it's time to let them soar.

‍Give them trust, freedom, and time

Did you hire someone to do a job?

Great.

Now point them in the right direction and let them work.

And don’t be a bottleneck.

Honestly, it's that simple.

If you've hired someone skillful, interdependent, and driven, one of your main tasks will be to ensure they don't overwork themselves—especially in remote environments.

Another important aspect is ensuring your team members have ample white space in their calendars. In other words, don’t schedule too many meetings. 

Here’s the deal: Marketers need time to create.

This applies to copywriters, content marketers, designers, performance marketers, and everyone on your team—including T-shaped marketers.

If you've done a good job creating a marketing strategy and clarifying expectations, then give your team autonomy. I'm not suggesting you avoid checking in with your team altogether. Instead, plan things well, hold weekly team meetings, conduct weekly one-on-ones (depending on the size of your organization and team), and schedule other meetings only as necessary. 

Hire good people.

Serve them well.

Set them up for success. 

Point them in the right direction.

Watch them—and your team—soar. 

5. Facilitate collaborative excellence

You cannot have a high-performing marketing team if your team members are unable to work together on projects and tasks. It ain’t just going to happen. 

Harking back to the construction analogy I shared earlier, if your team members are unable to work effectively together, then you will not be able to build-–implement—your marketing strategy. 

In creating a collaborative environment, several lessons from different sections are relevant here, including open communication, clear expectations, and empowerment and trust. 

But here are a few more ideas to consider:

• Have your marketing team join interviews
• Invite strategic input
• Encourage collaboration on projects
• Make it easy to collaborate 

Let me explain. 

Have your team join interviews

At some point in your hiring process, I’d encourage you to invite some or all of your marketing team to join at least one conversation. This way, your team can get an idea about the person you’re interviewing and how well he or she may be able to blend in with the team, which is especially important for smaller teams. 

Let me shoot you straight:

You can hire a technical rockstar, but if you have a small marketing team, and the person you hired doesn’t work well with others, then your team can quickly become demotivated and get off track. I’ve seen this happen first hand, and let me tell you: it ain’t pretty. 

Is this guaranteed to work?

No, but it at least will help you to be as sure as possible that you’re hiring the right person to join your team. 

Invite strategic input

This is something I learned from one of my boss’s years ago when I worked in the publishing industry, and it’s applicable to creating marketing strategies or campaigns in any environment. 

If you’re working on building a new marketing strategy or individual marketing campaign, and your team will be involved in implementing the work, then invite them to participate in coming up with the tactical work. 

Sure, you can probably do this on your own. But something powerful happens when you invite one of your team members to participate in coming up with the plan: it empowers them by increasing buy-in 
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Think about it like this:

When someone on your team comes up with whatever idea, and then they get a chance to work on that idea, then they’ll be more inclined to do so and energetic about it. Why? Because they had an opportunity to think about it and submit an idea, so they’ll be more bought into it. 

Besides, according to a Gallup poll (yes, I’ve referenced this multiple times), your team wants to know their opinion counts. So, give them an opportunity to share their opinion, and then, as you’re able, let their ideas be included. 

One way you can do this is by using a framework like ICE. I share here how I’ve used this to invite strategic input from my team members.

Encourage collaboration

I said this earlier, and it’s worth repeating here:

Hire good people, point them in the right direction, and then get out of their way. 

Does someone on your team need to talk with someone else on your team?

Obviously, let them talk and don’t worry about being in their meeting or conversation in Slack.

Does someone on your team need to talk with someone in a different department? 

Empower them to do so, and don't feel like you need to be involved in their conversation. If anything, let whomever they need to speak with know as an FYI. 

As long as everyone is clear on their expectations, then let them do their work as freely as possible. Last, make sure they know you’re available if they need to consult with you on any parts of the project.

Make it easy to collaborate

This ties into the resources I mentioned above–provide your team with the tools they need to do their job, and in this case, collaborate effectively together. 

Make sure your team at least has these two items:

• Messaging app (e.g., Slack)
• Project management tool (e.g., Asana, Wrike)

There are more and different tools you can use to collaborate, but these are the bare minimum of what you need. 

6. Inspire a culture of learning 

In marketing, you're either professionally growing or stagnating.

Due to constant changes in buyer behavior, experimentation with new tactics, and the need to adapt to the latest trends, the marketing landscape is always evolving. If you and your team don't continually change and adapt, you'll eventually be left behind.

As a marketing leader, make it your responsibility to invest in your team members' development. While some team members may proactively seek professional growth, others might need more encouragement.

Your team members are interested in having opportunities to learn and grow on the job—even if they don't express this directly.

Consider focusing on these areas to equip your team:

• Technical skills
• Presentation skills
• Experimentation
• Provide resources

By addressing these key areas, you can effectively foster a culture of learning within your marketing team. This investment in their development will empower them to stay ahead of industry trends, contribute fresh ideas, and drive your teams’ success.

Technical Skills

Encourage your team members to hone their technical skills.

No matter their role—designer, copywriter, developer, performance marketer, or otherwise—work with your team members to help them improve their technical abilities.

This can include providing them with a stipend to purchase resources, like books or online courses, to attending events and perhaps working with a coach one-on-one. 

Presentation skills

During my time at PhoneBurner, I included a 5-minute session called "Lightning Talks" in our weekly meetings. Here's why I did this:

• It was a fantastic opportunity to tap into everyone's knowledge and experience
• It provided a chance for everyone to sharpen their presentation skills
  

Regarding the first point, every team member has something amazing to share. For these talks, the requirements were simple: focus on one big idea and create a five-minute presentation. This way, everyone had the opportunity to share whatever insights they wanted.

As for the second point, in marketing, many positions—especially in the SMB space—require you to present and share ideas to gain buy-in or share the results of a campaign. With this in mind, these short talks offered an excellent chance for everyone to practice presenting, which prepared them to do so more effectively later.

To be honest, I tried to scrap this idea at least twice because I thought it might be too much. However, the entire team pushed back on both occasions because they genuinely enjoyed learning and delivering these short talks.

In the end, I'm grateful we stuck with them.

Experimentation

Is there something new someone on your team wants to experiment with?

Depending on the idea's scope, ask them to devise a plan, implement it, and then share the results with you. Additionally, if someone is interested in experimenting with tasks outside their role and responsibilities, try to create an opportunity for them. 

For example, in one team I led, the content marketer became interested in software development. They explored this independently, and the company connected them with internal resources to learn the trade and gain experience. Fast-forward a few years, and they are now working full-time in software development.

Provide Resources

You don't have to create everything from scratch.

If possible, allocate a budget for your team members to access resources such as:

• Books
• Digital Courses
• Events
• Paid Communities (e.g., Pavilion)

I understand this isn’t always possible. 

If anything, perhaps you can consider these ideas on an ad hoc basis. 

7. Cultivate efficiency and responsibility

I won't dwell too much on this point, as I've previously discussed it in 3 Essential Steps for Building a Fast and Agile Marketing Team and Marketing Implementation: 9 Steps to Turn Your Marketing Plans into Success Stories.

Here's the key takeaway:

High-performing marketing teams master the art of being both creative and productive.

Let's face it, your marketing team can't reach its full potential if it spends all day brainstorming without actually delivering results. However, striking the right balance is challenging.

On one hand, you must create room for creativity and innovation. On the other hand, you need to launch new initiatives, optimize your efforts, and meet your deadlines. Achieving this balance means constantly adjusting your focus between the two, like a scale.

Sometimes, you'll prioritize creativity and innovation, while at other times, you'll concentrate on productivity and meeting deadlines.

For this post, I'd like to emphasize three key methods:

1. Centralize your work
2. Streamline your processes
3. Create accountability

Centralize Your Work

Assuming you've crafted an excellent marketing strategy and everyone understands their expectations, what's next?

You need to centralize your work to ensure the whole team is on the same page. 

As mentioned earlier, a project management software (e.g., Asana, Wrike, Basecamp) is crucial, but it's equally important that your team members actually use it.

In my experience, conversations can easily drift to other platforms like Slack or email. 

While this is fine in some cases, it's vital to encourage your team to update and communicate through your chosen system. Otherwise, over time, your centralization efforts will prove unhelpful or even disappear, which means your team’s efficiency will plummet. 

Streamline Your Processes

Let's be real:

A significant portion of marketing involves "blocking and tackling."

Said another way, your team will often work on repetitive creative tasks, such as writing blogs, crafting social media content and images, and developing ad campaigns, to name a few.

Given this reality, you can streamline these processes by creating templates or blueprints for your team to follow for each recurring task. This way, you establish your expectations, clarify responsibilities, and empower your team to hit the ground running.

Streamlining your processes:

• Reduces back-and-forth communication
• Enables team members to focus on creativity within their tasks
• Accelerates your overall speed
• Enhances collaboration and teamwork

By implementing these strategies, you'll foster a more productive and efficient marketing team that consistently delivers results.

Cultivate accountability and dependability

There’s one proven way to cultivate a culture of accountability and dependability:

Encourage regular goal-sharing and progress updates among team members, including yourself.

In my previous role, our marketing team would hold weekly meetings to review our primary objectives and individual progress. Each team member would openly discuss their insights, sharing both successes and setbacks. This not only helped us focus on our goals but also sparked ideas for improving strategies or seizing new opportunities.

Knowing that you'll be sharing your progress weekly keeps you focused on your goals and motivates you to make consistent progress. This sense of responsibility cultivates accountability, while dependability is enhanced as team members collaborate closely to achieve their objectives and support each other on joint projects.

Keep in mind that this approach is most effective in a psychologically safe environment where everyone feels at ease being transparent and open with their experiences.

Time to build a high-performance marketing team

Everything I've shared above really hinges on genuinely caring for your team.

Of course, there are plenty of tactical things you'll need to do to set your team up for success.

But your primary role as a marketing leader involves truly caring for the individuals on your team. And this is less about a specific action you take and more about an inherent attitude you adopt.

Serve your team.

Position your team members for success.

Treat them as you would wish to be treated.

As you empower your team members to flourish, both personally and professionally, the ripple effect will be felt throughout your entire marketing team and your organization. 

In time, this will lead to your team, and ultimately your organization, thriving and achieving great success.