The Ultimate Guide to B2B SaaS Marketing Team Structure: A Proven Framework for Success

3 key challenges often arise during the complex process of building a high-performing marketing team within a B2B SaaS organization:

1. Tight budgets and limited resources
2. Job titles aren't streamlined across the SaaS industry, making hiring more complex because two people with the same job title may not have the same experience or skill set
3. Playbooks and team structures differ from one organization to another and can't be played forward

In this article, we'll explore strategies to overcome these obstacles and build a successful B2B SaaS marketing team structure.

Building a Specialized B2B SaaS Marketing Team

There's no right or wrong way to structure a B2B SaaS marketing team. Most experts agree that strategy should dictate B2B SaaS marketing team structure and not the other way around. This is why each marketing team will look different from the next.

This also means the team structure will change every couple of years as your strategy adapts to the growth stage. So, while hiring, keep this in mind. Look for fluidity in structure and fill any skill gaps based on your current team’s strengths. For example, Your chief marketing officer is well-versed with demand generation and product marketing, your first marketing hire should be well-versed with marketing analytics for growth marketing. 

Draw a Venn diagram of your strengths and goals. As a marketing team leader, if your strength is content creation for different marketing channels or creating a cohesive account based marketing strategy, and your goal is to generate more organic MQLs for sales teams, the intersection of these two is where your team structure lies—content marketers, brand marketers, experts on marketing automation tools and marketing ops.

For instance, if your strength is leveraging social media channels to educate your audience about your product and its use cases, and your goal is to build a brand and generate more awareness in a new market, your SaaS marketing team should be structured around content marketing and inbound marketing strategy. 

That said, here are some GTM motions and how marketing teams can be structured around them:

1. Product-Led Growth (PLG)

Product marketing is particularly effective for SaaS companies that offer products with a low barrier to entry and a strong network effect. Say your pricing structure is a freemium model that encourages more adoption it makes sense to rely on product-led growth. In these instances, you want to hire for the following positions in your SaaS marketing team:

1. Product marketing manager: The product marketing manager role is crucial for understanding user needs and guiding product development. They work closely with product teams to ensure the product is easy to use, valuable, and meets customer expectations.
2. Growth marketer: This role focuses on acquiring new users and increasing engagement. Growth marketers use data-driven techniques to optimize the product's onboarding process, in-app experience, and viral loops.
3. Customer success manager: This person is responsible for ensuring customer satisfaction and retention. They provide support, training, and guidance to help users get the most out of the product.

2. Growth Marketing

If your marketing efforts rely on the growth marketing model, your SaaS marketing team should comprise the following roles:

1. Growth marketing manager: Someone who oversees the overall growth strategy and is responsible for driving customer acquisition and retention. They use data-driven insights to identify growth opportunities and experiment with different marketing tactics.
2. Content marketing manager: This person creates and distributes high-quality content to attract and engage potential customers. They focus on topics that are relevant to the target audience and optimize content for search engines.
3. SEO specialist: This role is responsible for improving the website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). They conduct keyword research, optimize on-page elements, and build backlinks.
4. Paid advertising specialist: This person manages paid advertising campaigns on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. They target the ICP, create compelling ads, and optimize campaigns for maximum ROI.

3. Public Relations and Content Marketing

If you want to establish yourself as a thought leader and build strong relationships with your target audience, you should consider hiring for these key roles on your marketing team:

1. Content marketing manager: This role oversees the development and execution of the content marketing strategy. They work with content creators to produce high-quality content marketing strategies with blog posts, articles, whitepapers, and case studies.
2. Content creators: These individuals are responsible for creating engaging and informative content that resonates with the target audience. They may include writers, editors, designers, and video producers.
3. Public relations specialist: This role focuses on building relationships with media outlets and securing press coverage for the company. They may also manage media inquiries and crisis communications.
4. Communications specialist: This role handles internal and external communications, including employee communications, investor relations, and social media management.

4. Inorganic Growth

To effectively execute an inorganic growth strategy, you need the following people:

1. Business development manager: This role is responsible for identifying potential acquisition targets, conducting due diligence, and negotiating deals. They need a strong understanding of the market, financial analysis, and deal structuring.
2. Due diligence analyst: This role conducts thorough research and analysis of potential acquisition targets, assessing their financial health, market position, and strategic fit.

5. Outreach-Driven Marketing

A dedicated team focused on sales, business development, and customer success is essential for this strategy:

1. Sales representatives: These individuals are responsible for prospecting, qualifying leads, and closing deals. They need strong communication and negotiation skills to build relationships with potential customers.
2. Business Development Representatives (BDRs): BDRs typically focus on generating leads and qualifying potential customers. They may conduct initial outreach, schedule meetings, and provide product demos.
3. Account executives: Account executives are responsible for managing existing customer relationships and driving upsell and cross-sell opportunities. They work closely with customers to understand their needs and provide tailored solutions.
4. Customer success managers: Customer success managers are focused on ensuring customer satisfaction and retention. They provide ongoing support, training, and guidance to help customers get the most out of the product or service.

Structuring Your B2B SaaS Marketing Team for Success

Once you've decided on the specialization of your marketing team members based on your marketing strategy, creating a hierarchical structure becomes important. It gives clarity on ownership and makes collaboration within different verticals easier. Here are questions that help define it: 

1.Are your marketing operations autonomous or interdependent? 

The first thing to figure out is if the different marketing operations are autonomous or rely on one another to get the job done. Each has its perks and drawbacks. 

Autonomous teams: benefits 

• They can function without relying on other teams so there are no delays and setbacks when they carry out their marketing operations. 
• There's more sense of ownership due to higher sense of accountability. 

Autonomous teams: drawbacks

• It takes extra effort to ensure collaboration and that each marketing department is on the same page.
•  Monthly or weekly marketing check-ins don't suffice. You will have to actively align different marketing campaigns and ensure collaboration with the sales team.

Interdependent teams: benefits 

This marketing team structure facilitates collaboration and makes it easier to align with the sales team.

Interdependent teams: drawbacks

• When it comes to teams that rely on each other to get the job done, there may be no clear owners for a certain marketing campaign or task.

•  It will also be difficult to ensure progress in this system as there will always be multiple stakeholders involved in each project. However, 

2. How do team leaders fit into the B2B marketing team structure?

The next problem to tackle is leaders. It is tempting to build teams around leaders or managers and their strengths. But with the dynamic nature of GTM strategies and resulting changes in team structures, this will prove very difficult to manage in the long run. 

It is better to avoid structuring teams around leaders. Ownership for marketing campaigns can be allocated to individuals with "lobbyists" rallying for the cause. They facilitate the marketing efforts to ensure the operations run smoothly.

3. Should I use an in-house team or rely on marketing agencies?

The best way to go about this problem is to ask yourself if the issues you are facing are evergreen problems or not. Hiring for a niche or particular specialization hardly ends well in the long and so act accordingly. Say for example you need a regional support and communications team for a country you are expanding to. This task can be outsourced to an agency without hiring for the problem.

4. When to look for a new marketing hire?

Most leaders cite a lack of bandwidth as the reason for expansion. This is never a good reason to expand your team. You should only aim to hire when there are new processes or specializations you need to work on. This also helps foster an environment of growth. Once you achieve certain results in a particular marketing department, you should look to scale those efforts by building engines that help you scale your success without investing in new hires.

Hiring and Recruiting Top Marketing Talent

Imagine your marketing team as a high-performing sports team. Each player has a specific role, understands their strengths and weaknesses, and works seamlessly with the others to achieve victory. As Comet GTM leader, Shri Mithran, rightly points out, hiring the right people for your marketing team requires a clear understanding of role clarity.

1. Identifying the gap: what problem needs solving?

The first step is to identify the specific problem your team is currently facing. Are you struggling to keep up with content creation? Do you need someone to develop innovative product marketing strategies? Just like a coach analyzes their team's weaknesses, you need to understand your team's limitations and where they need the most support.

2. Finding the specialist: thinker vs. doer

Once you know the problem, you need to find the right player. In sports, you wouldn't put a defensive lineman in charge of scoring goals, right? Similarly, in marketing, you need to consider whether you need a "thinker" or a "doer" for the role.

• Thinker: For problems that require innovation and strategic thinking, like expanding market reach through product marketing, you need someone who can think outside the box and come up with creative solutions.
• Doer: If you already have a content engine running smoothly but need someone to push out content consistently, you need a "doer." These individuals are reliable and follow established protocols, ensuring tasks get completed efficiently. They're the workhorses of your team, keeping the machine running.

Hiring for the right skill set, whether a "thinker" or a "doer," will ensure your marketing efforts are at their best. Remember, a strong marketing team isn't just about individual talent; it's about finding players who complement each other and work together toward the shared goal of achieving marketing success.

Fostering a Culture of Innovation and Collaboration in Marketing Teams

In a kitchen, the garde-manger chops and cuts veggies and fruits, irrespective of the dish they go into. In the same way, cross-functional teams can be assigned to achieve specific results rather than siloed teams. For example, instead of picking team members focusing on a specific product launch, structure your team so that a product marketer takes ownership of customer acquisition. They will collaborate with members from various departments like marketing, sales, product, and design to ensure a successful product launch when it happens. 

The same goes for a customer success team at a SaaS company. Traditionally, they might be organized based on experience or seniority. However, a more agile approach involves forming specialized teams or "pods" focused on specific customer segments or product features.

For example:

• Pod 1: Onboards new customers and provides initial support
• Pod 2: Manages high-value enterprise clients
• Pod 3: Specializes in a particular product feature

These pods allow for closer collaboration, knowledge sharing, and quicker adaptation to changing customer needs. This flexible structure can improve efficiency, foster teamwork, and create a stronger sense of ownership among marketing teams.

Build a High-Performing SaaS Marketing Team with Confidence

By carefully considering your team's composition and ensuring that members have the necessary skills and expertise, you can effectively manage the various aspects of your marketing strategy and adapt to the evolving needs of your business.

At TripleDart, we offer comprehensive SaaS marketing services that can help you build and optimize your marketing team. Our team of experienced professionals can provide consulting services, act as an interim marketing team, or serve as an extended resource to supplement your marketing efforts.