How to put together a marketing team

When your business is just starting out you will find that almost all of the duties of running it fall to you. However, as your business grows and you add on employees you will need to begin to think about job descriptions and creating groups of people who can take on certain tasks in the running of your business. One of these tasks is marketing. Most medium to large businesses have a marketing team that runs all of the aspects of the marketing plan. Choosing who will be on this team is a crucial decision. Here is what you need to know about how to put together a marketing team-

- Make a list of the skills that you need-The first thing that you should do is to make a list of the marketing skills that you will need. This can be fairly easy when you go over your marketing plan. You will need people who can do the technical and the artistic work that is required by your marketing plan. Once you have this list you will know what type of skills you are looking for in the people who will make up the marketing team.
- Take a look at the employees that you already have-If you already have employees working for you then you need to take a close look at the skill sets they already have. You need to not overlook anyone who already works for you. Perhaps you have employees that are good at writing marketing content, putting together layouts, or doing market research. These skills will make these employees a valuable asset to your marketing team. Best of all, since you already have these people working for you the marketing work can begin as soon as you form the marketing team.
- Decide what type of employees that you need to hire-Once you have inventoried the skills that your current employees already have then you can begin to see where there are gaps. Most likely you will need to hire an employee or two to finish putting together a well rounded marketing team. Working off of your list and the inventory of skills that you have taken among your current employees then you can see where gaps are and where you may need to hire someone to fill them in.
- Consider teamwork-It is important to keep in mind that the people you put together to work on the marketing team need to do just that-be a team. Marketing is usually a group effort so you will need to make sure that the skills of the team members compliment each other as well as their personalities. While teamwork may come easier to employees that you already have working for you it is especially important to consider this as you hire employees to be a part of the marketing team.
- Don't be afraid to make changes-Marketing is a dynamic process. That means that your marketing team will need to be able to change as the needs of the business change. This means two things. First, you should make sure that the team is made up of people who are open to change and flexible to change directions when the marketing plan calls for it. Secondly, if you find that your current marketing team is no longer working the way you want it to you may need to consider letting some people go and bringing in new people to work on your marketing plan. You should never be afraid to make changes that will make sure that your marketing is as effective as it can be.