Marketing Without a Team
How B2B companies build a real marketing function without building a department.
You do not need a marketing department. You need marketing to happen consistently. Those are different problems with different price tags. The first costs five hires and a year of ramp; the second is a question of what you systematize, what you outsource, and what you genuinely have to own in-house.
What this covers
When to hire versus outsource versus systematize · the first marketing hire · what a founder should keep · punching above your weight class · running marketing as one person.
Articles
- What Can a Small Marketing Team Realistically Do in a Quarter?
- What Should Your First Marketing Hire Be?
- What Does a Marketing Department Actually Cost?
- Should You Hire a Marketer or Work With an Agency?
- Does Your B2B Company Actually Need a Marketing Team?
- Demand and Brand – Season 2 – Episode 2: Mastering YouTube for Small Business Success with Chris Inman
- The Ways People “Fail” at Marketing – And How YOU Can Succeed!
- New Year, New Budget: Now What? Marketing Suggestions to Help You With Your Marketing Budget
- Five Things to Spruce Up Your Marketing This Fall
- Marketing is Bullshit
10 articles in this pillar.
Common questions
Does my B2B company need a marketing team?
You need marketing to happen consistently, which is not the same as needing a department. Building one costs roughly five hires and a year of ramp before anything ships. The real question is which parts you systematize, which you outsource, and which you genuinely have to own.
Should I hire a marketer or work with an agency?
Hire when the work is continuous, specific to your product, and needs someone in every internal conversation. Outsource when you need a range of skills at once and cannot justify a full-time salary for any single one of them.
What is the first marketing hire a B2B company should make?
Usually a generalist who can write, because writing is the bottleneck on almost everything else. A specialist hired before the positioning is settled will produce excellent work in the wrong direction.
How much does outsourced marketing cost compared to hiring?
The honest comparison is not salary against retainer, it is total cost against output. A department is salaries plus benefits plus tools plus management time plus hiring risk, and it produces nothing for the first several months.
The other pillars
Five subjects we write about, and they connect. Most real marketing problems sit across more than one.
Would you rather we just ran it?
Zangardi Studio is Patrick and Vanessa Zangardi, with a bench of writers, designers, developers and editors behind us. Most clients buy the whole engine. Any capability can be bought on its own.