How to Align Your Marketing Team for a Successful 2025

If you’re reading this, odds are you are a marketing leader seeking inspiration for how to manage your team more effectively in the New Year.  Let me just be the first to say, welcome to the jungle.  But really, marketing team planning can often become a full-time job if you don’t have the right people in place or worse, the wrong people in the wrong seats.  Just the thought of that statement makes me shudder.

You’re not here to be frightened, you’re here for help!  If I’m offering advice, I’m first encouraging you to ask yourself this question: “How much of my team’s work should be in-house versus outsourced?”

I’ll tell you, the old rule of thumb is that 70% of your team should be focused on in-house marketing.  This includes marketing strategy, planning and navigating the inevitable issues that will surface from inter-team dynamics at any company.  If I’m you, I’m taking a look at my resources now and devising a plan to guide my team, their professional success, and ultimately our results for a prosperous 2025.

Here’s what I’d dive into deeper:

The Team’s Core Competencies: What functions does our marketing team need and how are we currently doing to cover those functions?  Who do I have in place and do I have gaps in ability or attitude?  Yes, attitude can help you reach your latitude (or not). Making sure you have the right people (first) and the right people in the right seats is critical for your marketing success.

Cost Considerations: This is an area most marketing leaders don’t think about but should.  If you hire someone in-house, you’re not only taking on a salary and the responsibility of a livelihood, you’re also taking on a training project to get this person up to speed on their role and the context of your business.  Oftentimes people hire roles like graphic designers or copywriters that a marketing agency or outsourced resource could easily handle at much less of a cost.  

Scalability: For projects with fluctuating workloads, outsourcing provides flexibility without the commitment of hiring additional staff. Case in point, you need a new website.  Everyone does!  There are certain aspects of a new website project where your team’s expertise is needed but when it comes to the copywriting, design and coding of the website – outsourcing is the key!  Plus, most marketers simply don’t have the 200 hours of extra time available to bring a website together, but agencies are paid by the hour and are experts on this subject matter.

Quality Control: For most companies, maintaining a high level of quality is essential, so in-house teams might be preferable, as they can be more closely managed and aligned with company standards and values.  This isn’t to say that agencies aren’t also good at quality control – but most will look to your leadership and expertise working within a culture to guide the proper lingo and look.

Speed and Agility: If your team is quick and agile, look to outsourcing more longer term, strategic work to an outsourced agency.  And if the opposite is true, you might consider help from an agency who focuses on fresh produce marketing (we happen to know one) who can help with agility and strategy.  One thing is for sure when it comes to preparing your team for success – you must first know their skills and strengths and use them to your advantage all year.

Expertise Availability: You may have a team filled with marketers who are great at tradeshow planning and marketing. You may have a team who thrives at communications.  When you lay it all out on the line and know what your company must do from a marketing perspective in the year to come, you might consider outsourcing marketing support from a team who can do it all.  Keep your team focused on the areas where they thrive and outsource the projects (big or small) that keep getting tossed around like a hot potato because you don’t have the time or the expertise to execute.

No matter how you slice it, in 2025, you must fully understand 1) what your company needs from a marketing perspective from a strategic standpoint and 2) consider whether you have the bench strength to support it.  If you do, you’re lucky!  And if you don’t, you simply need help.  If there is anything we can do to help you better understand your team’s capabilities and strengths or if we can pick up and run with those hot potato projects, give us a shout!