Common marketing roles in a SaaS company
Marketing teams within many B2B software companies often have overlapping responsibilities, and they all work closely with each other. It’s impractical to make a list of B2B SaaS marketing team roles that would apply to every SaaS company. However, you can categorize them all into the four following:
- Marketing leadership
- Growth marketing
- Product marketing
- Brand marketing
With that said, let’s discuss these categories and their typical roles in a B2B SaaS marketing team.
Marketing leadership roles
Marketing leaders set the direction for the rest of the team and make sure that everyone has a clear understanding of what they are supposed to do and why they’re doing it. They work closely with the other team members not by implementing strategies, but by overseeing their marketing initiatives and ensuring that a comprehensive plan is in place.
Some of the most common marketing leadership roles include the following:
- Brand marketing manager
- Marketing management
- Brand management
- Public relations
- Campaign manager
- Communications manager
- Account executive
- Director of communications
- Corporate communication
- Brand marketing manager
Growth marketing roles
Growth marketers are a bridge between your product and sales teams. They use marketing metrics, analysis, and insights from marketing channels to understand user behavior and identify the most effective actions for driving growth.
Instead of relying solely on standard techniques for growing customer bases, growth marketers in your team will also continually experiment and optimize strategies to increase your user base.
Depending on the specific organization, marketers in this role may execute strategies or communicate the gained insights to the responsible team members to take action. Hence, marketing leaders mostly often double as growth marketers, especially for small and medium-sized companies.
Growth marketers include the following roles:
- Marketing Manager
- Performance marketer
- Marketing operations manager
- Director of marketing operations
- VP of marketing
- SEO Specialist
- PPC manager
- Deep generalist
- Growth hacker
- Head of demand generation
- CRO marketer
Product marketing roles
The role of “Product Manager” is one that can be found in just about any company, but it means something different depending on the industry or type of product being sold. In a B2B SaaS company, product managers are typically responsible for overseeing all aspects of the product.
They work with developers on product ideation and development; they work with salespeople to identify the most relevant product features to highlight in the sales process, and they work with customer service agents when customers report issues.
There is usually one product manager for a project, but bigger organizations have several and they have the following common job titles:
- Product marketing manager
- Senior product marketing manager
- Junior product marketing associate
- Digital product marketing manager
- Director of product marketing
- Solutions marketing manager
- Portfolio marketing manager
- Product owner
- UX writer
- Sales enablement
- Service marketing manager
Brand marketing roles
The role of brand marketers in B2B SaaS marketing teams is to connect the brand with the customer and drive loyalty. Brand marketers are responsible for creating a cohesive brand message and engaging customers through all channels.
Brand marketers work closely with sales teams to make sure that your products have a consistent identity. They work with freelance or in-house graphics designers, videographers, and designers to create marketing materials with a consistent brand voice and tone from social media posts and whitepapers to infographics and other visual content.
The specialists in brand marketing deal less with your product, and more with your brand. The goal is to form and foster positive relationships between your brand and its customers. Here are some common roles for brand marketers:
- Brand Strategist
- Creative Assistant
- Creative Director
- Brand Activation Manager
- Digital Brand Manager
- Brand Marketing Manager
- Director of Brand Strategy
- Director of Brand Marketing
- Brand Manager
RELATED: How To Outsource SaaS Marketing Tasks On A Budget
What is a typical SaaS company organizational structure?
The structure of a B2B SaaS marketing team depends on the size of the organization, but there are some commonalities across all types of companies. The first thing to consider is whether you’re hiring for an in-house team or an outsourced one.
In-house teams tend to be smaller than outsourced ones, but outsourcing has grown in popularity because it offers more flexibility and scalability.
Another major consideration is how much experience your organization has with marketing automation. If you’re new, you’d need a core group of people who can set up and establish best practices for your team. But if you have some experience under your belt, then it’s likely that you’ll only need to hire senior talent who can help build on existing processes and strategies. Let’s discuss the SaaS marketing team structures in typical small, medium, and large B2B SaaS companies (SaaS marketing org chart included).
B2B SaaS marketing team structure for small businesses
SaaS marketing team structure for small-sized businesses
Small businesses have little or no substantial marketing budget or customer base. As such, they can typically get by with one or two people on their marketing team, who wear many different hats. These generalists will also work with the sales team to coordinate their efforts and execute them together.
The primary role of marketers in a small B2B SaaS business is to create awareness of the company and its product, as well as encourage prospects to sign up.
A business of this nature will typically hire someone with experience in social media marketing, email marketing. or some other specialized marketing skill for specific traffic channels. However, a requirement should be that this marketer has experience with SaaS.
B2B SaaS marketing organizational structure for medium-sized businesses
SaaS marketing team structure for medium-sized businesses
Medium-sized SaaS companies have more customers than small businesses and can afford to employ a few more people on their marketing teams than smaller businesses. They also outsource marketing more.
However, they cannot hire enough people to warrant getting multiple people for specific roles, such as account managers or customer success managers (CSMs).
Most companies of this size use a hybrid approach of B2B marketing team structure, where one person at the top oversees all aspects of marketing but doesn’t necessarily have the time or specialized skills to do everything themselves.
Then, underneath that person are several team members who each focus on a single aspect of their marketing efforts, such as paid advertising, email marketing, lead generation campaigns, etc. These could either be individual contributors with expertise in these areas, or an agency that employs multiple people with specific expertise in each area of digital marketing.
B2B SaaS marketing organizational structure for large businesses
SaaS marketing team structure for large businesses
Large B2B SaaS companies typically do less outsourcing than small and medium-sized B2B SaaS businesses because most have a full-scale in-house marketing team of specialists and generalists in all the key roles. The roles in a SaaS company of this size are more specific than those in small or medium-sized organizations.
At the top of the structure is the VP of Marketing, who reports to the CRO. The VP of Marketing oversees all other marketing employees and manages their work. The VP of Marketing leads the team and works with leadership to create a long-term vision for the brand. The VP is responsible for setting goals and initiatives to implement over a period of time. Some companies also employ a Head of Sales & Marketing Operations who oversees the projects within this set time frame.
Note that these specific titles and processes will vary from business to business.
The next layer comprises a Director of Marketing Operations, who works closely with the VP of Marketing but also reports directly to the CEO. This person ensures that all marketing processes are executed as planned and run smoothly.
Below that, there is typically a Director of Content, who oversees all written content for web pages, email newsletters, blog posts, etc. The next level down is where you get an Associate Director of Content, who manages a team of writers and editors responsible for creating content in various formats as needed.
An Associate Director of Social Media, PPC team, SEO, etc. comes next in this hierarchy. This person focuses on specific channels and coordinates the efforts on each platform from other channels, such as email or paid search where appropriate.
Each team member received their portion of the action plan and then break their piece down into smaller tasks that they can manage independently while staying on track with everyone else.
What next?
Now that you know the typical SaaS marketing team structures, you can decide how to structure your own marketing team. No matter what your budget or goals are, you must structure your marketing team with the right mix of skills.
Hence, it’s important to consider whether you should in-source or outsource specific tasks or roles. Next, read our recent article that compares hiring in-house and outsourcing SaaS marketing.
