How to Run a Marketing Team When You Have Zero Marketing Experience

So, you finally decided your business needs real marketing. Not just an intern posting on social or your cousin tweaking your website after dinner. But actual, strategic, consistent marketing that pulls in leads, builds trust and turns strangers into loyal customers.

There’s just one catch. You are not a marketer.

Take a breath. You are not alone.

I built my entire business because I watched founders and leaders hire good people, spend money on fancy agencies, and still feel like marketing was this bottomless money pit they could not steer (I might have even been one of those leaders once upon a time). 

If you are reading this, you probably know you need marketing help. You just do not know exactly what that help should look like or how to manage it once you have it. Good news - I’ve got you. 

Why Running a Marketing Team Feels So Overwhelming

If you have never worked in marketing, it is easy to assume it is just ads, a nice website and maybe an email or two. But under the hood, marketing is a living, breathing machine.

You need strategy (Ugh, what does that even mean? Yeah, I know the feeling.)
You need smart people who can execute.
You need data to tell you if it is working.
You need content, design, funnels, testing and more testing.
You need someone to see the whole forest, not just the trees.

Most business owners either do one of two things. They hire an agency (or a slew of them) and hope they handle it all, or they hire a marketing person in-house and assume they can magically juggle a million moving parts (they can’t). 

The truth is both paths can work, but not without leadership and clarity from you.

Working with Marketing Agencies: What You Actually Need to Know

I have watched so many businesses hire an agency with high hopes only to feel burned later. Nine times out of ten, it is not because the agency was bad - it is because no one was steering the ship.

Agencies are like great crew members. They row in the direction you point them. If you point them vaguely at “get me more sales” but do not give them a map, you might get website clicks that go nowhere.

Want to get the best from an agency? Here is the short version:

Always know your goal and share it clearly. If you want more paying customers, tell them exactly who you want, how many you want and what success looks like in numbers you can measure.

Ask what they need to do their best work. Good agencies will tell you where your bottlenecks are. Maybe your website loads too slowly, maybe your landing page confuses people, maybe your sales emails are a snooze fest. They see this every day. Listen.

Stay in the loop. Get regular updates, ask for plain-English reports, and do not be afraid to question what is working and what is not (but do it nicely!). Be curious and supportive of their experimentation process.

Understand the timeline. Some marketing results show up quickly. Some (like SEO) take months to build traction. If you are feeling twitchy after four weeks, ask about realistic timelines.

When you treat your agency like a true partner and stay plugged in, you get way more than a pile of invoices,  you get real results you actually understand.

Hiring an In-House Marketing Person: Friend or Future Headache?

The other popular path is hiring an internal marketing manager. Sometimes this is the best thing you will ever do. Sometimes it is a recipe for burnout and missed opportunities.

Here is what I want you to know if you go this route.

No one person can do it all. I repeat: no one person can do it all.

Marketing is not one job. It is a mash-up of strategy, creativity, tech, design, ads, copywriting, analytics and about ten other specialties. A great in-house marketer is a talented generalist who knows enough to do the core work and coordinate specialists for the rest.

If you hire someone junior, do not expect them to build your strategy. They need guidance. They need training. They need access to tools and maybe even outside experts to handle pieces they are not trained for.

Plan for this upfront. It is far better to invest in proper support than expect your new marketing hire to work miracles in a vacuum.

The Secret Ingredient Nobody Talks About

Ready for the real secret?

Whether you hire an agency, an in-house person, or both, marketing only works when someone connects all the dots. Someone needs to see the big picture, make decisions and hold people accountable to your goals.

This is where a Marketing Director or Fractional CMO comes in (don’t act like you didn’t know where this was going). That is me for my clients. I create the plan, connect your people and your agencies and make sure marketing actually happens instead of gathering dust in a Google Doc.

If you want to run your marketing team well without turning yourself into a marketing expert, this is your shortcut. Have someone you trust run it for you.

You can have a marketing engine that works, without becoming a marketer yourself. You just need the right people, clear goals and a steady hand at the wheel.

If you want that, I am here to help.

Let’s talk about how we can make your marketing finally work the way it should.