How to Lead a Marketing Team

Leading a marketing team is a very important position, as this can have multiple impact on company’s key objectives, branding, standing in the market, direction etc. unless you as a leader do the right things and has a right team to support you the execution goes haywire leading to failure. You have to manage internal stakeholders, your team, external agencies, market factors, influence product teams and also need to become eyes and ears of top management.

This needs a structured approach but with much space for innovation. This is not one-time activity but required consistently doing many things which is generating ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment), hence need to have processes, people and proper communication and a great deal of understanding of market and internal situation.

If you are new to the company or already in the company, now got the role of leading marketing team, below are few best practices which you can follow to become a successful leader.

A. Understand your situation : you need to be aware of the people, process and the environment you are going to operate and it starts with your boss/top management then goes to your peers, your team, market, the product you are going to market, the resources and constraints you have.

1. People:

• As a first step understand what your top management want in terms of priorities, what directions company wants to go, the strategy. Ask about the limitations you have, what can you change and what not.

• Set a process on how often you need to send status report, meetings, how the feedback loop will work and get a buy in about day to day activities.- Meet with the teams and people who might have an impact on how you operate, emphasize on collaboration, tell them you are open for suggestion, willing to share resources. Make the first move and showcase intention how you may help them becomes successful.

2. Your team:

When you are new in the role everybody is curious about your thought process, your workstyle and what not, but you want to start well so share with them ASAP and break the ice

• Tell them that how much happy you are to be in this role

• Ask each person about their background, likeness, experience etc simultaneously share yours and you may want to take few common interests and say it loud so that people can relate with you.

• Share your marketing philosophy, vision and target.

• Define success and failure criteria.

• Tell them how much change they can expect so that the ambiguity is gone, and they also know you are in charge. This will also enable you to establish at the beginning as a fair, clear and committed leader.

3. Your market:

• What industry you are in

• What benefits your products give to consumers

• How the value proposition is measured in your industry

• What category you operate with in industry and who are your current competitors, who are your big customers

• Examine competitor landscape

• How is the buyer behavior measured?

• What is your brand recall or brand standing in the industry?

• What is your existing distribution network, relationship with suppliers etc.

4. Your Products & services –

• The value it brings to a consumer

• When was it last updated?

• How it is performing feature by feature compared to competitors.

• What need to be removed and what to be improved

B. Build a Strategy

Once you understand the situation take time to analyze but bring strategy ASAP. But how do you build a good strategy which is acceptable and has leg room for course correction. Below are few tips :

1. Define Marketing objectives

• Work with finance team to understand company’s financial objectives so that you know how the budget is going to be and what is expected.

• Use SMART goal techniques

• If you have inherited the goal from your predecessor, then sit with people who had set it, raise red flags if you may not achieve or ask questions to get more clarity.

• Set goal to set accountability and responsibility. Tell your team this is not your objective, but this is team’s objective.

2. Define who all need to be involved in execution.

Keep them in radar and talk to them to understand them and their work. Set common agreement on what we are trying to achieve, what you expect from each person, what is the communication process.

• Finance – help you in budgeting, measuring output, quantify return on marketing investment & finding ways to improve

• Market research – they can help you get past data on experiments or competitors, marketing messages and programs so that you do not have to fail to learn.

• Technical team – they develop your product

• Sales – they give critical feedback, inputs, ideas. More often they will ask what they want i.e cheat sheets, marketing videos, product videos etc.

• Customer support – They will give insight about feedback, issues

• External partners - branding companies, PR firms etc

3. Create KPIs

• Create measurable KPIs. It should have a target and range high and low.

• KPIs should be linked to Goal, segmentation, targeting, positioning & marketing tactics

• Goals can be – number of logos win, timings of revenue, type of customers or it can be capturing x number of customers from competitors, market share increase etc

• Segmentation and targeting, positioning – changes in customer beliefs, changes in perception, changes in behavior like purchase habit, customer attrition

• Marketing tactics – communication objective, SF effectiveness, store promotion, SMM activity, product performance, service complaints, pricing and discounting rates.

C. Build and retain a competent team

Assess your team’s capability by Creating a competency model

• Once you have assessed your team make swift changes in terms of who are top talent, who are next, who are good for a specialized activity and who are not required.

• Then form teams around products, markets, skills, technology so that they become experts in understanding culture, needs, difficulties etc

• If you do not have a resource for a key requirement do not adjust but rather hire and get best talent by getting involved, you know better than your recruiter what you want. Help recruiter get pipeline.

• Apart from evaluating on various traits you may want to hire people having skills like - competitiveness, ability to work in ambiguous situation, good in creating relationship, good with numbers, like targets

• Then establish strong training program for core marketing skills, innovation and branding

• Most important is, do not think that few top performers can carry the underperformers, it is going to have negative impact and super stars will leave. So, make sure underperformers are being asked to do good or leave.

D. Running the day to day activity

• Ensure that all the new initiatives are having a goal in mind with measurable output and defined budget. Often marketing teams spend a lot which might not be required and end up doing more not aligned with requirements.

• Lead the initiatives through people not alone. Tell them what success means. Be visible during field trial and launch. Do not micromanage. Give credit to them when they have done good and if it goes bad take the blame, no name callings. Of course, give feedback in private. You should be ready for any unexpected events and create process to course correct during various stages.

• Apart from daily work you need to continuously think about upgrading your knowledge. Find out how you can expand your skill and experience in other functional areas i.e the teams from whom you take continuous help, such as strategic planning, product development, R & D. Think about an assignment overseas so that you can get diverse culture, customer and gain valuable insights which can give you benefit in your next project.

• Stay up with trends and tech, join marketing groups and be engaged, be available as guest faculty for colleges, you need to learn at faster than the change happens to stay ahead of curve.

• Keep a strong ethical base when managing marketing team, be honest, be trustworthy. Successful marketing managers are those who get respect from top and bottom of the pyramid not how many awards they have won.

Lead with Clarity & Execute with Confidence :

Stepping into the role of a marketing leader is no small feat—it’s a dynamic position that demands vision, precision, empathy, and adaptability. Whether you're new to the organization or taking charge within a familiar environment, your ability to align internal teams, influence stakeholders, understand the market, and drive ROI will define your success.

The journey begins with understanding your landscape—your people, product, market, and stakeholders—and continues with building a data-driven strategy rooted in real goals, backed by capable teams, and empowered by clearly defined KPIs. But success in marketing leadership isn’t just about having a plan—it’s about fostering a culture of accountability, agility, and continuous improvement.

Execution should be intentional, not chaotic. Empower your teams, remove friction in decision-making, reward outcomes, and course-correct swiftly. Simultaneously, stay hungry to learn—about trends, technologies, cross-functional operations, and customer behavior. Every interaction is a chance to sharpen your edge and deepen your impact.

Great marketing leaders don’t just run campaigns—they build systems, people, and cultures that can sustain and scale. Be the bridge between creativity and execution, between insight and impact.

When you lead with clarity and execute with confidence, you don’t just meet expectations—you redefine what’s possible.