As your company grows, the creative work scales in unpredictable ways. It’s important to have an organizational plan to handle the shifting and competing priorities. We can’t rely on getting a +1 FTE return per 25% department growth. Sometimes our team headcount remains flat but we must continue to serve the business at a high level. This is when moving from a skill-based regional model to a tier-based model is a game changer.
I am seeing the increased marketing output concentrated around new products, campaigns and regional growth. While this work is increasing in demand, it’s not necessarily long tail or immersive in nature. There may be two, three or four unique campaigns (Tier 2) that are then regionalized and versioned for multiple channels (Tier 3).
Additionally, these newly hired marketers are tech-savvy and are willing to make a few tweaks to assets themselves (Tier 4). My team now creates easy to use templates with how to guides and offers hands-on training webinars.
Dividing my global team into smaller teams to support these tiers creates an opportunity for my more senior and strategic thinkers to focus on the brand (Tier 1) which could get diluted as businesses acquire other companies or introduce new unique products into the market.