The Key to Excelling as a 1-person B2B Marketing Team

November 5, 2024
Tags: B2B marketing, Marketing team

Doing more with less to some extent is an art. However, it becomes more powerful when you apply some science to it. This is even more true in the case of B2B marketing. While large brands have the luxury of a fat budget, small B2B companies and startups often have to be content with tiny budgets and limited resources.

The ROI expectations from small marketing teams are also much higher compared to large marketing teams. In addition, small B2B marketing teams have to be more agile and need to get things done fast to meet the desired pipeline and revenue goals.

Interestingly, many B2B marketers out there are 1-man (or woman) armies. They have to manage everything from content and campaigns to martech and data analytics. Now with the economic downturn, 1-person marketing teams are forced to meet the same goals with much lesser resources.

But this is easier said than done. How can you ensure success as a 1-person B2B marketing team? What are the different marketing activities you should prioritize? What systems do you need to have in place to ensure you keep the marketing engine running?

I attempt to answer these questions in this article.

Who will find this content relevant?

The title says ‘1-person B2B marketing team’. But essentially, we will be discussing how to design a marketing engine that will enable you to do more with less. While the focus will remain on 1-person marketing armies, most of the points we discuss will be relevant to small marketing teams with 3 to 4 people.

The PPT framework for 1-person B2B marketing teams

We all have heard about the PPT (People, Process, Technology) framework that helps businesses build the right systems for long-term success. The framework explores how the three elements – people, process, and technology – can be utilized the right way to achieve stability and business growth.

The same framework can be extended to 1-person B2B marketing teams. The only question is the HOW of each element, which is what we will discuss in the upcoming sections.

People – Creating the right support ecosystem

‘People’ means any person you can leverage to support your goal of achieving marketing success. Since the marketing team has only 1 person, hiring new people internally is not an option. So, here are the people you can leverage to build a supporting ecosystem for your marketing engine:

Agencies and freelancers: Freelancers often tend to be cheaper than agencies. The former is also more flexible when it comes to engagement models – meaning freelancers are more open to working on a needs basis while agencies will try to lock you in for a period. But if you can find an agency that is flexible and fits your budget, that path can also be explored.
SMEs (Subject Matter Experts): If your product or solution is simple, then creating content becomes slightly easier. However, industries like cybersecurity or embedded systems require extensive domain knowledge for creating marketing assets. Having your SMEs involved as much as possible by maintaining a good relationship with them is an absolute must in such scenarios. This will significantly bring down your content creation time.
Management: Startups and small companies are founder-led. Hence, it is important to get the buy-in of the management for the strategic decisions you make in marketing. By convincing the management of your strategies and tactics, you will get more space to flex your muscles in terms of budget and resources.
Mentor(s): This might sound a bit out of the ordinary. But having a mentor who can lend a hand at times when you are struggling to get things done can make a lot of difference. They can guide you to set up best-in-class systems and connect you with other experts who can help. This in turn can improve your speed and increase the returns for every dollar spent.
Communities: Like mentors, communities are a great place for you to pick the brains of peers in the industry. You will most likely get templates, playbooks, and ready-to-use marketing resources from communities, which can cut down the time you need to finish your tasks.

An infographic illustrating People Ecosystem for 1-person B2B Marketing teams

Process – Building a system for 1-person B2B marketing teams

People can lend you a hand. But you still need to create a system and establish a set of processes that will become your tools to get the team to do things for you. Given below are the various elements of building a process for the success of a 1-person B2B marketing team.

Frameworks and guides
Templates
Lean marketing
Communication mechanisms and briefs
Reporting and analytics
Learning and upskilling

Let us look at each of these in detail.

1. Frameworks and guides

Frameworks and guides are not just theoretical elements. If implemented the right way, they can enable you to finish your marketing tasks faster and more effectively.

There is an endless list of frameworks in B2B marketing. But here, let me list down a few that will have the highest impact on startups and small businesses:

The above content pieces have been put together by keeping in mind ease of execution. If you have the will to learn how the frameworks and methodologies can be implemented the right way, you will have no challenges in getting started. Moreover, this is not an exhaustive list of all the frameworks and guides you need. But these will give you a headstart and equip you with the knowledge to keep the engine running.

2. Templates

Templates make it easy to plan or perform a task. You can easily find plenty of templates online – whether it is for creating a B2B marketing plan or preparing the budget. But here are a few handy templates you can right away use for various marketing activities:

Marketing budget template
LinkedIn content templates: Template 1, template 2, template 3, template 4, template 5
Content distribution calendar
B2B marketing plan template

3. Lean marketing

Lean marketing refers to using marketing tactics that require very little investment. The guiding principle of lean marketing is that you spend money only when it is absolutely required. Given below are a few articles that will guide you in implementing lean B2B marketing tactics.

4. Communication mechanisms and briefs

This is often one of the most overlooked aspects of B2B marketing. When you have only 1 or two people in your marketing team, you cannot afford to have communication gaps with the remaining stakeholders – both internal and external. To make sure you clearly communicate everything, it is a good idea to develop SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and documented briefs.

For example, let’s say you are working with a freelance writer to create blog posts. You give her the topic and relevant keywords. Not all writers can write quality articles based on these inputs alone. To make sure the desired quality standards are met, you might have to do either of the following:

In addition to the topic and keywords, share a rough outline of the article along with relevant references.
Ask the writer to share a brief and get it approved by you before she starts writing the content.

By establishing a process like this, you are ensuring that the marketing output of your supporting team always looks like what you want it to.

Similarly, establish a routine and a standard procedure for all types of communications, meetings, and presentations you do.

5. Reporting and analytics

Marketing analysis can feel a bit overwhelming, especially if you don’t come with an analytical brain. As a 1-person marketing team, you have no choice but take care of the measurement and reporting part as well. For this, you need a simplified data-driven marketing model. To learn how to execute this for your small B2B business, check out the below article:

A Simplified Data-Driven Marketing Model For B2B SMBs

6. Learning and upskilling

This goes without saying. Continuous learning is a must. Whether it’s through online courses, webinars, podcasts, workshops, or communities, you need to consistently upskill yourself to be able to manage multiple things on your own as a 1-person team.

A professional man in a suit at a desk looking at the computer.

When you don’t have a large supporting ecosystem, you need to get your hands dirty with many things such as content, social media, analytics, martech, etc. You need to be a jack of all these trades and preferably the master of 2 to 3 of them. Hence learning is extremely important and should take high priority in your professional life if you are a 1-person B2B marketing team.

In addition to what we discussed in this section, the following article will throw light into a few more tactics that will help you get the foundations of your marketing activities right.

How To Quickly Get Started With B2B Marketing

Technology – Setting up the right martech stack

This can be looked at through three different lenses:

How can you build a martech stack without breaking the bank?
What kind of automation should you have in place to improve your productivity?
What are the absolute essential tools you need to get going with your marketing activities?

Let’s start with the first question.

You can build a full-fledged B2B martech stack for just $1260 a year. Sounds too good to be true? Check out this article to learn how.

Answering the second question requires evaluating all the marketing activities you are doing. But in general, the following are the various elements related to marketing that can be automated:

Content generation and creation: With AI becoming part of the everyday life of a marketer, many content creation tasks like content writing, voice-over creation, video creation, etc., can be automated (check out the below webinar to learn the various applications of AI in B2B marketing)

Lead flow: If you are using multiple tools for lead generation, data has to flow automatically from one to the other. For example, if your CRM and marketing automation tool is HubSpot, and you are using Apollo for cold emailing, you need to use the native integration between the two to ensure data flows from Apollo to HubSpot.
Trigger-based communication: One of the ways to promote your solutions in a subtle manner is to use action or trigger-based communications. For example, if somebody downloads an ebook from your website, you can send an automated email with the link to the ebook. You can use the same emails to share key updates and other marketing collateral. All major marketing automation platforms offer the ability to send trigger-based emails.
Automating content repurposing: Using tools like Automata to automate content repurposing is one of the best ways to create more content in less time.

Depending on how solid your marketing engine is, there could be more things you could automate. For instance. if your website gets a lot of traffic, you can partially automate lead generation by using an exit intent popup tool like OptinMonster. Even otherwise, this is not an exhaustive list. I would encourage you to spend some time thinking about what other aspects of your marketing efforts can be automated without investing thousands of dollars.

Now coming to the absolute essentials in terms of the marketing tools you need. This is very much defined by your marketing plan. But most B2B businesses will find the following martech elements to be essential.

Website: This includes the CMS (Content Management System), hosting, and domain tools you use. WordPress is an example of a CMS and Hostinger is for hosting and purchasing domains.
Marketing automation and CRM: This is a must-have. It is recommended to go with a tool that has all the data in one place (e.g. HubSpot)
Website analytics and tracking: You can very well manage with the free tools offered by Google including Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
SEO: Popular SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush are on the expensive side. So to keep the spending low, you can go with tools like Ubersuggest that are at a much lower price band.
Writing tools: If you write a lot of content on your own, you need to have something like Grammarly to enhance your writing. Also, consider using a plagiarism tool like Duplichecker.
Graphic design and video editing: Canva is more than enough for design purposes, especially in the early years of a business. When you hire a dedicated designer, you can upgrade to a more professional tool like Photoshop or Illustrator. The same is the case with video editing. Apps like Canva or iMovie are good options to start with.
B2B data and outreach: B2B database and outreach tools like Apollo and Lusha are a must if you wish to run cold email and calling campaigns extensively.

That’s it. With these essential tools, you are in a great position to get going with your marketing activities. Often, it’s not about having plenty of resources. It’s more about making the best of what you already have or can have.

Final words

It was practically impossible to get into every bit of detail when it comes to building a system for 1-person B2B marketing teams. I have covered the topic comprehensively from a 1000-feet level while diving deep into some of the most important points. This will help you cover the fundamentals of running a tiny marketing team. If you need any further help in executing these tactics, please feel free to book a mentoring session with me. I will be happy to guide you through the entire process.

Looking to take your B2B marketing efforts to the next level? Try Skalegrow

Are you looking for a ‘no-nonsense’ B2B marketing agency? Give Skalegrow a try. No false promises. No ‘we will change the world’ narratives. We focus on simple marketing tactics that work. Moreover, we spend the time to understand your industry, however niche it is.

Visit our services page to learn more about what we bring to the table. You could also write to us at info@skalegrow.com.

About the author

Naseef KPO is the Founder and CEO of Skalegrow. He comes with rich experience across multiple areas of B2B marketing including content marketing, demand generation, SEO, account-based marketing, marketing analytics, revenue attribution, marketing technology, etc. He writes thought-provoking and relevant articles on The Skalegrow Blog and his weekly LinkedIn newsletter Elevate Your Marketing.

Prior to starting Skalegrow, Naseef led large marketing teams in multi-million dollar B2B organizations where he made significant contributions to the topline growth of the business. He has also appeared on numerous podcasts where he shared his thoughts on trending marketing topics such as the application of AI in marketing, startup marketing, ABM, and B2B content marketing, just to name a few. Being the founder of Skalegrow, he is currently focusing on helping its clients stay ahead of their competition by using innovative yet practical marketing tactics.

You can connect with Naseef KPO on LinkedIn.