Spinning up Your Marketing Function after a Series A Raise
Congratulations.
You’ve done it.
You’ve closed a Series A.
Now the fun starts.
I’ve been there a few times. The transition from frugality to relative abundance. It is an odd feeling.
One thing is clear.
What got you here won’t get you to where you need to go.
So what now?
Your Next Phase of Growth Needs a Different Approach
For most B2B / SaaS/ tech businesses the pre-Series-A years will look pretty similar. Most of the initial investment will go into the product (or when it comes to professional services companies the team).
- Payroll for developers will typically represent the main expense.
- Sales will be founder lead,
- and marketing may be non-existent.
In some cases, as part of the transition, a junior marketing person may have been hired.
Essentially a jack/jill of all trades.
Learning the ropes.
But primarily an order taker.
The next phase of your growth will need to be built on firmer foundations.
- In-depth knowledge of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICPs)
- Clarity as to your unique differentiation features
- Positioning that ensures you are not going head-to-head with better-funded competitors
- A visual identity that inspires confidence
- A website that helps reduce buyer risk
- A tech stack that enables your marketing function to drive growth
- An adequate budget to fuel the next phase
- A marketing strategy that is tailor-made for your unique circumstances
Not a list that a junior marketer will likely deliver with confidence.
So what to do?
Hiring a Head of Marketing Prematurely is a Big Risk
One route is to go straight for a senior marketing hire — to lead the nascent function.
Ideally, they are a generalist with strong demand generation skills.
However, whether to go down this route or not is nuanced.
One of the big mistakes CEOs make around this stage is pushing demand generation prematurely. If there is a clear and obvious Product Market fit and pent-up demand then proceeding with a demand generation leader makes sense.
However, if your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is not clear or there is some uncertainty as to whether you’ve actually achieved Product market fit then someone with a product marketing background may be more suitable.
And this is a key point — marketing is a very broad role. It covers a lot of bases. Shoe horning a B2C marketer into a B2B role won’t work. The same applies expecting someone from a ‘big brand’ to operate in a scrappy startup. Chalk and cheese.
As Tom Tunguz, a Venture Capitalist at Theory argues — The most frequent mishire in startups is the first head of marketing.
Which should you hire first? Many founders seek a demand generation marketer. After achieving product market fit, it’s a natural time to scale lead generation.
But over the past decade or so, I’ve found hiring a product marketer first leads to more consistent success. Why is this?
Though the startup may have achieved product market fit, the company may not understand the fit. Who is using the product and why? How does the buyer journey evolve with time? How do buyers describe the product amongst each other? Few early-stage companies can answer those questions accurately.
The reality is often that Product Market Fit is assumed — even though the evidence supporting the position may be weak when examined forensically. After all, it is something everyone wants — from Founder to Investor.
So this is a key piece of the puzzle.
Bring in a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
An alternative option is to consider a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for an interim period. This brings senior leadership into the function without the associated cost. While they won’t have skin in the game, they will be able to act impartially and apolitically which is vital at this stage of your journey. They’ll also bring buckets of experience to play.
They can help with the following:
- Interrogating where you actually are on your Product market fit journey?
- Helping to understand the competitive landscape
- Ensuring your ICP’s are robust and are evidence-based
- Helping put an inbound marketing strategy in place (if appropriate)
- Critique the existing visual/ brand identity and judging whether it is fit for purpose
- Assess the martech stack including the Content Management System (CMS) to ensure it is capable of scaling
- Revisit core messaging to ensure it is resonating
- Set up internal marketing processes to aid with prioritizing
- And much much more
In short, they can do a lot of the grunt work as well as help you to understand the ideal skill set you need to lead the function.
Getting S*** Done
Finally, a word about the marketing executive in the role.
If there is someone in situ, the Fractional CMO can help assess capability. Are they a high-octane ‘A player’ capable of supporting the growth ambitions of the company?
If there is no marketing person at all the options are to hire a jack/ jill of all trades who will focus on executing campaigns. They can be supported by specialists on an as needs basis.
This person is a key part of the jigsaw — they’ll need to be comfortable dealing with ambiguity, and have a strong bias for action. The marketing function is a demanding one. One that some people thrive, but one where others can get badly unstuck.
Alternatively, if budgets permit, and time is of the essence a more aggressive option is to engage a Full Stack agency to deliver a range of services. This outsourced model is more expensive (circa £10,000 per month) but may help you to ‘hit the ground running’.
Regardless of the route chosen, the ‘jobs to be done’ will likely be significant. Particularly as the function may have been under-resourced for too long.
Expecting the junior marketing executive to lever up without adequate support is not a viable option.
Summary
In short, once a Series A is announced deploying the capital becomes the primary responsibility of the CEO. Upgrading the Sales and Marketing function is a typical recipient of some additional budget.
What is needed in the marketing function is a strong doer, led by someone who has “been there and done that”.
Rushing to hire a full-time Head of Marketing may be a costly mistake.
Bringing in a Fractional CMO for a discrete period will help ensure that you are optimising your chances of success.
About the Author:
Alan Gleeson is a Fractional CMO specialising in supporting growing and scaling B2B SaaS businesses. With 10 years + experience Alan has been fortunate to work with some of Europe’s fastest growing companies.
