Most small companies start marketing the wrong way round: they hire a "social media person" and expect sales. A year later they say marketing does not work.
That employee is usually executing correctly, but nobody told them who to reach or what to measure. The mistake is not theirs, it is in the order of building.
Start with this question: do you need thinking or execution?
If it is still not clear to you who you sell to and with what message, you need someone who thinks, someone who can read the market, set direction and measure. That is not the first person you hire on a junior salary.
If the direction is clear and you need a volume of work executed at consistent quality, then you need execution, and that can be done by an agency or a freelancer at less cost than a full-time employee.
Confusing the two is the most expensive mistake in marketing: paying a full year's salary to someone executing a plan that does not exist.
The order that works for most companies
- Someone who owns direction. Part-time or as a consultant at first. They define the segment, the message, the channels and the way of measuring.
- Someone who executes and follows up day to day. This is the first real in-house hire, they own content, campaigns and coordination.
- Specialists per piece of work. Design, editing, paid media. These do not have to sit with you from day one.
- Once the work settles, bring in-house what you have been buying outside, if the volume justifies it.
How do you choose the person?
Do not rely on the CV and the certificates. Certificates say the person attended, not that they can work in your conditions.
Set a short paid task: give them information about your business and ask them to propose a segment, a message and a one-month plan on a defined budget. Pay for that task, it respects their time and gives you the right to assess seriously.
Whoever asks you questions about the customer and the margin before proposing is the one to work with. Whoever comes back with a content calendar and colour choices is an executor, good in their place, but they will not lead your marketing.
Questions to ask in the interview
- Tell me about a campaign that failed. Anyone with no failure to describe has either not tried or does not measure.
- How will you know your work succeeded here? You want an answer with numbers, not "brand awareness."
- If the budget were cut tomorrow, what would you do? This separates someone who can buy a result from someone who can spend money.
- What is the first thing you need from me? A good answer asks for information and numbers, not authority.
Roles that get confused
The word "marketing" in this market covers five different jobs: strategy, content, paid media, design and sales. Someone strong in the first four at once is very rare, and their price reflects that.
When you write the role, pick at most three of the five and say frankly that the rest will be done externally. A job ad asking for everything attracts someone who does everything at a middling level.
Where do you find these people?
My best source is referrals from owners of companies your size, not job board ads. Ask three people you know: who handles your marketing and does it well?
The second source is the content itself: people who write or explain their work on LinkedIn give you a real sample of their thinking before you meet them.
And avoid anyone who describes themselves as doing everything. Specialisation is a sign of maturity, not of limitation.
When is an in-house team cheaper?
When you are spending more on external execution than the cost of an employee, when you have steady monthly work rather than seasonal, and when product knowledge is complex and needs someone sitting inside.
Before that, an in-house team is a fixed cost on a business that is still experimenting, the fastest route to cash pressure.
There is a third case that justifies hiring early: when speed is your competitive advantage. If you need to react to the market the same day, an agency will not keep up.
Work out the real cost of an employee
The salary is not the cost. Add insurance, space, equipment and subscriptions, management and supervision time, and the cost of learning in the first three months when there is usually little real output.
Counted that way, an employee costs meaningfully more than the salary figure. A fair comparison with an agency uses that number, not the salary.
And there is a third cost people forget: if the hire turns out wrong, you have also lost six months, and in a fast-moving market that is more expensive than the money.
Signs the hire is not working
- No numbers. Three months in and nobody knows how many prospects came from marketing.
- Everything is reactive. They only do what is asked, with no initiative or suggestion.
- They complain about everything external. The product, the price, the market, with no practical suggestion within what is possible.
- They do not talk to sales or to customers. Marketing disconnected from whoever answers the customer becomes decoration.
The hybrid model, best for most companies
The shape that most often succeeds with mid-sized companies: one internal person owning direction, coordination and product knowledge, with an agency or freelancers executing the specialisms.
That internal person keeps the knowledge inside the company and stops everything vanishing if the agency leaves. And the agency gives you specialist quality at less than the cost of hiring four people.
Who manages that person?
The biggest cause of a failed first marketing hire is that nobody manages them. The owner is busy, and nobody in the company understands the work well enough to guide it or judge its quality.
If nobody can manage the role, you have two options: set aside a fixed hour a week yourself, or bring in someone external to review the work monthly. Both are far cheaper than a wasted year.
And management here is not task-tracking, it is a discussion of numbers: what worked, why, and what we will test next month.
The first ninety days of a new hire
Do not start with campaigns. Month one: understand the product, speak to ten existing customers, review the old data. Month two: set a plan with numeric targets and start executing something small and measurable. Month three: scale what worked and stop what did not.
If you hold the person to results in the first month, you push them to chase quick wins that build nothing.
Variable pay and incentives
People often ask: should I tie a marketer's pay to sales? The short answer: partly, and carefully.
Marketing influences sales but does not control them alone, price, product and the sales team all play a part. Tie all of someone's income to sales and you push them towards quick wins and decisions that damage reputation.
The shape that works: a fair base salary, plus an incentive on metrics they genuinely own, qualified prospects, cost per prospect, and conversion from campaign to call.
In short
Marketing is not one job, it is three different roles: direction, execution and specialism. Work out which one you are missing now, and hire for exactly that.
The right first hire saves you a full year; the wrong one costs you the salary, the time, and your belief that marketing can work at all.
This is part of a series on choosing a marketing agency, which also covers what to ask before signing, and how to tell good work from mediocre.