Separate is not always better and in marketing, having just one team for its different functions can prove to be more advantageous. The idea of having a cross-functional, collaborative unit is not only intuitive but certainly pragmatic in the sense that everyone in the team is going towards one unified direction. If the main function of marketing is to create that one solid, satisfying experience for the customer, then a cross-functional approach is way better than the traditional separate functional marketing teams. You just need to build a solid team first and then have an executive take you to the next level. This is the podcast episode to listen in on for important startup insights.
Casey Winters is a Growth Advisor at Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm. Casey’s passion is in helping companies scale and has worked on scaling startups as well as large firms. He specializes in analytics, product development process, organizational structure, and growth. It was Casey who started Grubhub’s marketing team and scaled its demand acquisition and retention strategies. From a $1M series A to over $9B market cap, they helped drive a city expansion and sustainable growth. After Grubhub, Casey joined Pinterest to lead the growth product team and turned SEO into an acquisition strategy that was scalable while increasing conversion to sign ups. From 40 million active users, Pinterest now has 200 million.
In this Episode:
- How Casey started his career as an analyst with Apartments.com and the essentials he learned
- How working to improve both your product and your marketing strategy is a crucial combination
- How marketing is a broad mix of different functions
- The three essential functions of the product management team
- The 3 levers to a traditional marketing team in a technology company including brand, performance, and product marketing
- How cross-functional teams have developed in the past years where various marketing functions converge into one
- How collaborative marketing should include sales especially with longer sales cycles
- How hiring a VP of marketing from a larger company can prove to be a disadvantage if you’re a small company
- How hiring someone inhouse for your team is smarter as they have more in-depth knowledge and tenure in the company
- How to build and strengthen a small marketing team first before hiring someone to lead them
- How startups should focus on creating cross-functional marketing teams instead of the traditional, separate marketing teams
- The crucial role of the executive in a cross-functional unit
- What naturally leads to a cross-functional shift when traditional teams don’t work