Why your "marketing person" keeps quitting on you

It’s a common issue in modern B2B companies - you aren’t seeing the growth that you want, you aren’t pulling in sustainable, high quality leads, and ultimately don’t think that your business has enough of an online presence. You think you’ve found the answer - hire a “marketing person” to do your marketing, and the leads will start flooding in … right? 

Wrong. 

As much as your top account manager’s daughter’s friend loves Twitter, they’re probably not the best person to be handling your entire strategy. If you’re spotting a high turnover in your marketing staff, or finding that you aren’t seeing the results you want, then the problem isn’t your “person” - it’s you. Here are some of the reasons that your in-house marketer might want to quit on you, and your company. 

They aren’t being involved at a strategic level 

If you aren’t involving your marketer at a strategic level, then you aren’t planning for success. It’s not enough to set goals and then expect your marketing efforts to reach them - you need to share how you have come to these goals and why. If your marketer doesn’t understand past trends, future aims, and the reasons for them, then it’s unlikely that you’ll get the results you want. 

The solution is to make sure that your marketer is involved at every stage. Whether it’s plotting out buyer personas, working out the time and resources that you need to create a content plan, or just analysing previous data and creating goals - your marketer needs to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. When they start, sit down for a discovery session and consider both short and long-term goals. You need to create goals that feel realistic. Shooting for the stars seems like a good idea, but it doesn’t offer the opportunity for measurable growth. 

They feel undervalued 

Your own marketing is the last thing on your mind. When you have customers, staff, and internal processes to think about, it’s the first thing that gets pushed to the bottom of the pile, and has a reputation for being relatively pointless. This is why it’s so tempting to hire someone to do that for you without too much involvement, but it’s also why plenty of marketing professionals feel overlooked and undervalued in their role. 

80% of senior executives don’t trust marketers, whether this is due to a lack of understanding, a failure to see good ROI, or just not having the time to consistently check on their marketing efforts. More than this, marketing positions are often seen as jobs that anyone can do, as long as they have good time management skills and have been on a computer once or twice. This just isn’t true, and it furthers the problem. If you hire a marketer with exceptional skills and training, then they can swiftly get frustrated if they’re not being taken seriously within the company. If you’re hiring marketers that have very few skills or experience, then they’re equally likely to feel undervalued if they aren’t given the responsibility and training that they need. It’s important to understand that your marketing is the very core of your company - if people don’t know about you, then they can’t become customers, and without marketing, they’ll never know about you in the first place.  

They’re being given unrealistic goals 

We touched on this before, but it’s important - your goals should be realistic. If you’ve just decided to dip your toe into marketing, it’s easy to be too optimistic, and expect a landslide of  calls from the get-go. This isn’t the case. If your new marketer is just getting started, then it’s likely to take a while before their efforts start paying off; developing a content strategy, carrying out search engine optimisation, building a social media following - these things take time, and aren’t going to provide an ROI overnight. 

Think of goals that are SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. If you’re setting goals that are far too complex or are just plain unachievable, then your marketer is going to get very frustrated, very quickly. There’s no point setting a goal to increase leads by 1000% in a month - it’s just not going to happen, and you’re probably going to lose your marketing person. 

They’re being expected to do the work of a full team 

Hiring a marketer is a big task, and you need to set out exactly what they will be expected to do, how much time they have, and the resources that they will be able to use. Many B2B companies expect their marketer to manage their social media, plan and organise PR and events, write and publish blogs, as well as share company updates, conduct email marketing campaigns, and sometimes work with PPC or SEO. This is a lot for one person, and is more effective with a full marketing team. The role can be extremely complex and time-consuming, and if you haven’t hired someone with the right level of expertise, you might find a letter of resignation on your desk, sharpish! 

Make sure that you explore the option of employing a full time marketing team if you’re serious about growing your business and boosting leads. If you don’t have the budget or space for this, then it might be time to seriously consider working with an agency. This offers you the range of skills and experience, without having to pile it all on one person. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hire an in-house marketer - quite the opposite, as it’s good to have someone within your company that completely understands your goals and processes. However, it means that every aspect of your marketing is handled efficiently, and is much more likely to benefit your business in the long run. 

Not sure about how to find the right fit for your business? Check out our guide on how to hire a top digital marketer to see exactly what skills you should be looking for in your next marketing person. Your marketing should be one of your number one priorities, and it’s vital that you find the perfect fit for the job, and start taking them more seriously. Download it below!