Vital leadership skills you need when structuring your marketing teams

If you’ve ever tried to build a marketing team from scratch, or even just restructure one, you’ll know it’s about more than filling seats.

You’re not just hiring for roles. You’re setting a vision, aligning with business goals, and creating space for individuals to grow while still delivering results.

And when you’re in a field like customer marketing, where the function is still evolving in many orgs, that balancing act becomes even trickier.

But here’s the thing: with the right structure, the right mindset, and the right people, customer marketing can become one of the most strategic growth levers in your business.

This is how I think about team design, leadership, and the skills that set great customer marketers, and customer marketing leaders, apart.

Understanding customer marketing in B2B SaaS

It might sound a bit cliché at this point, but even though we’re in the B2B space, we’re still engaging with people.

Customer marketing is fundamentally about people engagement – deepening relationships so that the businesses, the individuals behind those logos, want to stay with your organization and grow their footprint.

It’s a long-term play and a long-term investment, which is why lifecycle marketing is so critical. In B2B customer marketing, you’re not just working toward a single transaction. You're supporting the full journey; onboarding, adoption, go-live, ongoing engagement, renewal, growth, and advocacy.

I’ve never worked outside of B2B SaaS, but I’d imagine B2C is a bit more transactional, even though it still shares goals around loyalty and repeat purchases.

Structuring a customer marketing team

If I were speaking to another leader, especially someone newly promoted into a leadership role, the first thing I’d ask is: what are your business goals?

Are you trying to add revenue through cross-sell opportunities? Improve retention rates? Or maybe you’re on a mission to build a community to deepen customer relationships?

Whatever the case, the goals of your team need to align with the goals of the company. If they don’t, you risk losing credibility, and the business may start to question the value of the function.

As your company evolves, your goals may shift. You’ll need to pivot accordingly and figure out how to scale the team.

Right now, our customer marketing org has two main pillars: one focused on references and customer stories, and the other focused on community. Each team member has clearly defined roles and objectives that support overall business goals.

We also review dashboards monthly to track progress against those goals. Then, each quarter, we run QBRs to share highlights, lowlights, results, and plans for what’s next. That rhythm helps us stay aligned with the business and responsive when priorities shift.

The skills and behaviors I value in team members

While previous experience in customer marketing is certainly a plus, it’s not essential. Most of the time, I hire based on core skills and potential rather than direct experience.

Empathy is huge, both in understanding the customer journey and in being a great business partner to other teams. In customer marketing, we serve both external customers and internal stakeholders. Having high emotional intelligence helps build trust, deepen relationships, and work cross-functionally with empathy and intention.

I also look for people who are organized and able to manage projects independently. In this field, you'll likely be wearing multiple hats and juggling competing priorities, so strong project management is key. And communication is everything. I need team members who can clearly communicate the “why,” effectively convey the message, and always consider the customer perspective.

We talk a lot about "WIFM" (what’s in it for me) from the customer’s point of view. Too often, we approach things from the company perspective, what we want to do or say, without truly stepping into the customer’s shoes. It's critical to ask, what’s in it for them? What are their motivations?

What distinguishes a customer marketing leader

Strong communication skills are essential, particularly the ability to present in all directions: up to executives, across to peers, and down to your team.

Customer marketing isn’t yet a fully established discipline in every company, so part of the role is being an internal educator. You have to be the expert – able to clearly articulate what customer marketing is, what it isn’t, and how it drives business impact.

The way I present to the C-suite is completely different from how I present to, say, the leader of our CSM organization or my own team. That adaptability matters.

You also need confidence, paired with a willingness to get scrappy. Especially early on, I said yes to almost everything. If there’s a way to deliver value to your organization or customers, try it. Give yourself permission to experiment, fail fast, and learn. That’s often where the real growth happens.

Eventually, you do have to learn how to say no. But in the beginning, saying yes can open doors and create opportunities that help you shape and define your team’s value.

Balancing business priorities with individual team goals

At iCIMS, the organization shares corporate-wide objectives each year, which cascade down to departments and then to individual functions. As a people leader, it’s my job to ensure that each team member understands how their work ties directly to the success of the business.

Because I’ve been in this space for a while, I’ve developed a solid playbook of strategies based on different business objectives. For example, if retention is the goal and we don’t know why we’re losing customers, I might propose a voice of the customer program. That gives us a way to measure satisfaction, identify pain points, and ultimately improve retention through a better experience.

If your organization is communicating priorities clearly, it becomes much easier to prioritize your team’s workload. For example, if it’s the end of the quarter and your team is responsible for delivering references, that becomes the top priority. Less time-sensitive tasks move to the backburner.

Now, if your company isn’t great at cascading objectives or sharing its strategic priorities, then it’s important to take initiative. Meet with your leadership team, ask questions, and do the work to uncover what’s important to them.