As high-growth companies and startups shift from focusing solely on building awareness and brand discovery to incorporating the entirety of the sales funnel into their marketing strategies, hiring a Director of Growth Marketing has become the standard amongst companies trailblazing this new wave of growth marketing.
The formal definition of Growth Marketing is the strategy of utilizing technology and metrics to drive revenue through efficient and continuous customer growth and retention. Since its conception in 2010 by entrepreneur Sean Ellis, industry leaders have increasingly recognized the value of focusing on customer growth and retention in order to boost customer advocacy and drive organic leads. Through strategic planning and lead generation channels, Directors of Growth Marketing are propelling their companies to new heights.
A Director of Growth Marketing empowers their marketing team to:
- Emphasize customer loyalty and advocacy
- Grow the customer base succinctly and constructively
- Focus on the sales funnel top to bottom, establishing the marketing team as a key revenue source
In 2021, a record 381k Growth Marketing positions were listed according to a LinkedIn study. As the amount of open growth marketing roles continue to rise, discover how a Director of Growth Marketing can significantly impact your company’s growth.
5 Top Characteristics of a Director of Growth Marketing
While every company’s growth strategy looks different, here are 5 essential characteristics every Director of Growth Marketing should possess.
- Analytical - In order to grow, a company has to understand where they are coming from and what the market looks like. Analyzing sales data, rate of interaction, and market conjecture metrics is crucial to creating a growth strategy.
- Deliberate - As the rate of new startups launched in 2021 exceeded five million, it’s imperative that a Director of Growth Marketing is deliberate in their decision making and planning. Knowing what their business needs to update, change or incorporate in terms of blog posts, articles and case studies into their growth strategy, is essential. They must be able to make solution-oriented decisions.
- Strategic - A large portion of their job includes building out thoughtful and dynamic cross-functional strategies to propel the company forward through short and long-term initiatives
- Collaborative - Directors of Growth Marketing work closely with the sales, product, and engineering teams, thus a collaborative, open mindset is important for the role. They need to garner a robust understanding of the company from the other teams as well as create new launches and solutions in partnership with these teams. The collaborative style for this position requires open communication and a willingness to work cross functionally.
- Determined - The only way for a company to grow is through realistic planning and determination. While obstacles are likely to appear, an adept Director of Growth Marketing needs to have the determination and discipline to tackle them head on without becoming deterred.
What is a Director of Growth Marketing Accountable For?
A Director of Growth Marketing is responsible for:
Conceptualizing and Planning Creative Content
Working alongside the VP of Marketing and/or CMO to build out a growth strategy for the company, the Director of Growth Marketing conceptualizes and plans creative content and campaigns that bolster the company’s growth. They pay close attention to data reports to ensure SEO best practices are in place to create relevant blogs, social posts, email, and other campaigns.
Optimizing New and Old Content
The Director of Growth Marketing is accountable for tracking engagement metrics to determine if live content - including links and sources are up-to-date, as well as making sure new content is evergreen for long-term use and optimized to increase organic search.
Leading a Dynamic Team
A Director of Growth Marketing is responsible for building and leading a dynamic team, in collaboration with a VP of Marketing or Chief Marketing Officer. Depending on the stage of a company and the resources available, a Growth Marketing Team organizational structure often includes:
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- Director of Content, plus a copywriter and/or content writer
- Director of Demand Generation, plus SEO writers or specialists
- Director of Brand or Creative Director, plus other creative roles
- Director of Product Marketing
When initially building a growth marketing team, it’s coming for a Director of Growth Marketing to hire marketers with multi-disciplinary/hybrid specializations. For example, a content creator who is also comfortable with multiple design tools. As more funds become available to funnel back into their team, that’s when they can start hiring more senior, specialized experts.
What is the role of a Director of Growth Marketing at a Startup
Startups in the hyper growth stage are often looking for ways to expand their customer base and increase customer retention. The main goal of a Director of Growth Marketing is to drive company, customer, and revenue growth. No matter what funding stage a startup is in, they’re responsible for creating an extensive customer journey that employs all aspects of the sales funnel.
This often includes focusing on lead generation and demand generation growth in conjunction with the founders, sales, and engineering teams. Creating content collaboratively with these teams that reach customers on multiple platforms - email, social and blogs - will help attract new customers while engaging with current ones as well. The steps that the Director of Growth Marketing takes will also help prove to future investors and venture capital firms that their organization is positioned to leverage prospective funding for optimizing and growing their products and services base.
What Does a Director of Growth Marketing at a Tech Company Do?
The role of a Director of Growth Marketing varies between companies. At at high-growth stage technology company, a Director of Growth Marketing is likely to be involved with the following:
Building comprehensive reporting utilizing SEO best practices. Through internal link audits, keyword research and anchor page audits, the Director of Growth Marketing can create reports that reflect the type of content needed, content that’s doing well, content that needs updating and content that can be removed from the company website, social media accounts and in email campaigns.
Focusing on revenue in relation to customer engagement and retention. With customer-base growth at the forefront of the Director of Growth Marketing’s responsibility, their job directly relates to company revenue - as the amount of customers and returning customers increases, revenue should reflect the upsurges.
Optimizing lead generation by focusing on key metrics. Comprehensive data sources are critical to plan and optimize campaigns and content. They work alongside their team as well as the VP of Marketing or CMO to build out 30-60-90 days plans to enhance the company’s lead generation.
Owning execution of campaigns as part of the company’s growth strategy. The Director will work with their team to execute all campaigns, owning the conceptualization, creation and completion of each campaign. While designers, writers and lead generators will help implement campaigns, the Director will have the responsibility of pushing it through to the finish line.
How Does a Director of Growth Marketing Work With a VP of Marketing or CMO?
Depending on the company size, makeup, and goals, the Director of Growth Marketing may lead the entire marketing team. If the makeup of the marketing team follows a more traditional setup, the marketing organization will likely include a VP of Marketing or Chief Marketing Officer with the Director of Growth Marketing directly reporting to either the VP of Marketing or the CMO - whichever is on your company’s team.
Key touch points shared between a VP of Marketing or CMO and a Director of Growth Marketing:
- The Dir. of Growth Marketing reports data and metrics reports with the VP or CMO to create a better understanding of how growth marketing impacts company goals.
- They will collaborate on campaign and product launches.
- They will work together to plan 30-60-90 day and flesh out yearly OKRs with data backed strategies.
Find Your Director of Growth Marketing
Looking to drive revenue and enhance your customer experience? Hiring an experienced, motivated, and strategic leader to guide your Growth Marketing team, can be pivotal for a company’s growth.
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