Dear SaaStr: What Is The Ideal Size For a SaaS Marketing Team?
The ideal size of a SaaS marketing team until you are at $10m+ ARR is the size that is accretive.
The last thing you want is a bunch of “marketers” whose ROI you don’t understand. That’s where things break quickly, and costs spiral out of control. It happened almost everywhere the past few years
But marketing is your future. Done right, it’s accretive. Sometimes in the short term, sometimes in the medium term, but it at least makes its money back and more:
- At even $20k in MRR, you’re ready for a head of demand gen and maybe even a true VP of Marketing (as long as they’re hands-on). You’re ready to cost-effectively pay for more leads, and more effectively managing the ones you do have. I Hired My VP of Marketing at $20k MRR. It Wasn’t a Week Too Early.
- As soon as you know how to do events and make them ROI positive, you’re ready to hire someone to manage events for you and do “field marketing”. Done right, it’s a top revenue-generating and pipeline accelerating strategy.
- As soon as you have enough marketing-generated leads to justify a marketing-led lead qual team — hire them. The best growth and demand gen marketers earn their own BDRs as they scale.
Later, you’ll end up with more “soft” marketers whose ROI will be opaque to you.
But from $20k in MRR to $10m in ARR … hire every marketer that is ROI positive. And for now, skip the ones that aren’t.
