Scaling a marketing team from 4 to 14

The challenge

When I joined, marketing was small, fragmented and reactive. The firm wanted to grow aggressively, but every initiative was a one-off. There were no SOPs, no shared playbooks and no operating rhythm to scale against.

The firm also wanted to launch several distinct brands for different practice areas, each needing its own positioning, content, website and funnel. With four people, that was impossible. The team and the operating system had to be built at the same time.

The approach

The strategy scaled people and systems in lockstep:

• People: recruit remote specialists across content, paid, SEO, design and intake, with clear roles and a weekly operating rhythm.
• Systems: document every recurring workflow as an SOP, build repeatable campaign recipes and unify reporting across brands into one source of truth.

Execution

Strategy and lead generation

• Built lead generation funnels for each practice area.
• Increased leads and new client sign-ups.
• Tightened handoffs between marketing and intake.

Team building and leadership

• Scaled the team from 4 to 14 fully remote staff.
• Created specialization paths for content, paid, SEO, design, video and intake.
• Ran weekly stand-ups, monthly retros and quarterly planning.

Multi-brand strategy

• Created and launched multiple distinct brands for the firm.
• Differentiated each brand while keeping the firm's core values.
• Built dedicated websites, content engines and ad accounts per brand.

Website optimization

• Improved page speed, SEO and conversion across the firm's websites.
• Delivered a significant increase in website traffic.

Multi-channel campaigns

• Managed Google Business Profiles.
• Coordinated paid advertising agencies.
• Ran direct mail campaigns end to end.
• Managed email marketing and the content calendar.

“Scaling a team from 4 to 14 isn't a hiring exercise. It's an operations exercise. You can't hire your way out of process debt.”

Results

• Marketing team scaled from 4 to 14 in a fully remote organization.
• Multiple distinct firm brands launched, each with its own funnel.
• Significant traffic and conversion improvements across all web properties.

Tools used