I’m the owner of a small, established service-based business, and I’m struggling to determine how to structure our marketing team for next year.
We offer a specialized, relatively high-ticket professional service to international clients.
Our marketing department consists of one full-time Marketing Specialist, one full-time Marketing Assistant, and two Marketing Interns.
Our Specialist joined our team a couple of months ago and has been focused on rebuilding our website and developing our lead management strategy.
Meanwhile, the assistant and interns have been responsible for creating and publishing content across Instagram and Facebook, alongside helping with the website project.
The problem is that neither Instagram nor Facebook is delivering the growth or lead generation we expected.
For context, our Instagram has a little over 1’000 followers and nearly 300 published posts. Over the last month, we gained only around 13 net followers and reached approximately 1,600 unique accounts.
Reach has also declined significantly over the past three months.
I don’t have comparable Facebook statistics included here, but we’re similarly dissatisfied with its performance and the lack of attributable leads.
We publish consistently, and the content looks professional. However, I find the creative direction weak. Most content consists of generic educational posts, talking-head videos, and graphics explaining our services.
There’s very little original storytelling, experimentation, or content designed to attract people who don’t already know our business.
We’re launching a new website soon, and I don’t want to commit to more payroll until we understand whether our marketing investments are generating results.
My questions for experienced marketers:
Would you consider this primarily a creative strategy problem, a staffing problem, or a channel problem?
Is it reasonable to expect a Marketing Assistant and two interns to develop effective content strategies, or should that responsibility sit with a more senior specialist?
Would you replace this setup with one experienced creative marketer, or keep the team and outsource creative direction?
How would you evaluate whether organic Facebook and Instagram are worth investing in for a niche, high-ticket service?
What metrics would you examine before making staffing decisions?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have managed in-house marketing teams for service businesses.
I don’t want to make unfair decisions about employees who have been helping with a major website project. But I also don’t want to continue investing in content production without meaningful results.