How to Structure Your Content Team According to Company Size

Published by Nicole Karlis on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 in Content Marketing.

Just starting to build a content team? Here's our take on how to create the best one for your business.

With so many potential roles for a content marketing team, it's important to create a structure that works for your unique business. Whether you have just one person who comprises your entire content team, or you're restructuring a section of your marketing department that's devoted exclusively to content, you can make it work with defined roles and a formal structure. Though there is no set formula, we generally see content teams fall into the following structures below. But first, let's take a look at the four core roles. After reading this article, you can learn more about what it takes to build a content marketing team by downloading our e-book below.

Content Manager

This person is responsible for developing the primary content marketing strategy and ensuring that each of the other
team members fulfill their parts as needed. He/she is in charge of planning and maintaining a brand's editorial calendar, in addition to giving the final stamp of approval for each piece of content that's published.

Content Writer

This is the team member (or members) who generates the content -- web copy, blog posts, articles, social media posts or any other component of the content strategy. Writers can be employed internally or come from a content writing
service like Scripted.

See also: 5 Questions to Ask a Content Writer Before You Hire Them

Content Editor

This role helps ensure content quality and consistency. Content editing requires not only checking pieces for spelling, grammar and flow but also ensuring the content is ready for a steady release schedule. Additionally, an editor checks that the tone, message and style accurately represent the brand's voice.

Content Distributor

The final essential role for your content marketing team is to distribute your content. This involves posting content on the appropriate channels, maintaining and monitoring email marketing campaigns and working with the content manager to brainstorm content ideas for lead generation programs.

While there are many more roles you can add to your content team, the ones we just explained are the primary ones. However, not everyone has the resources to hire all of these, on top of additional roles that may be needed for a larger team.

Startup/Small Business

Many small businesses don't have the budget for an entire content marketing team. Still, having just one person focusing on content can make a large impact. In a single-person structure, one person might take on all four primary roles -- including content writing, editing and distribution. Alternatively, this person might have everyone in the company contribute to content marketing efforts, assuming the role of coordinator to ensure consistency and quality control. Fortunately, for the single-person structure, there are many tools and services available to help supplement missing roles:

Written content: Scripted, Contently, Writer Access

Visual content: Visual.ly, 99Designs, Canva

Content promotion: Zemanta, Outbrain, Taboola

Content measurement: SimpleReach, Atomic Reach, Moz, CrazyEgg

Mid-Size Business

Companies at the lower end of mid-size might also have one person dedicated to content, but with the ability to have marketing employees contribute -- similar to startups. Larger mid-sized companies may be able to have two to four team members dedicated to content marketing -- one in each core role -- or perhaps combining roles within a two-person team.

Enterprise Companies

Companies with bigger digital marketing budgets usually have the resources to build extensive content teams when needed. These teams may have multiple content and community managers. But typically, there will still be a single team leader -- for example: an editor-in-chief, a lead content editor or a dedicated analytics role.

Regardless of the structure you choose, formalizing the organization of your content marketing team will help you create a more efficient strategy that consistently achieves your goals and objectives.