Offshore talent and AI are redefining marketing teams
The idea of the marketing team as we’ve known for the last decade, is changing. Instead of a bloated team with junior level paid media buyers, email marketers, copywriters… we’re entering a new era which looks a little like this:
Director of Growth/CMO + offshore growth talent + AI tools (i.e., ChatGPT).
Gone are the days of needing a six figure hire in the U.S. to run campaigns on Meta. When I was at Postmates, we had 5-7 media buyers setting up paid campaigns and running tests. Then we entered COVID, where remote working became the norm, technologies like Zoom got more powerful, and doors opened for the global workforce. Along with this, paid channels like Meta have become more automated, requiring fewer hands on keyboards to run them.
The reality is that global employees were only being hired by the big companies like Amazon and Dell, and primarily for customer support roles prior to the pandemic. This doesn’t mean there aren’t other skilled global workers in engineering, marketing, etc. – that worker pool just wasn’t being tapped into.
Offshore growth talent
I’ve proven this exact model with my last startup, and saw it work firsthand as we scaled the business to millions in annual revenue with one single U.S. marketer (me). It’s the perfect case study of myself (director of growth) + 2-3 offshore growth marketers + AI tools to make the marketing wheels spin.
My first marketing hire was Anna from the Philippines, who had worked at companies like IMAX and Warner Bros before joining me. From the moment I interviewed her, I was shocked at the caliber of marketers I could find in the Philippines and other countries outside of the United States. She handled tasks such as our organic social marketing, email marketing and coordinating video marketing shoots. We eventually hired another marketer from the Philippines to handle other aspects of the marketing puzzle.
But the crazy thing is, Anna would have easily been a six-figure hire in Los Angeles, where my company was headquartered. Without disclosing her previous pay to the world, I’ll say that it was a healthy fraction of six figures.
So, what does this new marketing team look like
There are many companies at the forefront of this trend, such as DoorDash and Calm. They understand that the landscape of marketing teams is rapidly changing. Instead of a marketing team of ten, costing a business north of a million dollars per year in payroll, they’re now looking more to the tune of $500,000. Imagine having an extra half million dollars to spend on acquiring customers. Just look at some example scenarios below of a publicly traded company and Series A startup with and without offshore talent.
Publicly traded company example
Current Yearly Team Costs:
Director of Growth: $200,000
2 Sr. level hires: $150,000 x 2 = $300,000
7 Jr. level hires: $80,000 x 7 = $560,000
Total costs: $1,060,000
New Yearly Team Costs:
Director of Growth: $200,000
1 Sr. level hire: $150,000 x 1 = $150,000
8 offshore hires: $30,000 x 8 = $240,000
Total costs: $590,000
Series A startup example
Current Yearly Team Costs:
Director of Growth: $200,000
3 Jr. level hires: $80,000 x 3 = $240,000
Total costs: $440,000
New Yearly Team Costs:
Director of Growth: $200,000
3 offshore hires: $30,000 x 3 = $90,000
Total costs: $290,000
There are massive cost savings, no matter which way you slice the numbers. I’d argue that for larger marketing orgs, this style of team is becoming more and more necessary. It allows directors of growth/CMOs to tap into having more headcount at lower costs, which allows the directors and senior level marketers to have more time to work on strategic higher-level items. Why have someone at $150,000 per year (not including benefits) in Los Angeles running paid campaigns?
How AI comes into play
The last piece of the puzzle for the new age marketing team are tools like ChatGPT. I probably use ChatGPT 3-5x per day to riff on ideas and to get my mind thinking even more strategically. I don’t need to always call up a colleague or start a Slack huddle, when I’ve got AI to chat with to get my mind thinking in different ways.
AI is also useful when trying to come up with new copy tests to spin up across email, paid social ads and landing pages.
By leveraging AI within marketing teams, we’re able to eliminate various roles and become leaner. Instead of multiple copywriters and email marketers running a lifecycle program, you can have a director of lifecycle marketing managing a team of 2-3 offshore email marketers. When you couple that with AI to speed up the process of coming up with test ideas or analyzing data, it quickly becomes a well-oiled, cost-efficient team. No bloat and tons of upside.
ChatGPT is just the tip of the iceberg. Marketing-specific tools are coming to the market on a daily basis. An example I’ve seen lately are platforms which allow you to create user generated content (UGC) ads with AI avatars, rather than having to hire and coordinate with actors.
Why this matters
Offshore talent was once solely reserved for major corporations like Amazon and Dell.
Now, we’re seeing companies like DoorDash leverage offshore marketing talent to make their teams more efficient and competitive in the market.
The dynamics of marketing teams are shifting to a framework of strategic thinkers, coupled with offshore marketers.
AI is augmenting the work of strategic thinkers and executors by 20% in my estimation.
I was able to prove this concept in my last startup, to an eventual acquisition.
While I know this post will ruffle many feathers, I’m about the truth when it comes to staying ahead. Those that embrace this new marketing structure will get way ahead of their competition. Marketing teams have always evolved over the decades, and this is just the next iteration. We’ve had marketing teams in the past (enter Mad Men era) that called up magazines to run advertisements, we then moved digital and self-serve, and we’re now moving towards offshore and AI.
Cheers to all my marketing leaders embracing change! I’ll check back in 5 years ;)
Thanks to Tuan Hoang, Abhi Mehta, Alex Lieberman, Aidan O’Connor and Ruslan Nazarenko for providing feedback on my initial draft.