Navigating the Marketing Talent Landscape

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one." ​

– Voltaire

As we all look to start 2025 with a sense of momentum, it’s important to come up for air and assess both where we've been and what the road ahead suggests for the State of Marketing. In 2024 we saw continued volatility in marketing budgets and staffing. The slowdown in venture capital and private equity transactions the past couple of years has raised the importance of companies optimizing the ROI of marketing investments. Further, the disruptive moment we are seeing as AI takes off has perpetuated further uncertainty. As market dynamics shift, it’s harder for companies to consistently align their marketing talent to the evolving needs of their business.

Over the course of my career, I have found these moments of uncertainty to be valuable, as they provide the impetus for teams to focus and make hard calls. Navigating these environments helps organizations build an operating discipline that was harder to instill when “hockey-stick” growth curves seemed so easy to achieve. 

Based on the patterns our team at 621 has seen across the wide cross-section of companies we’ve worked with, I’d like to highlight a few key pointers to help companies navigate the 2025 marketing talent landscape:

1) Prioritize adaptability

In fluid markets like the one we’re in now, it’s valuable to ensure your team has some players who can adapt seamlessly to new realities. For example, the marketer who can transition from being a “Swiss army knife generalist” in an early stage startup into becoming an expert in revenue operations at that same company scales shows a critical capacity for reinvention  Conversely, the same goes for the leader of a team who can provide wise strategic counsel but also roll up their sleeves when there’s a personnel hole.

2) Balance specialists with generalists

While high performing marketing teams inevitably require some functional specialists (e.g., pros at efficient customer acquisition or brand storytelling, among others), it’s also important to have utility players who can build strong connective tissue across the company’s go-to-market model.

3) Ensure your org is nimble

One of the main reasons we’ve seen such frequent churn in CMO and other marketing roles in recent years is that, oftentimes, even minor shifts in business models and priorities can result in misalignment between the company strategy and the talent composition of the team. To hedge against this risk, we recommend that you:

• Parse major initiatives into sprints to put points on the board early and provide critical learning that can inform agile course-corrections

• Avoid over-hiring (i.e., too many senior people; not enough “doers” or “player-coaches” to make sure the work gets done)

• Selectively supplement the core team with external talent

A note on using fractional marketers effectively: while we see a ton of value to this approach (and have focused 621 on doing just that), it’s also important to consider how to ensure you derive maximum value from these hired guns. A few initial suggestions:

• Prioritize the highest impact focus areas at the outset to ensure quick alignment - then look for specialists in those areas so you can fully benefit from their deep expertise

• Be prepared to recalibrate midstream how you leverage fractional resources across a series of sprints. Course-corrections are common as fractional resources get enmeshed in your business

• Think of these people as members of your existing team: 

  • Use them as unbiased thought partners for GTM strategy and to cover skill gaps in the team

  • Embed them in your company cadence. Their work shouldn’t happen in a black box

  • Tap in to them to accelerate onboarding and the impact of new full-time hires

If your company is navigating inflection points in your marketing strategy, business model or org, the 621 team is happy to chat. Feel free to contact us to learn more.