Your Marketing Team Needs More Capacity. Does It Need Another Employee?

There is a familiar cycle in law firm marketing. You have a good plan, the team is making progress and content and campaigns are moving forward. Then something happens.

An unexpected firm initiative takes priority. An attorney needs help preparing for a pitch. A website project requires more attention than expected. Someone leaves the team. Before long, the proactive work gets pushed aside by whatever needs attention today.

For small marketing teams, this is not unusual. I have spent much of my career working with lean teams, including as a law firm CMO, and I know how quickly a well-planned week can turn into a series of competing priorities.

The natural response is often: We need another person.

Sometimes you do. But before going to management to make your case, consider whether one person can really be the solution to all your problems. Or is there another option, such as an outsourced marketing partner with expertise in multiple areas?

Small Teams Can Be High-Functioning Teams

Building a bigger team isn’t always the answer. Small teams can get stuff done. Some of the most effective teams I have worked with have been lean.

What makes them successful is not necessarily headcount. It is having clear priorities, relevant skills, and enough support to execute consistently.

Think about something as routine as publishing a blog post. Who identifies the topic? Who drafts it? Who follows up with the attorney? Who posts it to the website? Who promotes it on social media? Who schedules the email campaign? Who tracks performance?

When those responsibilities are understood, the work moves. When they aren’t, even relatively simple projects can require a surprising amount of attention from the marketing leader.

Multiply that across content, social media, email marketing, website updates, events, directories, sponsorships, analytics, and everything else on a law firm marketing team’s plate, and it becomes easy to see why teams become overwhelmed and reactive.

Before You Hire, Identify the Problem

When a marketing team is overwhelmed, adding another employee can seem like the obvious solution. Before you make the case for additional headcount, look at where the pressure is actually coming from. 

Is the team missing a skill set that one person can provide? Is there enough ongoing work to justify another full-time role? If so, hiring may absolutely make sense.

But sometimes the problem is different. The marketing leader is spending too much time coordinating routine work. Projects stall because there is no consistent process for moving them forward. Good ideas are sitting on a list because no one has the capacity to execute them. Or the team needs expertise in several areas, but not enough of any one area to justify another full-time hire.

There is also the practical question of budget. Not every firm is in a position to add another salary and the associated costs of a full-time employee. Outsourced support can give a firm access to additional capacity and expertise at a level that better fits its current needs and budget.

Those are different problems, and they may require different solutions.

Outsourcing Can Add More Than Capacity

Outsourcing is sometimes viewed simply as a way to hand off a list of tasks. Done well, and with the right partner, it can be much more valuable than that.

A trusted marketing partner can bring a fresh perspective, offer strategy recommendations, or help create processes that keep work moving forward. It can also give a small team access to different skill sets as they need them. You may not need a full-time content writer, SEO specialist, or event coordinator, but you may need each of them at different points throughout the year.

On a day-to-day basis, your outsourced marketing partner might be establishing a content calendar and managing blogs from idea through publication. They could be creating a repeatable process for promoting case results, attorney news or firm announcements. They might be coordinating website updates, managing social media, or tracking campaigns.

The goal isn’t simply to do more marketing. It is to make the marketing function work better.

And, crucially but often overlooked: it gives the marketing leader time back to focus on true leadership tasks.

What Should Your Marketing Leader Be Doing?

A marketing director or CMO can certainly post an article to a website, chase down an attorney approval, or coordinate a social media graphic. I have done all of those things as CMO.

But if that is where a significant portion of the CMO’s time is going, the firm is probably not getting the highest value from that role.

Marketing leaders need time to understand what is happening across the firm. They need to talk with attorneys about their practices, identify opportunities, manage and develop their teams, evaluate what is working, make recommendations and think about where the firm’s marketing should go next.

Those responsibilities are difficult to prioritize when the day is consumed by execution and follow-up.

The right outsourced partner supports, rather than replaces, the marketing leader. It gives that person leverage.

Build the Function Before You Build the Team

There will always be unexpected requests in law firm marketing. No process is going to eliminate the attorney who needs a client pitch by tomorrow or the breaking news announcement that suddenly becomes the day’s top priority.

The goal isn’t to eliminate reactive work. It is to build enough structure around everything else that the entire marketing function doesn’t become reactive with it, so you stay on track to your strategic goals.

That means informed marketing strategies backed by repeatable processes, being clear about who owns what, and making sure there is enough capacity to execute consistently. For some firms, that will mean adding another employee. For others, outsourced marketing support can provide the execution, expertise, and structure they need without adding another full-time position.

The important thing is to understand the problem before deciding on the solution.

A small marketing team does not have to operate like an understaffed marketing team. With the right processes, resources, and partners, it can operate like a much larger one.

I’ve been the marketing leader trying to balance strategy, attorney needs, team management, and an ever-growing list of things that simply need to get done. If that sounds familiar, take a look at what is consuming your time. What could run more efficiently with a better process? What could be delegated? What could an outside marketing partner take off your plate? 

The goal isn’t to outsource your marketing leadership. It’s to create the space to actually lead.