Head of Marketing Job Description, KRAs and Skills

A Head of Marketing is the single leader of the marketing function in a growing company, often one with 50 to 1,000 employees and no separate CMO. The role is hands-on: it sets the marketing plan and budget, builds a small team of specialists, manages agencies and freelancers, and personally shapes positioning, the website and key campaigns. A good head of marketing gives the founder or CEO a clear, measurable contribution to pipeline or revenue, and a brand that sales can sell with.

Detail	For this role
Department	Marketing
Level	Senior management
Reports to	Chief Executive Officer
Direct reports	Digital Marketing Manager, Content Marketing Manager, Marketing Manager, Marketing Executive
Experience	8 to 12 years in marketing, with 2 to 4 years leading a small team or a full marketing plan

Head of Marketing job description template

Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.

Job title: Head of Marketing

Department: Marketing

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

Location: [City], [office, branch or site]

About the role

Key responsibilities

Write the yearly marketing plan with the founder or CEO, linking marketing targets to the revenue plan, priority segments and sales capacity.
Define positioning and key messages for each product and customer segment, and keep the website, sales deck and brochures in line with them.
Build a lead engine across search, social, events, content, referrals and partnerships, and agree lead stages with the sales head.
Hire the first specialists in digital, content and design, and decide which work stays in-house and which goes to agencies or freelancers.
Run the marketing budget month by month, with a known cost per lead and cost per customer for each channel.
Plan trade shows, customer events and webinars that put the company in front of buyers in its priority cities and industries.
Create case studies, comparison sheets and proposal templates with the sales team so that reps use the same story.
Set up the CRM stages, web forms and reports that show which campaigns produce pipeline, and review them weekly with sales.
Manage public relations and founder visibility through media interviews, LinkedIn posts and industry forums.
Send the CEO a monthly marketing report covering pipeline contribution, spend, lessons and next month's priorities.

Requirements

MBA or PGDM in Marketing, or a graduate degree with strong marketing experience
Exposure to both brand work and demand generation
Digital marketing certifications are an advantage
8 to 12 years in marketing, with 2 to 4 years leading a small team or a full marketing plan

KRAs and KPIs for a Head of Marketing

Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.

Key result area	How to measure it
Pipeline contribution	Marketing-sourced pipeline value at or above the share agreed in the annual plan every quarter
Cost per customer	Marketing cost per new customer within the ceiling agreed with the CEO
Website performance	Visitor to lead conversion on the website improved every quarter from the baseline
Sales enablement	Current deck, case studies and battle cards available for every priority segment each quarter
Budget use	Monthly spend within the approved budget, with every rupee mapped to a channel and campaign
Team build	Approved marketing hires completed within the quarter they were approved

Skills and tools

Marketing strategy for growing companiesPositioning and messagingDemand generationDigital channels across search and socialCRM and funnel reportingBudget managementHiring and managing specialistsHands-on executionPartnership with salesPrioritization

Tools used day to day: HubSpot or Zoho CRM, Google Analytics 4, Google Ads and LinkedIn Campaign Manager, WordPress or Webflow, Canva, Google Sheets or Excel.

Reporting line and career path

Moves up from: Marketing Manager, Digital Marketing Manager, Product Marketing Manager
Next roles: Vice President Marketing, Chief Marketing Officer, Business Head

Interview questions for a Head of Marketing

You join as our first marketing head with a small budget. What do you do in the first 90 days?
How would you agree with sales on what counts as a qualified lead?
Which marketing work would you keep in-house, and which would you give to agencies or freelancers?
Show us a campaign where you traced the spend all the way to revenue. How did you measure it?
The CEO wants a big brand campaign, but you believe the funnel is broken. How do you handle it?
How would you position us against a larger and better-known competitor?

Managing a Head of Marketing in ZeniaHR

AttendanceGeneral hours at the main office, with regular events, client meetings and agency visits that should go in as on duty requests from the employee app. Where the company allows it, choose the hybrid work model in the work terms policy with a fixed number of WFH days each month.LeaveIn a small team the head of marketing is often the only campaign approver, so plan their leave away from event weeks and launch dates. The team leave calendar shows HR when the marketing team will be thin.Performance and KRAsEnter pipeline, cost per customer and website conversion as KPI goals with weights in a quarterly review cycle, with the hiring and enablement goals as task goals. Review CRM actuals against each goal with the CEO every quarter, and close the year in an annual cycle.

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Frequently asked questions

What does a head of marketing do?

A head of marketing leads the whole marketing function in a company. They write the plan, manage the budget, set positioning, build the lead engine with sales, hire specialists and agencies, and report pipeline or revenue contribution to the CEO. In smaller companies they also do much of the hands-on work themselves.

What is the difference between a head of marketing and a CMO?

A CMO is a C-suite leader, usually in larger companies, who may own brand, digital, insights and sometimes customer experience across several businesses. A head of marketing typically leads a smaller function, reports to the CEO or a business head and stays close to day-to-day campaigns.

Who should a startup hire as its first head of marketing?

Most startups do best with a hands-on marketer who has run demand generation and can also write sharp positioning, rather than a pure brand specialist. Look for someone who has built a funnel from scratch, worked with a limited budget and hired their own team.