A marketing department org chart is redrawn more often than any other department's, because marketing changes shape with every campaign model the company tries. The useful version is not a picture of this quarter's plan; it is a chart of the seats and who owns them, drawn so it survives the next change of channel mix. This page is that chart at three sizes, with the roles that earn their own box at each. The arithmetic under it is the same as everywhere else: at a span of seven, a department needs its own second layer somewhere past seven people, and the planner will tell you where.
Four people: one leader, three owners
Content, demand generation and product marketing, each owned by one person, under a head of marketing who still does the work as well as leading it. There is no second layer and there should not be: four boxes under one, drawn once, and the chart's job is to show what each of the three owns so the rest of the company knows who to ask. Brand and events are somebody's second hat, and the chart should say whose.
Nine people: the second layer arrives
Past seven, the head of marketing cannot hold every one-to-one, and the department grows leads for its two largest groups, usually content and demand generation. That is one manager for every eight or so people, which is the same span the rest of the company runs. Product marketing usually stays a direct report because it works with product more than with marketing, which is the first place a dotted line appears on this chart.
Twenty people: three groups and the operations seat
Content, demand and product marketing each become a group with a lead, and marketing operations appears as a seat serving all three. That seat is almost always dotted into revenue operations or sales, which is worth drawing rather than leaving to convention: on the worked example each dotted line carries about a fortnightly check-in, and 43 of them across a company cost around $2,428 a month.
Questions people ask about marketing department org chart
Should product marketing report to marketing or product?
Marketing, with a dotted line to product, in most companies. It is the arrangement that keeps the review with the person who sets the marketing standard while the work happens where the roadmap is.
Where do agencies and freelancers go?
On the chart, marked as external, under whoever briefs them. A chart that omits the three freelancers doing half the content is not a chart of the department.
How often does this chart change?
For most companies, every time the channel mix does, which is why it should be a view of records rather than a slide somebody redraws.