Go-To Guide For Your First 90 Days In Marketing Leadership & Hot Jobs

22th Edition: Through the Funnel (Marketing News & Jobs)

Author

MarketingHQ
February 09, 2025

News From MHQ to You 📰

If you’re starting, or looking for, a marketing leadership role in 2025, having a clear plan for your first 90 days is essential.

Starting a new role is exciting but can also be stressful. The pressure to make an impact quickly is high, and without a clear plan, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. A structured approach from day one can alleviate that stress, helping you build credibility, align with key stakeholders, and set the stage for long-term success.

Whether you’re stepping into a high-growth startup, an established enterprise, or an entirely new industry, a well-defined 90-day plan is critical. In this edition, we break down what to focus on in your first 30, 60, and 90 days to gain momentum, earn trust, and deliver results.

First 30 Days: Listen, Learn, and Build Relationships 

The first month is all about understanding the business, its goals, and the team you’re leading or collaborating with. Resist the urge to make big changes too quickly. Instead, focus on:

🚀 Understanding the Business
Start strong by immersing yourself in the company’s mission, value proposition, and competitive landscape. Assess existing marketing strategies, key campaigns, and performance metrics such as website performance, brand searches, social engagement, and funnel conversion rates are great starting points.

🤝 Building Relationships
Meet with key stakeholders across executives, sales, product, and customer success teams to understand their goals, priorities, and challenges, as well as their expectations of marketing. Establishing strong cross-functional relationships early is critical to long-term success. Now is also the time to align on marketing’s expected pipeline and revenue contribution to ensure clarity on success metrics and accountability.

👥 Assessing the Team & Resources
If you’re leading a team, take time to understand their strengths, challenges, and working styles to build trust and set them up for success. Ensure your CRM has the right reporting and dashboards in place to track performance effectively. You’ll need visibility into leading indicators (like website traffic, engagement, and MQLs) to gauge early momentum, as well as lagging indicators (like pipeline and revenue) to measure long-term success.

🔎 Analyzing Market & Customer Insights
Review the ICP and buyer personas, objection-handling documents, and customer journey maps to understand how the company engages its audience. Identify gaps in market understanding or messaging and look for opportunities to refine positioning, improve engagement, and better align with customer needs.

🎯 Quick Wins & Low-Hanging Fruit
Audit website copy, ads, and content collateral (e.g., one-pagers, data sheets) to ensure messaging is accurate, consistent, and aligned across all channels. Small refinements can have an immediate impact—after all, driving traffic to your site or event booth is only valuable if your messaging is clear and compelling. Misalignment creates confusion and missed opportunities, so tightening up these assets early helps drive better engagement and conversions.

Days 31-60: Develop Strategy & Show Early Impact

Now that you have a solid understanding of the landscape, it’s time to develop a strategy and start executing.

📊 Refining or Developing the Marketing Strategy
Align your marketing initiatives with broader business goals, primarily focusing on demand generation or lead generation. It’s crucial to communicate trade-offs to your team. Prioritizing lead generation accelerates the flow of contacts to sales but often results in lower-intent leads, while demand generation may take longer but typically yields higher-quality, long-term prospects.

📈 Setting Clear KPIs & Metrics
Define success criteria and align with leadership’s vision. Establish baseline performance data to track improvements over time, ensuring KPIs tie directly to pipeline growth and revenue contribution.

🚀 Executing Quick-Win Initiatives
Begin implementing small but impactful changes that demonstrate your ability to deliver results. Focus on optimizing areas like paid ad copy and spend, refining lead nurture campaigns, or launching a customer advocacy program. These quick wins create momentum and reinforce your leadership.

🤝 Strengthening Sales & Marketing Alignment
Foster close collaboration with the sales team to refine lead progression, messaging, and enablement materials. Ensure marketing efforts directly support revenue goals by aligning with the sales pipeline, reinforcing marketing’s critical role in driving sales success.

🔧 Identifying Gaps in Tools & Technology
Assess your tech stack to uncover inefficiencies or gaps that could enhance marketing performance. Upgrading tools or integrating new technologies can streamline operations, improve targeting, and enhance tracking and optimization for better campaign effectiveness.

Days 61-90: Scale, Optimize & Drive Long-Term Impact

The final phase is about refining your strategy, scaling what’s working, and setting up for long-term success.

✅ Executing Larger Initiatives
Now that you’ve built credibility, start rolling out larger initiatives like rebranding efforts, content overhauls, or major campaign launches.

✅ Optimizing Performance & Iterating
Analyze early campaign data and make necessary adjustments. Double down on what’s working and refine areas that need improvement.

✅ Establishing Thought Leadership
Position yourself and your company as industry authorities by pursuing speaking opportunities, creating valuable content, and engaging with the broader marketing community.

✅ Formalizing Your Long-Term Roadmap
Develop a 6-12 month strategic plan to ensure alignment with company growth goals and budget considerations, setting a clear direction for marketing efforts.

✅ Celebrating Wins & Strengthening Culture
Acknowledge team achievements and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Marketing success is a collaborative effort—keep the momentum strong through teamwork.

5 Key Takeaways for a Strong Start

🔹 Prioritize learning and relationship-building before making major changes.
🔹 Align marketing strategy with business goals and set clear performance metrics.
🔹 Show early impact through quick wins and efficient execution.
🔹 Stay agile—optimize based on data and scale what’s working.
🔹 Build strong cross-functional partnerships to ensure long-term success.

Your first 90 days set the foundation for everything that follows. Approach it with curiosity, strategy, and adaptability, and you’ll be well-positioned to drive meaningful impact in your new role.

Career Up 🚀

Now That You Have the Guide, It’s Time to Land the Role:

Vice President Marketing - FreshRealm (Remote) $220k - $250k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109693365-vice-president-marketing

Vice President Marketing - Digital Waffle (Remote) $150k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109172439-vice-president-marketing

VP of Brand Marketing - Seattle Financial Staffing, LLC • Contract • ($135-$165/hr.) https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109618355-vp-of-brand-marketing

Senior Director of Marketing - Free Country $100k - $135k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/59184799-senior-director-of-marketing

Director of Brand Marketing - Phifer & Company $400k - $425k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/97937121-director-of-brand-marketing

Marketing Director - HubSearch $110k - $160k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109614970-marketing-director

Director Product Marketing - Hypersonix (Remote) https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109693404-director-product-marketing

Digital Marketing Search Strategist - Shake Shack $69.22k - $88.27k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/98911325-digital-marketing-search-strategist

Sr. Marketing Manager - Brand Strategy, Expression - LinkedIn $121k - $188k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109538217-sr-marketing-manager-brand-strategy-expression

Sr Events Marketing Manager - Later (Remote) $125k - $135 https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/104927146-sr-events-marketing-manager

Full-Stack Marketing Manager - Openforce (Remote) https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109615147-full-stack-marketing-manager

Lead, Marketing Creative Brand + Content - GEICO $80k - $126k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/106917043-lead-marketing-creative-brand-+-content

Marketing Manager, Campaigns - Notion $150k - $180k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109614857-marketing-manager-campaigns

Digital Marketing Manager - Nike • Contract • (Remote) https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109614854-digital-marketing-manager

Social Media Manager - Franki (Remote) $75k - $100k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109620585-social-media-manager

Social Media Manager - The Walt Disney Company $91.90k - $126.20k https://jobs.marketinghq.io/jobs/109526111-social-media-manager-youtube-national-geographic

Find MANY more marketing career opportunities, across all functions and seniority levels, on our Job Board MarketingHQ

Until Next Time

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