How the marketing team works at FlowFuse

What to work on

Due to the broad range of functions in the marketing functions at FlowFuse, there's a large degree of freedom what to pick up, and when to pick it up.

To keep the company updated and remove the need for lots of status reporting during meetings each individual is responsible for keeping all tasks one works on that take more than two hours in the marketing issue tracker.

Scheduling and Planning

The marketing team creates tasks, stories, and epics just like our engineering team. The CEO currently does planning in 1:1s with each individual contributor.

Team Performance and Collaboration

The marketing team holds a weekly meeting focused on performance review and KPIs. These sessions emphasize each team member’s needs and provide visibility into ongoing work, ensuring that individual contributions are recognized even in a fast-paced environment. They also serve as a space to identify where teammates can support one another when workloads become challenging.

Additionally, the Product Marketing Manager and the CEO host a monthly meeting to review overall departmental performance based on HubSpot dashboards and other ad hoc reports.

When required, the marketing team also leverages external vendors to maintain quality and momentum. Engaging vendors can be especially valuable when additional resources are needed to meet deadlines, sustain output levels, or enhance the team’s effectiveness with CEO approval.

Requesting Marketing support

If you would like to see the Marketing team create and publish content as a demo, blog post, or social media post, follow these steps:

1. Create issues in the Customer repo and put them in the Marketing Department Work Schedule project with 'No Status'. If your request is for a social post, ensure that it follows the structure outlined here.
2. Discuss the issues with the Product Marketing Manager to ensure that expectations are in line with Marketing priorities and timelines.
3. Change the status of the issue to 'Todo', add an assignee, and the suggested target date. This ensures the person responsible is notified and has the necessary info to plan their work effectively.
4. Add these items to the Content Planner spreadsheet.

The Product Marketing Manager will validate timelines and deliverables.

Monthly Marketing Performance Tracking

Overview

Every first Thursday of the month, FlowFuse's CEO and product marketing manager conduct a monthly performance review to track progress, optimize campaigns, and ensure alignment with our marketing plan objectives. This systematic approach enables data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement of our marketing efforts. The monthly marketing performance review is conducted through a structured two-part assessment combining automated dashboard metrics with manual campaign and channel analysis.

Part 1: Dashboard Metrics (HubSpot Dynamic Dashboard)

We utilize our HubSpot dashboard to track core marketing performance indicators

Part 2: Manual Performance Analysis

The second component involves a detailed manual analysis across multiple marketing channels and activities in a Spreadsheet:

Paid Campaign Performance

• Campaign-by-campaign analysis: Detailed review of each active paid campaign's performance
• ROI assessment: Evaluation of campaign return on investment and cost-effectiveness
• Resource allocation decisions: Data-driven recommendations on whether to:
  • Continue campaigns as-is
  • Pause underperforming campaigns
  • Increase budget allocation for high-performing campaigns
  • Optimize targeting or creative elements

Community and Social Media Evolution

• Growth metrics: Follower count, engagement rates, and community expansion
• Content performance: Analysis of post reach, engagement, and conversion
• Platform-specific insights: Performance breakdown across different social channels
• Community health: Assessment of community engagement quality and sentiment

Content Performance Tracking

• Content calendar adherence: Progress against planned content creation and publication
• Cross-channel analysis: Performance measurement across all content distribution channels
• Reach and engagement metrics: Individual post performance and audience response
• Content type effectiveness: Analysis of which content formats drive best results

SEO Performance Monitoring

• Monthly SEO evolution: Tracking organic search performance trends
• Keyword ranking changes: Monitoring target keyword position movements
• Technical SEO health: Assessment of site performance and technical issues
• Actionable insights: Identification of specific optimization opportunities

Budget Management

• Spend tracking: Monthly expenditure against approved marketing budget
• Budget allocation efficiency: Analysis of spend distribution across channels and campaigns
• Variance analysis: Identification and explanation of budget deviations
• Future planning: Budget reallocation recommendations based on performance data

Success Metrics

The effectiveness of our monthly tracking process is measured by:

• Consistent month-over-month improvement in key metrics
• Timely identification and resolution of performance issues
• Successful optimization of underperforming campaigns
• Adherence to budget targets and efficient resource allocation
• Achievement of quarterly and annual marketing plan objectives

This approach ensures our marketing efforts remain aligned with our business objectives set up in our Growth Strategy while maintaining the agility to adapt to changing market conditions and performance insights.