Exit Five Newsletter: What to Look for in a Marketing Hire

Hello and welcome to the Exit Five Weekly Newsletter — read by 42,000 B2B marketing professionals around the world. Exit Five is a membership site designed to help you build a successful career in B2B marketing. Join 5,700 other members at exitfive.com.

By the way — this email was designed in Knak, which helps you create email and landing pages in minutes without having to write code. Learn more about Knak here.

TOGETHER WITH CUSTOMER.IO

📨 5 Ways to Hit the Inbox Every Time (and Master Deliverability)

You can write the perfect subject line, design a beautiful email, and craft the ideal CTA…
and still end up in spam.

Because none of it matters if your deliverability is broken.

Customer.io put together a guide that breaks down five advanced strategies to make sure your emails actually reach the inbox. So your next perfect send doesn’t vanish into the void.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to tailor your sending strategy for Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo
• Why double opt-ins and welcome emails reduce complaints and boost engagement
• How to monitor and improve your domain and IP reputation
• What to do if you land on a blocklist (like Spamhaus)
• Which common “fixes” actually hurt your deliverability

If email is part of your growth engine, this is how you keep it firing.

🤝🏻 What To Look For In Your First Marketing Hire

You've got contractors. You've got content. You've got a growth engineer. But something's still missing.

Recently, a B2B marketing leader asked the Exit Five community what to do next in this exact situation.

He’s running lean with 2 content contractors, 1 GTM engineer, 1 video editor, and a design agency. He wants to grow inbound, build community, do events, and scale social.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the advice he got that might help you with your next hire.

The Obvious Answer? Demand Gen

Multiple marketers jumped on this immediately. Lara Gracis nailed it: "I'd look for someone who can tie in what everyone else is doing and turn it into pipeline."

You've got the content pieces. You've got the landing pages. But who's connecting the dots? Who's turning all that activity into actual leads?

A demand gen person doesn't just run campaigns. They become your conversion glue. Taking what your contractors create and making it work harder.

The Less Obvious Answer? Focus First

But here's where it gets interesting. Multiple people pushed back on the "grow every metric" approach.

Dave asked "What is the one big goal for the company you can support and move forward?"

Greg (Founder at Content Guppy) shared his story: His team tried everything, but SEO stuck. So they dropped everything else and went all-in. Result? $7M ARR in 5 years.

Rather than trying to do it all, pick one thing and crush it, rather than doing five things poorly.

What You're Really Missing

Before you hire anyone, answer this: Can you clearly identify what's working versus what's not?

Caleb Rule (2x Fractional CMO) said, "I would want to make darn sure everything's running smoothly before adding more to the plate."

If you can't measure your current work's impact, adding another person won't fix that. You'll just have more moving parts and less clarity.

The Real Next Hire

If you know what's working, hire a demand gen generalist who can:

• Work with your specialists
• Hold everyone accountable
• Jump in when needed
• Turn content into pipeline

If you don't know what's working, hire someone who can figure that out first. Maybe that's a fractional CMO. Maybe it's pausing new initiatives until you have clarity.

The worst move? Hiring someone to "grow every metric" when you can't measure the metrics you already have.

Focus beats breadth every time.

📺 UPCOMING EVENTS

Exit Five Pro Members Only

• July 25th: Non-SaaS Marketing Meetup: Best practices before, during, and after your event

CMO Club Members Only

• July 31st: AI Spotlight - How Are B2B Marketing Leaders Using AI?

Not a member yet? Learn more about an Exit Five Membership here.

If you are an Exit Five member, click here to RSVP to these events.

📚 LATEST CONTENT

Here's the latest from the Exit Five content library:

• 🎧 How to Lead B2B Marketing for the First Time: Strategy, Budget, Team, and Content with Jess Cook
• 🎧 Beyond the SaaS Playbook: How Non-SaaS Teams Drive Pipeline with Sandra Rand
• 🎧 Building a Brand Strategy and Content Goldmine with Chelsea Castle, Head of Content and Brand at Close
• 📰 How to Lead a High Functioning Marketing Org
• 📰 Marketing Is Broken: Why You’re So Busy and Still Not Getting Anything Done
• 📰 How to Put On a Virtual Event People Actually Want to Attend

🪪 BECOME AN EXIT FIVE MEMBER

What’s actually inside the Exit Five Membership?

We made you this 131-second video to show you around. Have a peek. 👀

Join 5,700 Other Exit Five Members

Thanks to our friends over at Knak for being our 2025 newsletter sponsor.

Want to sponsor a future newsletter or learn more about other sponsorship opportunities with Exit Five? Email hi@exitfive.com (or just reply to this email).

If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get the newsletter every week.

‍