Zero-Based Marketing: Reimagining Marketing Team Structure for the AI Age
The AI Marketing Dilemma
Last week, when grabbing coffee with a CMO friend, I heard: "I've got my team using ChatGPT for first drafts of blog posts and social media, but honestly, I'm not sure what our next move should be. There are so many AI tools, and they all seem to have a lot of promise, but quality seems low, plus it's hard to tell which one will stay in six months!"
This sentiment has become increasingly common among marketing leaders. As AI capabilities accelerate, marketing leaders find themselves caught between excitement about new possibilities and uncertainty about implementation. While many teams have started experimenting with AI for content creation, there's a bigger opportunity at hand: rethinking the entire marketing function from first principles.
This means:
Question core assumptions - Rethink why each marketing activity exists and whether it’s still necessary, rather than continuing practices simply because ‘that’s how it’s always been done”.
Deconstructing before reconstructing - Return to the fundamental objectives of marketing and break it down into its elemental components before rebuilding it to eliminate accumulated inefficiencies.
Build for today and tomorrow rather than yesterday - Evaluate each marketing component and role based on its relevance to today’s strategic objectives and technical capabilities, as well as tomorrow’s long-term needs, rather than historical patterns or organizational legacy.
What is Zero-Based Marketing?
In finance, "Zero-based Budgeting" (ZBB) is a technique in which all expenses must be justified for each new period starting from zero, rather than beginning with the previous budget and making adjustments.
Compared to Incremental Budgeting, where the current year's budget is prepared by adding or reducing expenses in the past year's budget, which may work better for stable organizations seeking predictability, Zero-based Budgeting tends to benefit organizations seeking cost efficiency and adaptability. While it can be effort-intensive, hence not a fit for everyone, more and more companies, including P&G and Kraft Heinz, use this approach as it forces teams to question assumptions, eliminate inefficiencies, and allocate resources based on current needs rather than historical patterns.
Applying this same approach to marketing organization design:
Zero-Based Marketing (ZBM) is an approach that rebuilds the marketing function from the ground up, requiring every role and resource to be justified based on current objectives and technological capabilities rather than historical precedents.
I believe marketing teams need to apply this same zero-based approach to rethinking team structure and organization in the AI age.
Why Zero-based Marketing? Because breakthrough technologies like AI fundamentally challenge assumptions around the amount of human effort and the level of expertise needed to accomplish certain objectives. It also changes or replaces workflows that historically correlate with certain roles, requiring us to redefine some roles and their relationship with tools.
Rather than incremental changes, we need to take a step back and fundamentally reimagine what a marketing team looks like.
This isn't about replacing humans with AI - it's about strategic redesign that leverages the unique strengths of both. By starting from zero, we can build more nimble and effective marketing organizations, and technology and tools would feel less like a patchwork, but more natively part of our day-to-day work.
How to Conduct a Zero-Based Marketing Planning Exercise?
To implement zero-based marketing team planning, I've developed a four-step framework:
Step 1: Identify Key Marketing Objectives, Goals, and Tasks
Begin with your company's strategic foundation. If your company uses OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), start by clarifying your Company OKRs and the subsequent Marketing OKRs - they serve as the foundation of the exercise. Then identify the tasks and functions needed to accomplish these OKRs. If you don’t use OKRs, start from ‘Goals’ - what are the goals the marketing organization aims to achieve this year and the next few years?
This is part of the First Principles approach: start from goals, then define activities to achieve them, rather than starting from activities.
As an example:
A typical marketing team may have 3-4 Strategic Objectives; under each Objective, 3-4 Key Results; and under each Key Result, 3-5 Tasks. Do this for all marketing OKRs, which will result in 30~80 tasks, depending on the size and complexity of the marketing org.
Some tasks may serve the several OKRs, so make sure to dedupe. Some long term objectives may not be on current year’s OKR, so you’ll want to review and add critical but not immediate tasks too.
Key Takeaway: Begin by clarifying the strategic objectives that drive your marketing efforts, then identify specific, measurable goals and the tactical tasks needed to achieve them.
Step 2: Review Current and Future Needs
After understanding what needs to be done, this step reviews how it's currently handled and what tools might enhance the process in the future.
Next, list the current team members and tools to accomplish these tasks, then list AI tools that may help increase the quality or quantity of such activities. Keep the ‘Future Team’ section blank until the third step.
For ‘AI-enhanced Future State - Tools’, evaluate the current state of AI capabilities to identify the most promising AI tools to experiment with. Consider both foundational model tools like ChatGPT and Claude, as well as dedicated tools that cater to specific tasks such as Writer and Clay.
Add notes and ideas as you go through this process.
What happens when AI changes in 6 months? We keep the list as a living document, and keep a backlog of tools we may want to experiment with, and switch out the ones that are no longer relevant.
Example:
Key Takeaway: Map your current state honestly, then explore AI tools that could enhance each function, focusing on areas where AI capabilities align well with your specific marketing tasks.
Step 3: Reimagine Future Team Roles
Now that you have clarity on the current state and potential AI tools, it's time to reimagine the future roles.
In this critical step, add the people needed to orchestrate and manage the tools to accomplish the tasks, keeping in mind the quality and efficiency gains from new tools.
As of today, most tasks could be enhanced by tools but still require human oversight, such as content generation. Some tasks could be done almost entirely by tools or AI agents once set up and QA’d, such as inbound qualification and piping. Some remain predominately human-driven, such as positioning and strategic planning.
By evaluating the amount and level of human oversight required, we may notice that roles that historically required a full headcount (e.g. Competitive Intelligence Manager) may now only need 25% of someone’s time, but would need a more senior person (e.g. Senior Product Marketing Manager).
Another example, in a small sales-led growth organization, we may even combine product marketing and content marketing as the process of repurposing content is a lot more efficient. Now you’re starting to combine and redefine roles.
In this step, also review and update the “Future State - Tools” section by picking the ones we’ll likely experiment with next. Put the tools we won’t be using now into the backlog.
This step will reveal a vision of what your marketing team could look like if built from scratch today, as well as a roadmap for transforming your existing team.
Example:
Do this for all marketing OKRs. Now you’ll have a pretty large Google Sheet filled with roles and tools for each task.
For complex organizations, this will be an intensive process that requires marketing leaders to
Be up to date with the AI capabilities and tools
Assess each current team member’s ability to learn, adapt, and grow into the new roles
Balance short-term and long-term needs
Key Takeaway: Focus on identifying roles that can be combined, enhanced, or redefined through AI tools, while maintaining strong human oversight in areas requiring strategic thinking and quality control.
Step 4: Redesign Team Structure
With your task-by-task mapping complete, you can now take a holistic view of your marketing organization.
After identifying the Team and Tools for all marketing OKRs and tasks, dedupe when necessary, and put the Future State Team in an org chart format, with tools and task ownership.
Example org chart:
The types of impact you’ll notice:
Existing role enhanced by AI. For example, we still want someone to own market and competitive research, but now the process is enhanced by creating a custom GPT that refreshes every day to look for and summarize new market and competitive intelligence and generate a report for PMM to review, we’ll be more on top of the market changes.
Existing role reduced or replaced by AI. For example, we probably need fewer marketing designers and content writers. Or we may now combine the work of a product marketer and a content marketer at an early-stage company, now that AI can improve both of their efficiency.
Existing role redefined by AI. For example, a marketing operations manager who may have focused on managing a Marketo instance in the past would now focus on building AI automations and workflows. A content marketing manager who may have in the past focused on managing a team of content writers and editors would now focus on building programmatic SEO workflows and get unique insights from cross-functional partners to elevate content quality and output.
What you’ll likely find is that the Level 2 structure may not change significantly, Level 3 will see consolidation, and Level 4 (junior IC) will reduce in numbers if you have any.
This org chart may not seem radical enough or too different from the current state. This is because AI is at its infancy. While AI tools are impacting areas such as content generation more rapidly, they’re only starting to play an assistant role in other areas such as strategic planning and forecasting. I do expect that if you do this exercise a year from now, we may see bigger changes as AI continues to mature.
Key Takeaway: The point of the exercise and process is to imagine a blank slate and add from zero, rather than thinking incrementally. Focus on the unique value that your human team members bring to strategic thinking, creativity, and oversight.
For Early-Stage Startups: Building From Scratch
For early-stage startups building a marketing team from scratch, the zero-based approach offers a tremendous advantage. You can design your team for the AI age from day one, focusing your limited human resources on the highest-impact activities.
Focus your hiring on strategic roles - people who can set direction, provide oversight, and evolve the output of various tools (traditional, AI-enhanced, or AI agents). Look for marketers who are comfortable with various AI tools and skilled at orchestration rather than execution of routine tasks.
With this approach, a core team can sustain your marketing efforts for a much longer time than in the past. Where you might have needed a content writer, social media manager, and designer in the pre-AI world, you might now be able to hire a strategic content marketing manager who can leverage AI tools to handle much of the execution while focusing on strategy and quality control.
We're already seeing 5-person marketing teams at $100M ARR companies today. The future $100M ARR company might have just two marketing 'conductors' orchestrating a symphony of AI agents handling everything from blog posts to budget forecasts. Fewer meetings, more creative composition.
Key Takeaway: Start lean with AI-savvy generalists who can leverage tools to accomplish the work traditionally required specialized roles, allowing you to scale your marketing impact without scaling headcount at the same rate.
For Established Companies: The Real Work is Change Management
For later-stage companies with existing marketing teams of 20, 50, or 200 people, the challenge is change management. You need a vision of the future state and a roadmap to get there while managing the transformation in a way that aligns with company objectives and culture.
Start by conducting the Zero-based Marketing exercise as a thought experiment with your leadership team. Identify the biggest opportunities to leverage AI, think about how roles might evolve or change, and how you can upskill your existing team to thrive in an AI-enhanced marketing function.
The transformation won't happen overnight, but by taking a methodical approach, you can gradually shift your team structure to become more efficient and effective. This might involve:
Conduct training for all marketing team members to understand AI capabilities, what it can do, can’t do, and do best or worst at.
Solicit use cases that are potential good fits for AI to automate (repetitive, low expertise)
Experiment with a few use cases, share best practices broadly for gradual adoption
Identify champions and early adopters to help elevate the rest of the team
Expand to more advanced use cases and workflows
Gradually shifting budget from headcount to technology where appropriate
The key is to approach this as an evolution rather than a revolution, bringing your team along on the journey rather than creating fear and resistance.
Key Takeaway: Focus on creating a supportive environment for change by starting small, celebrating early wins, and emphasizing how AI can free your team from mundane tasks to focus on higher-value strategic work.
Implications for Marketers
While this exercise is mainly for marketing executives, the implication for junior marketing team members is significant. Sooner than later, companies will need to conduct the Zero-Based Marketing exercise and design their marketing organizations, either proactively, or nudged by CEOs and CFOs. Knowing that creatively, strategic vision, and deep expertise will be valued even more in the AI age, marketers need to quickly learn and deeply understand AI’s capabilities and limitations, become the champion internally for AI adoption, and help lead the transition instead of waiting for the change to happen to you.
Start Your Zero-Based Marketing Journey
The shift to AI-enhanced marketing is inevitable, but how you navigate it is a choice. By taking a zero-based approach to your marketing organization design, you can be intentional about how you leverage both human talent and technological capabilities.
Marketing functions vary widely across businesses, and each company will need to adapt this framework to its specific context. The goal isn't to create a one-size-fits-all model but to provide a structured way of thinking about one of the most significant transformations in marketing history.
Marketing teams are often overwhelmed with day to day activities, with little time to take a step back. This exercise is a forcing function for marketing leaders to ensure you’re proactive in building for tomorrow. I would suggest you do this every year as part of your annual budget and headcount planning cycle.
Whether you're a founder building your first marketing team or a CMO managing a large organization, I encourage you to carve out time for this zero-based marketing exercise. The insights you gain will not only prepare you for the inevitable questions from your board or CEO, but also position your marketing function to deliver more impact with greater efficiency in the AI age.
What would your marketing team look like if you designed it from scratch today? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments.
Many Thanks…
I am extremely grateful to
, , for providing valuable feedback on various iterations of this piece.
…really awesome piece and excellent valuable advice…will be sharing the concept with my team today…