Stepping into a new head of marketing role is both exciting and daunting — and the stakes have never been higher.
The average tenure for marketing leaders is shrinking, dropping to just 3.9 years from 4.1, according to Forrester. With shorter windows to prove value, greater scrutiny from leadership, and relentless pressure to deliver results fast, your first year is make-or-break.
While every organization and role is unique, we’ve observed a clear pattern of best practices among the many new marketing leaders who have stepped into our partner organizations over the years.
Key takeaways
- The first year as a head of marketing is often a make or break period: Tenures are shrinking, and new executives face intense pressure to prove value quickly.
- Success is dependent on alignment, not speed: Effective leaders invest time in understanding the business, building credibility across teams, and grounding strategy in organizational goals.
- Strategic evaluation drives sustainable impact: Audit existing efforts and resources before acting to ensure that every decision supports measurable outcomes.
- Visibility and communication are critical: To earn trust, secure investment, and establish long-term influence, marketing leaders must proactively share wins and connect marketing efforts to business growth.
Best Practices for New Marketing Leaders
Here are the best practices that new leaders follow to set themselves up for success in the first year of their tenure:
- Align marketing to business goals from day one
- Build cross-functional relationships – and check your biases
- Audit before you act
- Balance short and long-term success with a roadmap anchored in impact
- Market your own marketing
1. Align Marketing to Business Goals From Day One
While it may be tempting to move fast with big new ideas or campaigns to make an early impression, it’s important to first anchor yourself in the business.
What are the growth targets? Which products or services will drive revenue this quarter and next year? Where is the business betting big?
Make sure you have a clear picture of both the long-term vision and the short-term milestones required to get there. Your marketing strategy should ladder up to both. Aligning to the company’s big-picture ambitions ensures your work isn’t seen as “fluff,” but as a driver of outcomes that matter.
That alignment starts with executive relationships. Build trust and transparency with your peers in sales, product, and finance so marketing is seen as a performance driver — not a cost center. From there, every initiative becomes easier to fund, scale and celebrate.
2. Build Cross-Functional Relationships — and Check Your Biases
Marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Partner early and often with sales, product, customer success and other key stakeholders. Listen and learn.
- What are they hearing from customers?
- Where are the biggest opportunities?
- What challenges are blocking growth?
These relationships provide insight and help you check your own biases. Most marketing leaders come from a particular discipline — whether it’s brand, demand generation or product marketing. It’s natural to lean into what you know best, but doing so can create blind spots.
Over-indexing on one area can leave gaps elsewhere — for example, investing heavily in PR without a strong lead gen strategy or prioritizing performance marketing while neglecting brand building.
To avoid gaps, establish recurring syncs with other leaders and co-create goals where possible. Inviting diverse perspectives will help you develop a more balanced, effective strategy that reflects the business’s real needs, not just your comfort zone.
3. Audit Before You Act
One of the biggest mistakes new marketing leaders make is feeling the need to overhaul everything immediately. Resist that urge. Instead, evaluate what’s already in place before deciding what to keep, adjust or retire.
Audit the Brand
- Is your value proposition clear?
- Does your messaging differentiate you from competitors?
- Does the narrative resonate with both internal stakeholders and your target audience?
You may find that some elements are strong and only need refinement, while others require deeper work.
Audit the Team
Review all areas — performance marketing, product marketing, content, brand, operations — and assess where there are gaps. Which roles or skills are mission-critical for hitting near-term goals? Some capabilities may already exist internally, while others may require new hires, agency partners, or upskilling your current team.
Understanding what you’re working with helps you prioritize investments more strategically and avoid change for change’s sake.
4. Balance Short and Long Term Success with a Roadmap Anchored in Impact
Once you understand your organization’s landscape, build a 6– to 12-month roadmap that prioritizes what matters most.
Start by assessing your budget and being strategic about trade-offs, then decide where to invest based on business goals. This could include new hires, technology, agency partners or campaigns. Every initiative should have clear success metrics and be directly tied to outcomes that matter, helping you build credibility and secure future investment.
Most CEOs expect quick results, often in the form of pipeline growth or revenue. But focusing only on short-term wins is risky. A balanced strategy delivers early impact while laying the groundwork for future growth. Think quick-turn demand gen programs that deliver measurable results this quarter — complemented by long-term initiatives like brand storytelling, thought leadership and increasingly, GEO strategies that build momentum over time.
Phased, outcome-oriented investments that balance immediate ROI with long-term brand building will set you up for success not just in your first six months but well beyond. A roadmap anchored in impact ensures marketing is seen as a driver of business value and positions you to sustain and scale that impact for years to come.
5. Market Your Own Marketing
Even the best strategies fall flat without visibility. Too often, marketing leaders do excellent work behind the scenes but fail to communicate the outcomes.
Establish a reporting cadence that clearly shows how marketing contributes to business growth. Share updates regularly with executives and the broader organization.
Frameworks like Outcome-Based Marketing can help you connect campaigns directly to revenue and brand performance metrics, making it easier for stakeholders to see marketing as an engine of growth, not a support function.
By marketing your marketing, you’ll build internal advocates and champions who understand and support your work. That visibility is invaluable when it’s time to secure next year’s budget or make the case for additional investment.
Preparing for Your First Year as a Marketing Leader
Your first year isn’t about proving you can do it all. It’s about proving you know what matters most.
By aligning early, listening deeply, and leading with strategy, you’ll build credibility fast and set the foundation for long-term success. Because when marketing earns its seat at the table, it doesn’t just tell the company’s story — it helps write it.
Ready to make your first year a success story? Partner with Walker Sands to build a marketing strategy that drives impact from day one and momentum that lasts.
