# How many marketing people does a company my size need?

**Short answer.** No table answers this by revenue bracket, and anyone showing you one is selling something. What can be settled: which work returns every month, and which work comes in peaks.

Rules of thumb circulate: marketing should be so many percent of revenue, you need one marketer per so many million. They are all equally convincing and equally useless: the answer differs tenfold between a B2B company with thirty customers and a webshop with thirty thousand.

## Asking the question differently

Not "how many people", but "which work returns every month". Put that on paper for the next twelve months, with the days it takes per line:

- What is **always** there: website, newsletters, social, sales material, trade stands, reporting.
- What is **sometimes** there: campaigns, launches, a rebranding, an event.
- What is **never** there but has to happen: strategy, positioning, budget allocation.

The first column decides how many people you employ. The second decides your agency budget. The third decides who has to be senior enough to make calls, and that is almost never the same person.

## The three functions you need regardless

Someone who **decides** (what we do and do not do), someone who **orchestrates** (who does what when) and someone who **makes**. In a small company that is one or two people wearing all three hats. From about five people on that starts to grind, because deciding and making need a different kind of day.

The role missing most often is the second. A company with three makers and no orchestrator spends more time aligning than working, and only notices when an agency joins and the questions double.

## What actually decides the answer

How much you want to decide yourself. If you outsource everything, you need one strong marketer who can buy and judge. If you do everything in house, you need a team and an agency only for the peaks. Both work; what does not work is a team without a mandate and an agency without a counterpart.

Mapping those three functions against what you outsource is the work IKAg does under [Marketing organization](https://www.ikag.be/en/marketing-organization).

Read on: [what you do yourself and what you outsource](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/zelf-doen-of-uitbesteden) and [one agency or several](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/een-bureau-of-meerdere).

## Related questions

- [What can I do myself and what do I outsource?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/zelf-doen-of-uitbesteden): Keep what needs brand knowledge and returns every week. Outsource what peaks, what needs a craft you cannot keep busy, and what benefits from someone who does not know your company from the inside.
- [Freelancer, agency or in-house hire?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/freelancer-bureau-of-in-dienst): A freelancer supplies hours, an employee supplies continuity, an agency supplies a team with several crafts in it. Choose on how predictable your work is, not on what looks cheapest.
- [Do I want one agency or several?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/een-bureau-of-meerdere): One agency is simpler to steer, several give you sharper specialists. The cost of several is not in their invoices but in your time: every extra party needs coordination that someone has to do.

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IKAg is the business consultant for marketing and agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands. Market figures come from the Agency Barometer, calculated on the annual accounts agencies filed with the National Bank themselves. Figures on pitches and satisfaction come from IKAg-guided processes, and are always presented as such.

- All questions: https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq
- Last updated: 2026-08-19