Consolidating your Marketing Team: Performance/Cost Benefits
SMB owners have been reorganizing staffing and marketing spend for quite a while now. Costs, inflation, labor shortage, tariffs, and more have brought on big pressures to simplify. And now the AI revolution is necessitating more change.
The problem is owner’s aren’t sure how to create the ideal team for the years ahead. The path is clouded in mystery. It’s a sensitive topic too, and needs to be handled with care. However, the AI era is here, and it looks to be an amazing as a marketing platform — too rewarding to resist.
Regardless of what your marketing team looks like, you can find a way to integrate AI into your work processes. There’s no magic bullet for SMBs it seems, just a willingness to trial and experiment with the tools available. From my perspective so far, these AI LLM tools are impressive. To be honest, I haven’t delved into their full power yet, but there’s so much they can offer.
For you, looking at human resources differently is wise – where versatility, talent, training and outsourcing are fundamentals to help you explore new niches and grow your confidence for growth.
This post delves into how small business owners (i.e. travel agency businesses) can upgrade their view of staffing and creating a new minimalist team of versatile, AI-powered marketers and content creators to resonate with today’s situation of lower budgets, high ad costs, rising wages, reduced labor talent, and virtual services. Please accept it as encouragement to enter the AI era.
Assembling a Better (perhaps happier) Team
The quest today, for the next 5-year window, is to find and weave together individuals willing to do more than one specialty, or to greatly enhance their contribution. And with “AI powers,” one single person can perform a lot of tasks and seriously upgrade performance/quality (not to mention reducing tedium). And beyond performance, which is kind of cold and dry, we might find our work more exciting and fun. New opportunities are opening up as AI LLM features improve.
Your business reward may be improved, consistent and affordable reach to target markets, building trust, respect, credibility and capturing buyer intent. Below, we discover a template of talent with their specialist skills, who might be able to assume several roles with AI. Even if you need time to train for new tasks and roles, it’s a big win for you.
The reasoning is that by saving $40k to $140k on salaries, you’re freeing up a pool of marketing funds that will be needed for everything from additional hires and new AI software tools, to more advertising & promotion. If marketing failure is due to underfunding, you can solve that now!
The power of Generative AI is exciting and improving quickly. I’ve found ChatGPT 5 very comfortable and powerful even without prompting mastery. New Agentic AI LLM solutions and AI-Powered SaaS platforms are interacting in normal language, and even advise on how to prompt them.
Action Plan: Create Your Lean, Versatile, AI-Powered Marketing Team
Consider this actionable 7-step plan to guide the development of your new team.
- Define Your Core Marketing Goals
Before hiring or outsourcing, clarify what you want to achieve in the next 12 months:
- Increase visibility on Google, travel platforms, and social media
- Create better high-impact, engaging content in line with traveler’s intent
- Improve marketing and sales analytics to grow high-value travel customers
- Increase direct bookings vs. OTA dependency
- Boost repeat customer loyalty
- Improve trust, credibility, relevance & brand affinity
A clear mission helps keep your budget aligned on revenue-impact activities.
- Structure Around Core Roles, Not Headcount
Instead of thinking in “number of employees,” think in functions — some handled by in-house talent, others outsourced or automated to “Fractional” experts and contributors. Consider that versatile talent can handle several work roles, but they should never do broad an array that it detracts from excellence. Excellence is the deliverable.
| Core Function | Key Output | Recommended Approach |
| Brand Strategy & Messaging | Brand voice, positioning, offers | Fractional CMO or strategic consultant |
| SEO Strategy | High-ranking content on core target keywords as well as keyword tail for large volume Google and Bing Traffic, also optimized for AI LLMs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) | Expert Fractional SEO strategist with superior content and influencer skills. |
| Content Creation (Written & Video) | Travel experience blogs, reels, destination guides, trip videos, social posts | Versatile content creator skilled in AI-assisted research, scripting, editing |
| Social Media & Community | Daily posts, traveler engagement | One part-time social media manager with strong automation skills |
| Email Marketing & Loyalty | Automated trip reminders, loyalty promos | Specialist or outsourced service using AI personalization |
| Design & Creative Assets | Ads, brochures, social visuals | Freelance designer or AI-powered design tools |
| PPC ad Sales & Conversion Optimization | Booking page UX, retargeting, upsells | Freelance CRO/ads expert on a project basis for optimized setup and ongoing consulting |
- Combine Human Expertise with AI Tools
For each function, pair the expert’s skills with a set of AI tools to increase speed and cut costs.
- Branding: Claude, Geminit, or ChatGPT 5 for strategy ideation
- Content: ChatGPT, Gemini, Jasper, to help organize, structure expert-developed and designed content.
- Social: Later, Metricool, Travel Agent Collective, SocialPilot, Social Bee, AI scheduling tools
- Email: Klaviyo, Mailchimp with AI segmentation
- Design: Midjourney, Adobe Express AI, Figma
- Analytics/Conversion: Google 360, Sojern, Adara,
- Hire for Versatility
Choose professionals who can wear 2–3 hats:
- A content creator with content strategy, design skills, and strong awareness of the psychology of connecting with customers and building brand ambassadors
- A social media manager who handles PR, outreach, influencers, and impactful/engaging posts
- A SEO content strategist with deep insights into clever algorithm resonant techniques and the ability to infuse them into a content strategy to build traffic volume and capture highly desirable prospects. And who can post social posts, manage ppc campaigns and create enticing email nurturing campaigns.
- Outsource High-Cost, Sophisticated work Requiring Expertise
Keep the lean team focused on daily execution, and hire on-demand experts for:
- Branding and value propositions
- Evaluating, auditing and advising on opportunities for improved paid ad campaigns
- Sophisticated, creative, conceptualization production of videos
- Using web management platform and hiring design experts for customization or overhauls
This ensures you get top-tier skills and guidance only when you need them.
- Go Remote: Leverage Better and More Specific Talent for Flexibility
Remote work opens access to better talent at lower cost.
- Recruit from global freelance marketplaces (Upwork, Contra, We Work Remotely)
- Use contracts, not payroll, for project-based hires
- Avoid payroll costs by hiring as contractors
- Monitor & Adjust Quarterly
Every 3 months, evaluate:
- Cost per lead/booked trip
- ROI of each marketing channel
- Workload distribution across your lean team
- Adjust staffing mix and tools to maximize performance and maintain efficiency.
When yours is a progressive modern company, they’re likely not going to leave. They feel more comfortable, valued, needed, respected and energized, and realize the grass is not greener on the other side — you now offer the best UVP for employees and contractors.
Check out my travel marketing services page, and more on the role I might play as your SEO/Content Strategist and social media crusader. The road ahead is filled with opportunity and promise for those who take the leap.
If you think I might be a good fit for your team, please contact me at 416 998 6246. I’d be delighted to speak with you.
