The 5 Players on My Fantasy Marketing Team

I hate Fantasy Football. Every year someone talks me into joining their league and inevitably I end up screaming at the TV, begging quarterbacks to pass to my top rated receivers and backs who end up getting hurt, benched or worse--arrested.

I’m sporting a 1-4 record right now in my fantasy league, despite having some pretty big name players. I mean, what in the world happened to LeSean McCoy?

Clearly I lack the abilities needed to really excel at Fantasy Football. I really just read the notes on all my players and make sure that they’re all actually playing and not on a bye week. That’s probably part of the problem. Maybe.

While we can all agree that my Fantasy Football skills are a little lackluster, my Fantasy Marketing skills are honed in pretty solid. I spend most of my time every week reading articles and have my own list of drool-worthy marketing players that I’d love to have on my team. Here’s my list of the top 5 players on my fantasy marketing team.

1) Mission Mogul – Simon Sinek

Okay, so I just made that title up. It was between that and Chief Mission Officer, which I feel like would create some acronym confusion. Simon Sinek is my easy first pick of the draft. You can call him my quarterback. In order to have a super focused marketing strategy – you have to understand your mission. Someone has to lead the team. Why are you doing what you’re doing?

Someone in your organization has to help your team understand the why behind your brand in order to motivate your team to take the appropriate action. There is no brand without that mission mogul. And who better to unpackage that “Why” than the guy who wrote the book on it, Simon Sinek? His book and popular Ted Talk are both great inspirations to business owners. There’s no better way to begin a brand campaign or marketing strategy than with him.

2) Copywriter – Seth Godin

Once your mission is outlined, you need a really fantastic writer to help you humanize your mission and create content that helps your buyer to understand it better. Seth is another no-brainer pick for me. I’ve been obsessed with Seth Godin since before I knew what Inbound Marketing was.

He’s been touting the content marketing methodology best practices since long before the term inbound marketing was coined. He’s got uncanny ability to create succinct, remarkably awesome content that generates crazy fandom.

3) Graphic Designer – Milton Glaser

Words on a page can move mountains, but they aren’t much to look at. While it may seem like a left field pick, my all star in the graphics department is one of the most well-respected graphic designers of all time. Milton Glaser is my clear choose for the visual element.

One of his most famous quotes is: “There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” If that’s not the perfect reason to choose him for a marketing fantasy team, nothing is. Images inspire just as much as content does, and in order to capture interest and maintain brand, graphics have to have a place in any marketing strategy.

4) Social Media Manager  – Ann Tran

What’s next? Content promotion. Once you create it – it has to go somewhere. No one has the art of content promotion down like @AnnTran. While Ann covers the tourism and hospitality vertical, she covers it like a master. With 115,000 tweets and more every day, she’s not only named as one of Forbes Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers she’s #2 on their Top 50 list for both men and women as well.

But it goes beyond media notoriety. A really great social media manager knows how to engage their following and build social media karma. Your content can change lives, but you have to get it out there. Ann’s the perfect pick to do just that. Not to mention it takes a certain type of person to be able to pack that much impact into so few characters.

5) Analytics Master – Matt Cutts

Who better to keep up with the pace of the changing search algorithms than the master himself? Matt Cutts, Google’s head of webspam, knows all the best practices that Google is favoring – that’s why he’s my pic for handling the analytics side of things.

You need someone great with numbers in order to analyze what’s working and not working. Who better to help you understand what’s working and not working than the very person in charge of telling everyone what won’t work. Matt’s our top pick for the statistics and measurement side of things.

My fantasy football team might suck, but I have enough years experience in marketing to know that this is a no-fail Super Bowl quality team. While you might be struggling to determine how to form your own marketing team, or even kickstart your marketing efforts, take heart.

It’s not easy to form a team of marketing rock stars.  Start small with a single role (preferably a writer) and branch out from there. Or look to hire an agency that will get you a team of marketing talent for a retainer. No matter what you decide, make sure you do your research and start sooner than later. Your business depends on it.

Who's on your fantasy marketing team?