If revenue reached €1 million on direct selling and referrals, the next stage needs demand that does not depend on your diary. That does not require a marketing department. It requires a sequence, and most companies run it in the wrong order by hiring execution before direction is set.
The order that works is direction, then one channel, then specialists, then headcount. A senior leader decides who you are for and what you will be known for. One channel gets resourced properly. Two or three specialists deliver against that plan. Only then does a permanent hire have a job description worth writing.
What the full-time alternative costs
Excel Recruitment's 2026 Sales and Marketing Salary Guide puts a marketing manager in Ireland at €60,000 to €80,000 base and a head of marketing at €85,000 to €120,000. Morgan McKinley's 2026 Ireland Salary Guide puts a Dublin marketing director at €120,000 to €180,000. Add employer PRSI at 8.9 percent rising to 11.15 percent, pension auto-enrolment at a minimum 1.5 percent employer contribution since January 2026, and a recruitment fee of 15 to 20 percent of first year salary. A search also takes three to six months before anyone starts.
Hiring a manager to do a leader's job is the expensive mistake. A capable marketing manager executes well against a plan. If nobody senior wrote the plan, that hire spends a year producing activity that cannot be judged, and the company concludes marketing does not work for them.
The lean structure that does work
One senior leader for one to three days a week, owning the plan and the number. A content or campaign resource for delivery. A specialist for whichever channel was chosen, usually paid search, paid social or outbound support. Existing salespeople brought into the same target list and message, because the fastest early gain is usually equipping the people already calling.
Marketing budgets are tighter than they were. Gartner's CMO Spend Survey put B2B budgets at 7.7 percent of company revenue in 2025, down from 11 percent in 2020, so the argument for spending on direction before volume has got stronger rather than weaker.
Grant support
Enterprise Ireland's Digital Marketing Capability support runs to €35,000 for eligible companies, and Local Enterprise Offices fund smaller projects. Check current eligibility before planning around either.
Where to go next
For the role in the language most companies use internally, see part-time marketing director. For the three-way comparison, read fractional CMO versus agency versus in-house. If you are weighing your first permanent marketing hire, your first marketing hire covers the sequencing, and the Irish B2B marketing benchmarks hold every figure above with its source.