When to give local service marketing team roles a written owner

What to take away

Sort roles by what they touch, not by job title

Job titles mislead in small firms. One manager may hold three of these roles and an apprentice one.

The test is whether a role touches something a customer can see or a regulator can read.

Start with the profile owner, who keeps hours, services and photos accurate using the steps for adding or claiming your Business Profile.

Write the list on one page. If a role cannot be described in a single sentence, it is probably two roles, and neither will get done.

Name the roles that carry legal weight

The claims owner checks every advert, price and guarantee before publication, and keeps evidence for anything you assert about results.

The data owner handles enquiry records, consent and deletion requests. Without one, a lead list quietly becomes a liability.

Reviews need an owner too. Either the data owner or a separate review owner works, as long as one person replies within two days.

In higher-risk trades, add a safety claims owner. Health and safety statistics from the HSE's published statistics show how seriously that role should be taken.

The budget owner approves spend and can say no. One person, one signature, one record.

Use a before and after table to spot drift

Run the check quarterly. Two rows slipping back to the left column mean the role has lapsed.

Keep the table to a single page and update it in the same meeting where you review spend.

The operations and delivery guide shows how to fit that review into the rest of the month's work.

Write the roles into your workflow

A named role without a workflow decays within a month. Attach each role to a recurring task, a record and a reviewer.

Record the task and the reviewer in one place so handover is quick. A five-line handover note beats a policy document nobody opens.

Firms with several sites need a site lead per location. Central roles set standards, site leads apply them. Confusion between the two duplicates spend.

Set the inclusion criteria before you add more roles

Not every task needs an owner. Apply three filters: does it touch a published claim, a customer record or a paid channel?

If none apply, leave the task with the team. A four-person firm can carry five named roles and stay workable.

Each named role also needs a deputy, so holidays and sick days do not stall the work.

Roles attached to paid channels deserve the most scrutiny. One uncontrolled ad account can spend a month's budget in a fortnight.

Use the quality checklist to confirm each owner has a defined output, not just a title.

Business population estimates from GOV.UK's business population estimates collection show how many small firms operate across the UK, which explains why so many marketing roles sit with one or two people.

Decide when to formalise the roles

Formalise when a task is missed twice, when spend passes a figure you would not approve casually, or when a complaint traces to an unclear owner.

For example, a firm paying £400 a month for ads should have a named budget owner long before it has a marketing manager.

If none of those triggers apply, keep the list informal and revisit each quarter. Writing roles down too early creates paperwork nobody reads.

Agree the trigger in advance, so the decision does not rest on who happens to be in the room.

Common questions

Does a small firm need every role on this list?

No. One person can hold several roles. What matters is that each role has a name against it.

Should the owner be the most senior person?

The budget owner usually should be. Profile and review owners can be anyone who does the work consistently.

How often should we review the role list?

Quarterly suits most firms. Review sooner if a task is missed twice.

Do the roles differ across the UK?

Profile and advertising rules are consistent across the UK. Safety reporting duties can differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.