How to Hire the Perfect Digital Marketer
There are many things to consider when hiring a digital marketing professional for your business. Skills, education, technological competencies, creative abilities, attitude, and work ethic are all things to look for when hiring a digital marketer. You want someone who not only knows how to create exciting content but also knows how to collect and analyze data from marketing campaigns. Follow these tips to ensure you hire the best digital marketer to help propel your business to success!
Skills Needed
The first thing to consider is what skills you want your marketing professional to have. Make a list of all the skills, both technical and personal, that you want someone in a marketing position to have and compare it with the skills your candidates list on their resume or LinkedIn profiles. Do they match the needs of your company? And, furthermore, do their skills align with those of the average digital marketers’?
Here are some desirable digital marketing skills to look for in a candidate:
- SEO knowledge: Your digital marketer should have knowledge of basic search engine optimization (SEO) principles in order to assess and improve your website’s rankings in web search results. People aren’t going to go to your site if it comes up on page 6 of a search result. A good marketer will know how to search for commonly searched for terms and incorporate them into marketing materials and design your website to rank highly in Google’s search database.
- Email marketing: Your ideal candidate should know best practices for email marketing. They should know how to create an engaging email campaign for a sale or new product and how to design that email to drive customers to your website. They should also have a good knowledge of how to create email campaigns in order to engage your customer base. While email marketing is still the top contender in terms of digital outreach, it is important to not overwhelm customers with emails. A good email marketer will know how to do this.
- Social media: Social media is becoming a huge part of consumers’ everyday lives. Marketers should know how to capture customer attention and engage with them through social media. This can involve everything from advertisements, asking for customer input or feedback, sharing their experiences with your products to responding to random questions or complaints.
Pro tip from Wesley Ward; Marketing expert for an online faucet supplier:
“You need to make sure you stay connected on social media and pay attention to what your audience has to say. There are many benefits that your business can gain from utilizing social media. As long as you keep a constant posting schedule and stay engaged with your audience, your online presence will definitely help boost your brand awareness and possibly generate new leads”.
- Data analysis: A good digital marketer will have knowledge of how to produce, read, and analyze data in order to draw conclusions about your marketing efforts and campaigns in order to improve them. While a marketer doesn’t need to have a degree in analytics, they should know the basics of how to analyze data from a campaign or how to test for new or updated features on a website or email format.
Technological Competencies
These days it’s not enough for a marketing manager to design and manage a marketing campaign. Companies today need marketers who also know how to create brochures, websites, and emails as well as know how to collect and analyze data on marketing trends. There might be several people on your marketing team or you might have only one person doing everything. Either way, it is essential in this age for a digital marketer to be competent in different aspects of technology and software, and who can learn new things as technology progresses. Staying on top of current developments in technology and marketing trends is essential to knowing what campaigns would be best to create and the best ways to implement them to reach customers.
Below are some of the most important technological competencies that are important for marketers to have:
- Basic Photoshop and graphic design skills: A marketer should know how to edit, crop, add text, make flyers, design brand logos, marketing materials, etc. Marketers should also have an eye for design and be able to create an attractive layout.
- Basic web design/WordPress: marketers should know how to design a simple website using WordPress or a similar platform. They should know how to design a webpage to hook the visitor and draw them in to either buying something or putting their name on an email list.
- Microsoft suite: Marketers should be able to use the Microsoft suite to create various marketing spreadsheets, plans, and presentations with ease.
- Basic analytic skills: Marketers should know how to search databases, know the basics of A/B testing, and the basics of how to analyze data.
Creative Abilities
When looking for the perfect digital marketing candidate, creativeness is hugely important to consider. You want a marketing professional with great skills, but if they are unable to get creative, you might be missing out on opportunities to reach current customers and attract new ones. This does not just mean knowing how to create an attractive and engaging website or email. A good marketer will always be coming up with new ways to reach the target market, analyzing marketing data to see what is working and what is not, and continually refining their processes to be better.
Marketers should know how to use visuals in Content Management Systems (CMS). It is important to know how to upload and use images for use on the web and other platforms. This involves not only picking images that are attractive and fit your company’s visual profile, but also images that will look good in various platforms and sizes. They should also know how to develop content to be used across various platforms, such as desktop and smartphone versions of a website, as well as social media platforms. With visuals, it is important to develop a uniform visual look, customers should know when they go to your site that it is yours just by your use of color, visuals, and layout.
Sanem Ahearn, the Head of Marketing at Colorescience notes that:
“The goal of creative marketing is to convey a message to consumers that guides them from their first interaction with your brand until the point of purchase. A message that is cohesive and well designed is the ticket to brand awareness and brand loyalty.”
Attitude and Work Ethic
Personality is important when hiring anyone on to your company. You want to make sure those you hire fit in well with your current staff for everyone to be able to work cohesively as a team. Attitude becomes important, especially when hiring a digital marketing professional, because positivity, professionalism, and ability to handle constructive criticism are crucial for the professional development of a marketing professional. You want someone who is able to get you what you want or knows how to get you an equivalent if the original idea is not feasible.
Work ethic is a quality all great employees should possess, as 73 percent of hiring managers look for candidates with a strong work ethic. Marketing, especially social media marketing is a 24/7 job, so you need someone who is willing and able to put in the hours for your company. Look for marketers with a strong work ethic that way you know they will always put your business first. Have they ever worked long hours on a project? Did they spend time outside of work thinking about how to best do a project?
Get out there and find the perfect marketing professional
Hiring a marketing professional, as with hiring for any position, is tricky. You have to have a set of criteria that a candidate must have for the position. A marketer should have a broad base of skills, not just technical and analytical, but creative as well. They should also have a positive, can-do attitude. Use this article when creating your list of must-have skills and attributes for a marketing position in your company and you will be successful in finding a marketing professional who is the right fit for your company.
