5 Questions to ask before Hiring your Digital Marketer

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 Upstarts, Micro Enterprise & Small Business
Examine your digital landscape

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That's great! You've decided to delegate and it's time for a new hire.  Whether it's the first time you're allocating this position or not, there's  a lot to consider. As an Upstart, Micro/Social Enterprise or Small Business there are a few key principles that apply to your digital marketing strategies and setting your budget when it comes to finding the right marketer for your business or organization.

If the position doesn't warrant full time hours , it may be appealing to hire a person to cover several job descriptions within your company or organization, but please reconsider. The position may be part time, but it's an important job for the right marketer with a specialized skill set. The marketing landscape is definitely changing when it comes to your online presence which combines your public relations, marketing strategies, content marketing, blogging, e-commerce solutions and integrated websites. 

At first glance, you may believe that you only need someone that can "post to your social media", but if it's important that this person assist with building your business, it is relatively more complex than that. Harvard Business School recently added a Driving Digital & Social Strategy Workshop to their Executive MBA program, to address the role of online marketing:

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“to effectively compete in today’s digital landscape, 
firms must first leverage digital and social platforms that
make it easier for consumers 
to access relevant, timely information, 
connect with people they care about 
and willingly engage in brand-building behaviour"

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The marketer you hire will play a key role in building your business. By establishing your online presence, creating and curating your content and engaging followers, they are in many cases your front line to both sales and service, as well as your complaints department, and as such, are also responsible for addressing your reputation management. If a potential customer has found your business website online, that marketer has played a part. Properly created and curated digital marketing also drives your SEO (search engine optimization). According to Google "Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in the same subject." It's from page 28 of their Search Optimization Starter Guide. 
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The Right Marketer for the Job

If you aren't able to find someone to hire as an employee that you feel is competent, consider contracting out your position as a monthly fee for service that you can budget for. It isn't a bad thing that they aren't working from within your office environment: there's a certain objectivity that happens when your marketer isn't fully immersed in your business culture so they can see the point of view of your consumer. That objectivity can work for you.  Your marketer can create content  and project an online presence that is consumer-centric.

Linkedin has recently started a marketing solutions blogging campaign to assist it's members to be better marketers. Their 55 Quotes to Inspire Content Marketing blog post has a number of great quotes but this was one of my favourites from Pawan Deshpande, CEO, Curata: 

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​“A good content marketer can empathize with their audience and can therefore understand what topics they should create content on, what tone of voice to use, and what channels to promote the content in.”

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Inc.com's blog post on How to Hire a Marketing Manager states that "before starting your search, it's important to identify exactly what the position entails. The simplest method: Take the time necessary to carefully craft a job description and clearly define what you're looking for." I couldn't agree more.

Chances are if you've never hired for the position before, you haven't thought through all of the aspects of what the position should encompass.  Or if you're looking to rehire as a replacement for your current marketer, it may be a good time to re-assess what your expectations are. These questions are actually for you to ask yourself to better understand exactly what you'd like your marketer to do for you:

5 Questions to Ask before Hiring your Digital Marketer
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1. Understand Media Channels and Create Content to reflect your business accordingly?
2. Manage sales promotions and marketing strategies?
3. Understand and optimize your SEO?
4. Execute Email Marketing Campaigns? 
5. Understand Branding and Reputation Management?

Once you understand what you're looking for, it becomes a much simpler process to decide on the right hire to fit with your company and assist you in growing your business.

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Look for our next post: it will focus on selecting media channels.

Sources:
Inc.com
​Harvard Business School, Executive Program
Google User Content 
Linkedin

Photos: ©Tellus Communications

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