The emergence of smart technology has changed the world in dramatic fashion. It has crept into the way people live and exist and has significantly impacted the media landscape.
These shifts have drastically changed the trade of a marketing manager, adding more to their plate. In turn, this makes the task of hiring marketers more challenging as well.
The question now is how to hire marketing executives when the traditional role of a marketer has evolved. The best way to understand what marketing manager and executives do is to take into consideration the role of marketers in the modern day and age.
What Is a Marketing Manager and What Do They Do?
A marketing manager develops and executes strategies that align your company’s goals with industry demand and trends. To be effective, marketing directors and managers must collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to make sure marketing objectives help all departments work together optimally.
They understand customers want experiences and are moving away from materialism to reduce clutter and waste. Marketers must build better stories to relay experiences to their target audience. Thus, they have a more substantial role than before and must focus on a wide-ranging strategy spread out over long term periods encompassing a plethora of aspects, unlike the short-term, one-track focus of traditional marketers.
What Are the Qualities of a Good Marketer?
Technology is shaping the way people engage with brands, and this has integrated itself into the basic structure of marketing. When you’re deciding how to hire a marketing person, look for these qualities.
Social Media Savvy
In the era of social media, building an effective digital footprint is important to create a steady reputation. Hence, a good resource must be adept with mainstream technology and social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Social media savviness benefits brands that tap into the millennial digital media culture. For example, Gucci has grown its sales revenue by 48.7% to a whopping $2.2 billion in 2018 thanks to social media marketing. Most online trends influence social media marketing campaigns, so hiring someone versed in this channel will positively impact your results.
Creative Yet Analytical
Marketing managers must deal with data and research on a regular basis. This requires a keen eye for the identification and extrapolation of valuable information for effective campaigns. They must possess applicable knowledge of how to utilize marketing tools like Google Analytics, Eloqua, Salesforce, HubSpot, email metrics, and PPC campaigns.
Proficiency in understanding numbers and data is not sufficient. Your marketing manager needs to be able to develop innovative, game-changing ideas using this information. Data needs to be converted into a creative brand development strategy that connects your brand with your target audience while surpassing competitor noise.
Looking for a marketer with a creative AND analytical mind is not just a choice, but a necessity when hiring marketing managers.
Lively Personality
Dull, dreary, and boring people seldom win any points from their team. More often than not, they suck the enthusiasm right from its core.
Hiring a good manager should result in finding a dynamic individual, articulate with words, and successful at forming connections. The marketing manager you hire should be cheerful, friendly, and proactive enough to keep the productivity flowing.
At MARION, we make sure all our marketers possess the skill sets we’ve listed so far. These qualities ensure that as your full-service marketing company, we cater to your needs with the best of our abilities.
How To Improve Your Search When Hiring A Marketing Manager
Finding a good marketing manager can be a long and difficult process. Moreover, you are unlikely to find someone suitable if you’re unaware of what you are looking for. Here are a few tips on how to find a good marketer and reorganize your efforts.
Attract the Right Skill Set
You should know what you are looking for in a marketing manager before you start searching. Understanding the needs of your business and the skills your brand requires is the first step towards finding a good marketer. Job descriptions that are too vague or entail too much may end up attracting the wrong kind of candidates.
Focus on attracting generalists who already possess a degree of knowledge and certain applicable skill sets to overlook diverse marketing efforts. At the base of it all, a manager should be able to manage various specialties without needing specializations. Ideally, these generalists can lead specialists under them. This way, the execution of strategy-specific projects is less likely to falter under their more holistic supervision.
Find A Jack of All Trades
Most organizations hire a marketer who emerges from the roots of specialization. Although such a resource may have much more to offer in terms of functionality, concentration in one area of expertise may limit a marketer’s contributions. In search marketing in particular, this limitation is part of the debate between hiring and in-house SEO vs. an agency.
A marketer should have an interesting blend of multiple tricks up their sleeve. In short, you need a sweeping leader, with the skills of a visionary who sees beyond the limitations of their craft. Hiring a marketing manager should result in finding a resource that brings experience and understanding of both traditional and digital marketing channels.
A manager should function as a generalist who can observe problems from various viewpoints, and analyze and provide brands with multilevel, research-based strategic solutions. Managing content, creating strategies, and having the fundamental knowledge of various avenues proves useful for a marketer in the long run.
In short, try to hire a marketing executive that doesn’t limit their tactics to their previous field of specialization. If this doesn’t seem possible, open the discussion about in-house vs. outsourced marketing up within your organization. You can save a significant amount of time and money when you outsource marketing services to an effective agency that has a steady operating track record.
Research Online
In-house recruitment is a great way to fill positions. However, do not shy away from snooping around. According to LinkedIn, 85% of the hiring is done through people you may know.
Search professional profiles and ask mutual connections about people you find interesting. Connect with marketing leads in the industry, even those not sharing mutual connections. If they seem up your alley, call them for an interview or a casual chat.
The point is to build a network of potentials and find what you require. Do not take your social and professional network for granted. A lucrative hire could be only 2 degrees of separation away.
As the marketing realm blows up, small to medium organizations once again have a fighting chance. However, more often than not, the fighting chance is too expensive of an investment. With resources already scarce, such firms should consider outsourcing their marketing to expert agencies such as MARION.
MARION can provide you with a holistic conventional and digital marketing service. From the creation of a logo to the integration of SEO practices, and even trade show participation; you’ll never have to worry about exposure or engagement with us by your side.
Contact us today to find out how we can improve your marketing results!
