Whether you’ve outgrown the need for vendors or you just want to bring as many things in-house as possible, hiring a marketing expert for your firm isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Sure, there are a lot of people with marketing experience out there, but “marketing” has a VERY broad definition.
Do you want someone who just put together some social media posts for a business once or took a Google ads course? Or do you want someone who has spent years in a marketing department and has experience handling a variety of marketing channels? The truth is that you’ll get applications from both during your search, but here are the skills and characteristics you want to look for when making your next superstar hire.
1. Analytically Minded
A lot of lead-generation campaigns require an analytical mindset. Ad sets come with all kinds of data that need to be regularly combed through so that the proper adjustments can be made to ensure peak performance. A good marketer not only enjoys data, but is comfortable working with dashboards and spreadsheets and understands what of all the numbers mean (and the adjustments to make afterward).
2. Attention to Detail
While this skill may be “pay to play” in any professional services setting, it’s vitally important to the marketing role. While sifting through all of the data, paying close attention to anomalies or small changes in campaign performance allows your marketer to address potential issues sooner and keep things on track. It’s also important when it comes to making sure your leads remain organized in your CRM so you know where they came from, what their needs are, and how far down the funnel they’ve gotten.
Even more, when it comes to our final two skills, attention to detail is important to making your firm look good too!
3. Creativity
Whether it’s coming up with catchy ad copy, engaging social media copy, or informative and valuable blog content, you need someone with excellent copywriting skills. Even if they aren’t expert writers, they need to be able to know what good writing looks like and what kinds of formats, topics, and styles get the most viewership.
4. Artistic Production
All of your ads, social posts, and blogs need visually appealing images to accompany them. You also need someone who can easily edit videos and create attention-grabbing clips for your social media.
WARNING: Though not impossible, it’s very difficult to find a single individual who possesses all four of these skills because they involve both the left and right sides of your brain, and most people are not well-balanced. In other words, you can easily find a data-driven person and a great, artistically-driven person, but it’s very rare to find someone who is good at both.
While the data side of things is arguably easier to teach than the creative, you may need to hire one strength and then supplement your marketer with additional help, such as another marketing person, a vendor, or some other outside assistance.