What to look for in Online Marketers
Online marketing is the internet, web, or digital marketing. Real-life digital marketing is the marketing of products through digital channels. It is a set of tools and methodologies for promoting products and services online. It includes several branches: social media marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and search engine marketing. Online marketing combines the internet's creative and technical tools, including design, development, sales, and advertising.
An example of online marketing is a hair salon that wishes to incorporate online marketing. It might add an Instagram feed featuring photos of hairstyles completed by its stylists to show off their talent. Hiring online marketers means creating a new identity for a business or product in front of customers. It is essential for increasing a business's reputation in the market. An online marketer is responsible for growing a company's online presence through paid and accessible digital channels.
Online marketer's duties and responsibilities
- Develop and implement SEO and PPC strategies.
- Create and manage link-building strategies, content marketing strategies, and social media presences. Innovate and present new marketing platforms and strategies.
- Develop engaging online content, including clickbait, forums, videos, graphics, and blogs; monitor and analyze content success.
- Forecast marketing campaign growth and ROI for marketing campaigns.
- Manage email and social media marketing campaigns.
- Contact, interview, and hire third-party graphic designers, web designers, and videographers to create unique and engaging content.
- Drive traffic to company pages.
- Develop and manage projects and team members, including delegating tasks, reviewing team member work, adhering closely to deadlines, budgeting, developing and revising ideas, and implementing projects.
- Keep abreast of new social media sites, web technologies, and digital marketing trends; implement these technologies in developing campaigns and update current campaigns to include new information.
Steps for hiring online marketers
1. Hunt in the right places
Instead of waiting for candidates seeking employment on job sites, look for active people in the industry. You can do this through the following:
Word-of-mouth — Do you have any friends in the online business world who can recommend a great digital marketer? Maybe, someone they've worked with in the past?
Social media — Do you follow any digital marketers on Twitter or another social network you can contact for help? If not, then use the search features on these platforms to identify marketers in your industry.
Opportunism — Maybe you read a guest post on your favorite blog written by a digital marketing expert. Trace them back to their website and reach out for help. Or you find their response helpful to one of your Quora questions.
2. Dive deep into their social profile
Analyzing social media profiles has become a regular part of employee vetting, no matter your industry. Check out your digital marketer's presence on all the major social sites, see if they have a blog, and then dig deeper into their experience. If digital marketer doesn't bother keeping up with their social media marketing strategy, you can't expect them to do an excellent job with yours.
3. Audit their LinkedIn network
LinkedIn is one social platform you should analyze with extra care because digital marketers showcase their experience. One great feature of LinkedIn is that you can look at your connection's connections. This will help you see what kind of network your prospective digital marketer has built throughout their career. Connect with them on LinkedIn to see their network, then navigate to their page. You should see an option to "see connections."
If you have a mutual connection that you know well, you can always ask their opinion on the digital marketer you're considering hiring.
4. Ask for case studies and testimonials
Visit the digital marketer's website, and see if there is a case study or testimonials page. If they're happy with the work they've done in the past, then there should be. If they don't have one, ask them to send over case studies and testimonials. Any digital marketer worth your time or money should be able to show you some tangible results and recommendations from industry professionals.
5. Google them
Google is the ultimate tool for understanding people's internet presence beyond just their social profiles. Suppose you're waiting for a digital marketer. Google their name. Look out for forum posts, online reviews, or other places where they may be active online. Also, consider where they are ranking in this search. Everyone leaves a paper trail online, which you should investigate.
6. Conduct a few high-value interviews
Since they completed their skills test, you now have all the info you need about the candidates to conduct a great interview. You can discuss the results of their tests in the interview, but we find it more beneficial to spend time getting to know the candidate as a person.
Ask about past experiences, what they learned from them, their leadership style, situational judgment, and career ambitions. This is a great way to determine your candidate's thoughts and whether they'll make an excellent cultural fit.
7. Look for values and cultural alignment
There are a lot of different ways to approach digital marketing. You need to ensure your digital marketer won't push strategies you're uncomfortable with. They may want to promote your business to a platform with a vast audience, but it has nothing to do with your business. That's why you should look for values and cultural alignment.
Since you will essentially hand this person the reins to your business, you must also ensure you like them and find them easy to work with.
8. Get them to start a website from scratch
This tip is out of the left field but is one of my favorites. Whenever you hire anyone, you get them to do a task or mini-project before making the final hiring decision. One unique way to do this is to ask your digital marketer to build a website from scratch. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it proves they are digitally savvy.
Interviews, case studies, and online research are all great starting points, but you will only know how good they are once you see a digital marketer in action.
You need to hire a digital marketer to help your business kick into gear. Pick the right one, and your return on investment should well outweigh the initial cost. These tips will help you pick the right partner for your business.
Skills to look for
To hire a Digital Marketer, carefully weighing the advantages and disadvantages is highly advisable. Not every Digital Marketer is a good fit for every position, so you must put a lot of thought into deciding what a good Digital Marketer looks like for your organization. Here are some skills to look for in a digital marketer.
They are highly analytical.
The most significant part of a digital marketer's job is staring at numbers on their screen and figuring out their telling story. From Google Analytics to dashboards on social media platforms, a digital marketer should be good at finding the correct numbers, interpreting them, and making strategies to improve their goals. It's also great to have a solid knowledge of Excel because they will need to work with sheets, regardless of their specialty.
They are a great writer.
Even if their primary job is not writing copy, every digital marketer must have a talent for written words. From writing captions for social media to writing copy for PPC ads to writing SEO-optimized content for your blog, your digital marketer must have good writing chops to do their job well.
They are a superb communicator.
A digital marketer is someone who is the face of your company. They interact with your customers through the content they create and need to be comfortable communicating on various platforms with different stakeholders. Moreover, they must partner with other marketers, business owners, contractors, website editors, and others to help them perform better.
A passion for learning
Change is the only constant in the Digital marketing world. A new strategy is being introduced every alternative day. You will only get the bang for your buck if the Digital Marketer adapts to the changing dimensions of this confounding world and helps raise your brand awareness. The only key to success is to remain passionately curious forever, and your Digital Marketers ought to have this quality.
Effective time management
One compelling quality you must look for in a digital marketer before hiring them is their time management skills. They have to make the most of the day and ensure increased productivity. Digital marketing is bound by time, and someone who needs to learn how to manage time fails.
Strategic thinking
It needs a lot of strategizing to understand the thinking process of the customers and shape the marketing campaign accordingly. They will need to be highly intuitive and fearsome in their approach. A digital marketer who falls into the trap of day-to-day execution compromises their creative skills. You must develop fresh ideas and execute them strategically for the brand's best interest.
Organization and project management skills
Running multiple digital campaigns can get complex quickly. Building an omnichannel marketing plan includes various technologies and measurements that lead to coordinating many moving parts. Digital markets must also have a project manager's skills and bring together disparate teams to move marketing ideas from concept to completion.
UX skills and an understanding of the customer experience
Marketers need to fully understand the customer, their wants, and their needs. They will build a whole customer experience by growing awareness of the product or service throughout their lifespan. This valuable information can be used in marketing materials to improve the digital experience offered to new customers. Because of this continued effort to keep and upsell current customers, marketers must understand the complete customer experience and provide thoughts around the best UX.
Web Designing
The designer of online marketing campaigns has to create visuals that sell and represent the brand simultaneously. Web design is frequently outsourced, but even then, the person who manages the outsourced design tasks has to judge the quality of the design and have a general overview of what to look for.
Managing social media
Integrating the organic presence of the brand with paid campaigns is essential. Potential customers frequently visit Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, and other social media pages before purchasing decisions.
