How to Choose the Best Digital Marketing Professional for Your Company
Would you like to know how to choose the best digital marketing professional for your company? Read on to learn more on the subject.
Google gets more than 77,000 search requests every second. That's over 34 million searches per minute.
This is just one part of a digital marketer's area of expertise, how do they get your business appearing in those searches?
Alongside SEO (search engine optimization) is a myriad of other areas a digital marketer needs to know, things such as social media marketing, website marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and a whole lot more.
Now it begs the question, how do you choose the best digital marketing professional for your company? Keep reading to find out exactly what you need to know.
Finding the Right Digital Marketing Professional
As you start your journey towards finding the right person for the job, it's important that you decipher exactly what the role has that needs to be filled.
Digital marketing should never be a blanket approach, and the person who joins your team will want to know that you, as a leader, understand that no digital marketing aspect operates in isolation from another. That's not to say that they can perform every task either.
Start by writing a list of your expectations of this digital marketing professional, start from a high-level strategic view and work your way down to daily tasks you believe they would be responsible for.
Now, let's look at what your professionals should be able to give you in order to rack up their points.
1. A Specialised Pro or an All-Rounder
A digital marketer can be one of two things: either completely specialised in a specific area of digital marketing or they can be more of an all-rounder.
All this means for you is that you need to tick the boxes of what your brand requires. For example, if you need help with just your website tactics, then you could consider finding someone who specialises in websites.
However, if you're looking for someone to drive a digital marketing strategy and all tactics, you'd need to find an all-rounder or an agency that offers more than one digital marketing service.
2. Positive Reviews and References
You should always ask for client reviews or previous work done.
Everybody should be able to produce some sort of substantial evidence whether they are an agency or an individual. This can be in the form of previous campaign statistics or even visual stills taken from previous campaigns.
Even if they talk you through projects and can simply show results, that's good too.
3. A Focus on Data and Analytics
Digital marketing is obviously not just about looking pretty and great branding. At the end of the day, you'll be wanting metrics and performance measurements that showcase either the failure or the success of each campaign.
Your agency or candidate should show an understanding of this when they talk about campaigns and deliverables and be able to say how they'd use this data and analytics to further improve results.
4. A Bit of a Creative Side
On the opposite end of the spectrum from point 3, your digital marketer should know a bit about design too. This doesn't mean that they should be able to design things themselves, please don't make the mistake of trying to lump this all into one job description.
But an understanding of good design is essential to being a good digital marketer. Understanding how fonts behave online, the positioning of images and icons, and also an in-depth understanding of the types of content, content marketing, and how it should look and feel.
Creativity is not just about design but also about brand messaging, so showcasing any flair for both is a true positive for you and your brand.
5. An Understanding of Strategy
Digital marketing is not a tactic.
There should always be a strategy that drives all of the decisions made at the posting and publishing level.
Your digital marketing professional or team should have an in-depth understanding of digital marketing strategy. How this strategy ties into your overall branding and marketing strategy and the influence they have on each other.
Nobody should ever be employed or hired without knowing the difference between strategy and tactics.
Bonus Points for These Attributes
Now, not every candidate or potential marketing agency is going to tick every single one of these additional boxes. But it's always good to know what may count for extra brownie points if they can show you these:
- Relevant experience within your industry and niche (as well as a track record of good results)
- Sometimes experience with a specific tool or software isn't as necessary as you think but something similar is always good
These two things are usually flagged as totally necessary but truth be told, they're not make or break attributes. If you're using a different eCommerce platform, it can always be learned.
These same things apply to industry experience, yes, it's super cool if they've operated in your category of high-powered tractors before but not 100% mandatory that they should have needed to.
Find Someone to Fit In With Your Team
Finding the right digital marketing professional doesn't have to seem like an entirely impossible task, whether you're looking for an agency or just one person though, it's important that they understand your brand and your business.
Whatever your choice is, you'll need to fill the void with a team or person who becomes an extension of. your own. So open and transparent lines of communication will be imperative for a positive working environment and relationship.
Do you know what the good news is? You've already found a digital marketing agency that can be all these things for you and more, why don't you start by checking out the tools that we love?
