Your business is growing like crazy and there’s just no way you can continue to manage your own marketing, community and product, all while growing and managing a team of people. This is a good problem – or should we say challenge – to have. You need help maintaining the buzz about your brand and bringing customers in the virtual door while your business evolves. But that could mean so many different things depending on your needs and goals.
There’s several types of marketers out there ready to help you, all with varying degrees of expertise and experience. How do you know which to hire?
Below, we guide you through the different types of marketers to hire, what problems they solve and what to look for when hiring them!
1. Growth-Focused Marketers
It’s safe to say that growth-focused marketers are among the highest in demand right now – at least in tech world – considering the money startups are raising and the expectation to scale faster and reach revenue goals.
You often hear growth-focused marketers referred to as “growth hackers,” but the term hacker doesn’t properly represent the responsibilities of this role, at least not fully. Growth-minded marketers are much more strategic than the term “hacker” implies.
Sure, they know how to establish quick wins such as acquiring a large sum of users through Facebook ads. Or they know how to properly A/B test button colors on your homepage to determine which converts better – then execute it. But they also think about growth on a much broader, more holistic level.
These folks look at how each element of marketing contributes to growth, from community to content; from social media to email marketing, and beyond. They see how all of these parts should be put together to build a machine that can produce results quickly, without breaking (e.g. create sustainable growth). Sounds pretty great, right?
When hiring a growth-focused marketer, look for someone who:
- Is data-driven and has experience with industry-leading metrics tools, such as KISSmetrics or Mixpanel
- Comes to an interview with ideas on how you can grow
- Understands your audience and can build and target profiles
- Is obsessed with user behavior and the data behind it
- Has significant experience in SEO, knows what your target keywords should be and how to rank best for them
- Knows that growth is a team-wide effort and is ready to collaborate
- Has case studies to prove their measurable experience in growth
2. Content Marketers
Content marketers not always, but often double as inbound marketers, focused on acquiring users through any form of content, including blog posts, podcasts, SEO, email marketing, ebooks, white papers, slides, social media marketing… and the list goes on. Their job is to produce quality content that’s relevant and interesting to your target audiences, then distribute it to the right places.
However, a content marketer thinks beyond just user acquisition. They leverage content in all of its forms as a retention and education tool. A content marketer will often help with product-related content, such as site copy, landing pages, FAQs and drip email campaigns.
An effective content marketer should be highly tapped into your users’ needs and interests and have your brand voice nailed down. They know how to distill complex ideas into simple language and important facts into soundbites.
When hiring a talented content marketer, look for someone who:
- Has exceptional writing skills
- Has a developed portfolio, preferably with pieces relevant to your industry
- Understands your company, mission and audience
- Is creative and can generate new topic ideas at the drop of a hat
- Is data-driven and knows which metrics to measure for your goals
- Has a solid reporting system and knows how to use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot or KISSmetrics, for example
- Has at least a working knowledge of SEO tactics and how to rank well in search
3. Community-Focused Marketers
More and more, community and non-community professionals are accepting community as an arm of marketing. The objective of community is to connect members (or customers) with one another, but the goal is to increase engagement, user satisfaction and to build loyal brand advocates who’ll drive referrals. Sounds like marketing to me.
The biggest difference in community from other areas of marketing is that it’s a group conversation, rather than a one-way, brand-to-consumer dialogue. For a brand, community means being a catalyst for user engagement with one another in order to create a more meaningful and valuable experience.
The result for the brand is a better, deeper understanding of user needs and interests. Through community, a brand builds buy-in and loyalty. They make their community members feel like they’re a part of something greater than a transaction.
When hiring a community-focused marketer, look for someone who:
- Is empathetic: who will relate to users and make them feel understood
- Loves talking to and working with people
- Is an intuitive dot-connector and can make valuable connections
- Is well organized and detailed oriented; who won’t let things fall through the cracks
- An extraordinary communicator
- Sees inbox zero as a daily goal
- Understands the ROI of community and can sell it at any given point
It’s important to note that social media is often a tool that community professionals leverage, but there is a difference between someone who’s focused solely on community and someone who’s focused on social media marketing. Which brings us to the next type of marketer…
4. Social Media Marketers
Social media marketers are at the frontline of your brand communications. They are your voice, they in many ways, are the most active representative of your brand. More often than not, they’re the first person on the team to see a complaint or know of a product issue, as people are much more likely to turn to social media when something is wrong than submit a ticket or send an email.
With that in mind, a social media marketer needs to constantly be on their toes. Not only are they charged with the responsibility of maintaining a consistent flow of information from your channels – and to make it clever, witty and interesting to get cut through – they’re also charged with reacting to customer complaints, reporting it back to the team and putting out fires. Oh, and knowing which platform is best for your brand and reporting on results, then iterating on them for better results.
It boggles my mind how many brands are willing to hire Joe from sales’ younger cousin who really likes to tweet to manage their social media: to be the voice of their brand. Instead, when hiring a quality social media marketer, consider hiring someone who:
- Can adopt or improve your voice and tone to better resonate with your audience
- Knows who your audience is, what they want and where they are online
- Understands key social metrics and how to report on them
- Uses industry-leading tools such as Buffer, HootSuite and Simply Measured
- Can keep up with other happenings in the company and share it with your audience autonomously
- Is willing to test new tactics until they find what works
- Keeps up with industry-wide trends and knows how to curate unique content
5. Retention-Focused Marketers
You’ve probably heard the stat from Gartner Group that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers. All of the marketers covered so far should be focused on retention, but some marketers specialize in knowing how to keep your users happy and returning.
These folks are user behavior nerds. They know exactly how to track the user through their journey and analyze behavior at each touchpoint. They’re experts at optimizing and will make recommendations on how to improve the product, content, copy and more in order to improve the experience for the customer. They might employ tactics such as drip email campaigns, suggest certain community efforts, or mock up an onboarding process to create a stickier experience.
When hiring a retention-focused marketer, look for someone who:
- Loves researching user behavior
- Is data-driven
- Knows how to wireframe
- Is both product and community-minded
- Understands your audience
- Is focused on optimization and knows all the tools necessary to get the job done
- Is an excellent communicator and knows email tools such as Intercom and Customer.io
6. The Rise of the Full-Stack Marketer
Need all of these things? You’re not alone. The good news is that the rise of the full-stack marketer is here. A full-stack marketer is someone who is a metric driven person that can ideate, implement and manage the entire user journey/funnel.
Increasingly, we’ve seen marketers job jump a bit, gaining experience at corporations, nonprofits, startups, etc. At each job, they apply the skills they already possess, while gaining a new skill based on that company’s needs. They’re quick learners and Google is their best friend. They’re expert researchers, and even better implementers.
Then there’s the people who start working for startups right out of the gate after they graduate. These marketers have their hands in a bit of everything. They might be working simultaneously on an email campaign, a new onboarding process, rewriting copy for a new site, while also running the company’s social media. The leaner companies become, the greater the demand and supply of full-stack marketers there is.
When hiring a full-stack marketer, look for someone who:
- Is a Jack-of-all-trades; who knows SEO, content, community, email and social media
- Has direct experience in managing the entire marketing funnel or has had various positions
- Is a quick learner
- Is thirsty for knowledge and experience
- Is data-driven, intuitive and has experience with all the right tools – HubSpot, Google Analytics, AdSense, Facebook Ads, KISSmetrics, Optimizely, Unbounce, etc.
- Is interested in product
- Is an exceptional communicator and writer
- Understands user behavior and is ready to get to know your audience
Why You Should Consider Hiring a Freelance Marketer
Freelancers are business owners. They understand and empathize with all of your struggles. They also have a wide variety of experience, often across roles and industries. They provide an experienced outsider’s perspective and can share subjective opinions and ideas, while having bought-into your company’s mission.
They’re constantly challenged to make changes and iterate to help clients achieve success in order to drive more business. They’re competitive, which often drives creativity. They have to produce the best work in order to support him or herself. Freelance marketers are results-oriented and lean workers.
How to Hire a Freelance Marketer
Have a better idea of the type of marketer you need? Great! Here are some tips on how to hire them – freelancer or in-house.
- Prioritize where you need help: find someone to complement your skills and take over tasks you don’t like doing or that are taking up heaps of your time
- Ask specific questions: what they did, how they specifically moved the meter — dig deep into their experience
- Pay attention to your candidates question: an experienced marketer should really drill down to your goals
- Create clear expectations in advance: set budget, time frame and commitment
- Ask what tools they use: the best marketers use the same tools
- Look at culture fit: when hiring a remote freelancer, specifically, look for people who are self-starters, entrepreneurial spirits, prioritizers, excellent communicators, trustworthy
