Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Lisa Wheatly from Top Aussie Writers. Her opinions are her own.
Hiring is always tough. In order to do it right, you need to perceive it just like any other skill. It is hard to develop, it requires planning, acting, repeating, failing, starting again, and the process goes on and on until you finally do it right.
Sorry to disappoint you, but if you thought hiring capable and professional team members would be easy, you’re wrong. Hiring is quite different for each profession and niche. When it comes to marketing, there are different characteristics that one must look out for before making any decisions.
In this post, I’m firstly going to dive into the best criteria to look after when selecting your team’s marketing strategist (leader). Then, I’ll continue by providing you with some powerful insights concerning the foundation, structure and the growth of your marketing team.
Find the best marketer for your business
Whenever you’re looking for the best marketing leader for your current or future team, you’ll want to consider the following:
1. Skills and experience
Choosing employees based on their skills and experience is very common nowadays. This works pretty well because you’re setting the standards, so the recruiting process will be more effective. Make a list of skills that they must and should have.
The first category should be decisive, while the second should be perceived as a bonus.
2. Mindset and values
The mindset of your marketing strategist is going to be critical and decisive for your business performance. His or her decisions will influence your company, and their values are shifting your brand’s image. He or she needs to be on the same level with your brand’s culture, and has to be able to demonstrate quality mental skills such as commitment, ambition, innovation, creativity, and so on.
3. Adaptability and professionalism
Your marketing manager needs to be extremely professional and adaptable. Adaptable in terms of understanding your vision, being able to be a leader among the other marketers, and basically adapting to all the variations and challenges that might show up.
Professional, well, I don’t need to tell you that working with someone unprofessional will slowly destroy your business, as it’s totally common sense.
Forging a strong marketing team
Developing an efficient marketing team is quite complicated. There are many unpredictable aspects that could show up, including disorganisation and low productivity.
As the leader of the whole organisation, it is your duty to grow, structure and give your marketing team a purpose.
4. Structure
Here’s how a professional marketing organization should be structured:
As you can see, the strategy requires a strategist marketer. The creative part needs creatives, the audit needs auditor marketers, and the communications team needs to be comprised of strong communicators.
The main thing to consider in this scenario is that all the members of the marketing team need to work as one. Each “category” of marketers has to learn as much as they can about the execution of their and their colleagues’ methods via all online and traditional marketing methods.
If each member of your marketing team is on the same page, the productivity is going to skyrocket. They’ll brainstorm and work together far more effectively because there’s always a member who can help with his or her expertise in a specific marketing zone.
5. Purpose
Brands that have already made their mark in the market are always working with a purpose. For example, Nike’s mission is to get people up and running. Dove makes each woman feel beautiful in her skin by emphasizing her beauty.
What does your brand suggest?
When you have that figured out, your marketing team needs to be fully informed of the brand’s mission and purpose. Moreover, they need to be able to present stories and deliver messages according to your bigger picture purpose.
Make sure that your marketing strategist is exactly on the same page as you are, and be sure that your other marketers are also understanding what they need to understand.
6. Variety of skillsets
When you’re growing your company’s marketing team, you need to make sure that you’re adding plenty of variation. As previously displayed in the image above, you’ll need to capture more categories of marketers.
Whenever you’re hiring, be sure to test your prospects as well as you can. Sometimes a brilliant mind that complements the team with his or her skills will be a much better investment than a graduate with a fancy resume.
Top companies and top recruiters are no longer focusing on traditional qualifications. Instead of paying attention to a piece of paper, they’re looking for unique traits and talent in the people they’re interviewing.
Once they get those talent, they start educating them the way they please. With luck, those employees will remain loyal to the company and will remain with the organisation.
If your limited number of marketing employees possess as many traits and skills, you’ll be able to get creative and advance your marketing campaigns in no time.
7. Get involved in the team
Smart entrepreneurs are always in control of their company. Nothing’s moving without their knowledge, and their grade of involvement is higher compared to any other employee. Why? Because if you’re allowing your employees to figure things out by themselves, you’re going to end up with a messy company.
I’d suggest you to first establish the expectations and let all of your marketers hear it and remember it. I’d also suggest regular productive meetings, which involve a short summary of which team member has done, the problems encountered, and the improvements that need to be made.
As the leader of the company, it’s your responsibility to collect feedback and make adjustments to your brand. Get involved as much as you can until you believe that you have achieved stability.
Every strong business or corporation depends on the strength and efforts of their marketing team. If there is nobody to market their product, there will be no sales and no brand.
Be aware that the better your marketing strategist is, the better your team will be coordinated. The better your marketing team is, the better your business performance will be.
Author
Lilly Chesser
