How do you hire the right person for such a role in your company?
The power of Digital Paid Media is extraordinary. You can boost brand awareness, amplify your reach, enhance your targeting, maximize your content marketing, and gather incredibly finite market insights. However, all digital paid media professionals are not the same. Answer these four questions before you hire your next digital paid media professional:
1. What communication responsibilities will this person have?
The level of a digital paid media strategist varies depending on the organization and campaign. Regardless of the role level, successful candidates will have important communication responsibilities. Digital Paid Media professionals may be part of an account team, a marketing team, a large digital paid media team, or they may work largely alone. In addition to working closely with teammates, they may have direct communication with clients or business stakeholders. In any case, successful communication is necessary in order to be effective in the role.
Answer this question: What communications will be critical to the success of the role? Consider what skills and experiences will be necessary, and then select a candidate who can communicate successfully in the role. Then, consider a written communication assessment. Simply ask candidates to respond to specific questions that are relevant to the success in the role. If you don’t have this capability built into your HR software, then Google forms is a handy tool for written assessments.
2. What evangelism or new business responsibilities will this person have?
Business stakeholders, clients, and marketing teammates will all likely benefit from a greater understanding of digital paid media. Even close marketing teammates rarely understand the complexities or potential of digital paid media. The evangelism or new business responsibilities of digital paid media professional will vary depending on the organization, campaign, and stakeholders.
Paid media professionals may have little to no evangelism or new business responsibilities, as they may be a background or support player. However, if the role requires influential communication, then hire someone with the appropriate abilities. Answer this question: What evangelism or new business responsibilities must the person in this role have? Consider what skills and experiences will be necessary, and then select a candidate who can handle the required level of influence.
3. How hands-on will this person be?
A digital paid media professional may work entirely in strategy or completely in vendor oversight. In another case, they may work entirely in hands-on campaign creation and optimization. A large percentage of digital paid media professionals work somewhere in the middle. Answer this question: How hands-on will this person be? In order to set appropriate expectations and hire the right person, determine how much of each of these skills and experiences a candidate must possess. Then, select a candidate who desires and can handle the required level of hands-on involvement.
4. What knowledge should be had before the role and what can be learned?
There are more than 20 significant social media channels alone. On top of that, there are search engine ads, affiliate advertising, banner ads, native advertising. Not all of these will be appropriate for your business. The prior knowledge of specific paid channels needed by a digital paid media professional varies.
In order to select the right candidates, determine what channels and forms of digital paid media must be known prior to the role. Then, determine what can be learned during the role. Maybe you don’t know what is best for you. In that case, you need someone skilled at evaluating and testing what efforts have the most potential. Answer this question: What specific knowledge should be possessed before the role and what can be learned during the role?
Final Thoughts
This isn’t a comprehensive list of things to consider before making your next digital paid media hire. However, these are four very important things to consider prior to making that hire. Focus not only on doing good qualification, but also focus on setting appropriate expectations with candidates. If you are in an agency or operate like an internal agency, see our post on improving your agency’s hiring. To discuss your next digital paid media hire, contact us.
