The more advanced technology becomes, the more advanced marketing becomes. Don’t let your business get overlooked online.
New platforms and strategies seem to pop up overnight. Business owners can find it impossible to juggle promoting themselves and keeping day-to-day operations running smoothly.
That’s why even small local businesses are turning to digital marketing experts for help.
Marketing experts will help you understand what kind of content does best on platforms like Google and Facebook so you can reach new people.
The best part is that a good marketing specialist will help you connect with people specifically interested in your services.
They’ll use data to drive their decisions so there’s no wasted time or resources. Your new clicks and views can come from people who are buying what you’re selling!
With the right person on your team you could start seeing increases in traffic and increases in leads. Turn your website and social media pages into lead generation machines by ensuring you have interesting and optimized content.
If you’re new to marketing or even if you’re looking to expand an already strong marketing footprint, making the right hire can be hard.
Marketing is a broad field and the people in that field vary greatly in terms of skills and traits.
Before you hit send on that job posting or reach out to any candidates you need to first ask yourself a few questions.
- What do I need my digital marketer to do?
- Why should I hire a digital marketing expert?
- How often do I need help with digital marketing?
- How will I choose the right marketing expert for
What do I need my digital marketer to do?
Especially in cases where you’ve already started your marketing journey but you need a little extra help, you’ll want to establish what tasks you’re looking to accomplish.
If your business needs someone to regularly craft email campaigns or keep your social media up to date, it’s important you hire someone with those skills.
Here are some tasks that your new digital marketer may be able to help you with:
- Web Design
- Website Updates
- Graphic Design
- Social Media
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Email Marketing
- Pay Per Click Advertising
- Content Marketing
- Copywriting
- Native Advertising
- Affiliate Marketing
- Press Releases
- Researching Key Progress Indicators (KPIs)
There’s a chance that most of these terms seem foreign to you. And that’s okay.
You don’t have to be a marketing expert to hire one.
It might help you to think more about the results than how you get there. Besides, when you’re hiring, that’s what you need, is someone who can do all of these things and show you how those skills have helped other businesses.
If you’re not familiar with marketing deliverables or platforms, it might be time to skip a few steps in order to get a better perspective.
Try discussing how your candidate has previously increased the number of phone calls and emails a business is getting. Ask if they’ve worked places that have seen an increase in revenue.
You might even want to ask if they’ve helped other businesses make more new hires.
You don’t have to know everything right away. But you do want to make sure your next hire is experienced enough to take charge of your marketing.
Why should I hire a digital marketing expert?
Don’t be embarrassed to say it, you’ve probably tried marketing your business on your own but it just hasn’t worked out. You have other responsibilities and it’s hard to make time for website maintenance, social media, email campaigns and more.
You need to keep a consistent marketing presence. No one wants to scare away clients with a broken website or a Facebook page that hasn’t been active since 2015.
Increasing your marketing efforts can help bring in more leads followed by more sales.
When done right, your digital marketing expert’s efforts can cover their salary and drive up your annual revenue. Especially if you’re trying marketing for the first time.
But don’t worry, there are some more detailed ways to ask job candidates for help increasing profits.
For example, you might be looking for someone to make your website better looking and easier to find than your competitors. You could be looking for someone to email your clients regularly and build up the lifetime value for each relationship.
Many marketers are great at building up client relationships.
They have the writing skills and communications tools to make you seem more approachable and relatable. This can drive new customers your way and also keep the old ones coming back.
The more people with a positive view of your services, the better your reputation will be. Your marketing expert can build up your business’s reputation even more by sharing proof of your hard work and talents. Everyone should know about the positive reviews, awards and certifications you receive!
Don’t forget that marketing is a great way to share news with your customers or clients.
Your marketing professional can keep people in the loop about sales, operating hours, special events, big announcements and more. They’ll do it in a way that really makes your customers and clients feel welcomed into the fold.
This is important because you want your business to remain relevant and at the top of mind. Business owners or other employees don’t have the time to keep in touch with everyone but for marketers, that’s part of their job. They can handle all the reaching out and reminders.
If you still aren’t sure why exactly your business needs someone to handle marketing, an expert digital marketer can help you figure that out. They can research your company’s online presence and performance and find ways to make it better.
How often do I need digital marketing help?
You might need someone to join your team full-time or you might get a better value from part-time or outsourced help.
The marketing industry is designed to serve businesses of all sizes so even if you’re not ready to hire someone full-time, you have options.
Here are ways to get part-time marketing help:
Marketing Agency
This is one of the best ways to market your business. Working with an agency means you get to benefit from the expertise of an entire team of experienced marketers. Agencies often offer a huge variety of services that can be tailored to unique businesses. Depending on your budget you can pass just a couple of tasks a month onto an agency or you can hand over all of your marketing responsibilities. If you’re looking for marketing professionals with experience and more autonomy, this is the most cost-effective option. You’ll cut down a lot of time on hand holding and editing.
Freelance Marketer
Whether you find them through an online directory or a friend, there are lots of freelancers out there. These marketers are often contracted by multiple companies at a time to provide remote marketing support. You can find a freelancer with the specific skills you need or look for a jack-of-all-trades. There are some very talented freelancers on the market but they are going to have high hourly rates. You’ll be paying more for their years of experience and previous wins. Taking on a cheaper freelancer can be risky. They are typically less experienced or in another country where language barriers and time zones become an issue.
Marketing Consultant
A consultant is similar to a freelancer in that you are outsourcing tasks to an individual. The difference is that a consultant focuses much more on strategy. If you hire a consultant they’ll help build a marketing strategy and message for your business and then work on making it a reality.
If you’re set on the full-time approach you’ll want to make sure you have a consistent flow of marketing deliverables for your employee to work on. This will be your more costly option but the only one that will grow your in-office team.
The salary for a marketing specialist starts at around $50,000 a year and rises above $100,000 a year. This doesn’t include other employee costs such as benefits. For a small business this can totally break the budget before your revenue starts to increase.
How will I choose the right marketer for me?
There are lots of ways to navigate the hiring process and gather evidence of a candidate’s hard work. If you’re asking the right questions and searching for the most relevant skills you’ll be able to find a great marketer.
As you begin your search, whether you’re researching agencies and freelancers or posting a job listing for a hire, you’ll want to keep your website and content management system in mind.
When you’re hiring a marketer they will most likely need to use your website’s backend and make edits. Most communications professionals are familiar with WordPress and maybe another system or two depending on their work history.
Speaking of work history, you’ll definitely want to hear some more about that. You can ask applicants or agencies for information about past employment and previous projects. It’s also common practice to ask for recommendations or references from previous employers or educators.
If you’d like to see examples of the work someone has done, many marketers on the job market keep some form of portfolio.
You should definitely take into consideration if someone has worked in your industry before, that could really give them a head start at marketing your company.
This is made easy when you work with an agency because they are often working with many industries at a time and their individual employees bring unique experiences to the table.
Regardless of if you’re hiring someone or starting a contract with an agency, freelancer or consultant, you should take the time to interview them. If you can conduct at least two interviews it will make a huge difference in finding your best candidate.
Most agencies have two meetings built into their process to give you plenty of time to make a decision. You’ll usually get to participate in an initial consultation followed by a brand discovery session. From there your marketer can get to work on promoting your business.
Pro Tip: You can have promising candidates come in for a trial workday where they get a chance to meet your team and try their hand at typical daily tasks. You can also simulate tasks by giving them writing, design or social media prompts to try their hand at.
Find the right digital marketing expert for your business
You’re already running a business which means you’re handling sales, human resources, employee management, production and more.
When you’re juggling so many tasks it can be hard to move into that next phase of growth. You’ve done a great job establishing yourself and keeping up with your sales but now you want more!
It’s time to up your marketing but, it sounds like a lot more work, right?
You don’t need a big business to afford marketing services. In fact, marketing is how other businesses grew so much in the first place!
That’s why Emerge works with your small company to help you prosper in your local markets and grow into new ones.
Our team offers on-demand marketing services tailored to your business, in addition to SEO plans, web design and graphic design.
You get all the benefits of working with a multi-talented team with years of experience without ever busting your budget.
Someone once said, write what you know. Well here at Emerge, we know digital marketing. If you don’t believe us, take a look at our resume. You might just be one consultation away from growing your business.
