As a business trying to grow its online presence, having the right marketing support is essential. Whether you have in-house marketing support, outsource your marketing to freelancers, or pick a digital agency, it’s important to select the right digital marketing specialist for your needs.
Often your choice is driven by budget and where you are in your business journey. So whether you are a start-up, micro business, SME or managing a large enterprise, here’s what you need to think about when you are choosing your digital marketing specialist.
Why you need a digital marketing specialist
Everyone’s a marketer, we all understand buyer behaviour to some degree and no one knows your customers quite like you do, but with the range of digital marketing tactics available to businesses today, you need a specialist to help you navigate.
Stop guessing and use a specialist to help guide you to the right platforms, the right types of campaigns and the right amount of energy to spend on each! Business owners often think that Rome was built in a day! Guess what, it’s not. Just because you can do all these things, doesn’t mean you should. It’s about picking the right thing for you and your business, the marketing activities that will make the biggest impact!
That’s why a digital marketing specialist is a great investment, because they often have tried and tested everything already, and, if you’re lucky, they may also have expertise in your actual industry too.
Save yourself the headache of figuring it all out for yourself and get the benefit of hindsight! We all wish we had a degree in it at some point in our lives. So, how do you choose a digital marketing specialist who’s just right for you?
Defining your requirements for a digital marketing specialist
Choosing your digital marketing specialist depends on a number of things. First and foremost, what are you trying to achieve. Your marketing or sales goals are what should drive the type of outfit you employ and the kind of work you request them to carry out. So what are your marketing goals?
How to set marketing goals
What position is your business in right now? Where are your leads coming from? Do you need more leads? Or are you trying to cement your position in the market in some way. Have a think about what you would like to achieve.
Set marketing goals that are measurable. We’ve all heard the acronym SMART when it comes to setting goals, but at the very least you have to have some form of measure of your activities, otherwise how will you know if what you’re doing is working.
- Measuring the number of leads you generate and the source of them.
- Measure the engagement you get from your social media activity.
- The visits to your website and activity on your website.
- How often your content gets downloaded if you’re putting out ebooks and other downloadable content.
- Measure your rankings in Google
Think about what you are trying to achieve and then work backwards from there.
Depending on the goal, you might need to take a different approach with your digital marketing specialist. Do you need someone with social media expertise, SEO knowledge or copywriting skills?
Once you have defined your goals, what next?
Developing a brief for a digital marketing specialist
For your digital marketing specialist to be successful, you need to give them a decent brief. However, you don’t know what you don’t know, so you might be looking for someone that can help you build your brief and work on your strategy with you.
If you have a strategy already, you will need to give your specialist the low-down on things like;
- Your USPs
- Your target market
- The problem your company solves
- Your vision, mission & values
- Your brand, tone of voice
- Your competitors
Many digital marketing specialists will be able to help you build a marketing strategy if you don’t have one and integrate that into their service offering like we do here at The Design Grove. So speak to us about it, if it’s something you’re struggling with.
What you should look for in your digital marketing support
You’ve got your goals, you’ve got your brief or strategy set out, now what do you look for in a digital marketing specialist?
Experience
What experience does your marketing support have? Whether it’s a freelancer, marketing agency or marketing employee, look out for a proven track record and examples of their work. Even better if they have direct experience in your industry. For example, The Design Grove has experience across a whole range of industry sectors, so does yours fit a particular niche and if so, are they best suited to it?
Skill-set
Sounds obvious but based on your requirements you can get specialists in all marketing disciplines. There are all-rounders like The Design Grove that can try their hand at all marketing tactics, but there are also specialists in specific marketing activities like Social Media Managers, Email Marketing Specialists for example. Each one has honed their skill set to solve your particular marketing problem, so make sure the specialist you choose has the right background.
Knowledge
This ties back to their experience, but even someone without direct experience in your market can be a good choice for your business. Marketing is about being able to understand people & their motives for buying. So, whether you’re selling services into the pharmaceutical industry or the construction industry, any marketer worth their salt should be able to adapt their baseline knowledge and apply it across other market sectors. Ask them how they would approach marketing to your specific market and what strategies they would use to engage them.
Communication Skills
Hopefully you’ll get a good gauge of communication skills from the outset when you start to engage with your marketing bod. As a third party, they need to be able to engage with you, keep you informed on progress, over communicate so that you feel like they are a safe pair of hands. From an employee point of view, they need to have the communication skills to be able to whip people into shape internally, as they are going to need input from various stakeholders in the business. So it’s vitally important that the onus is on good communication!
Tools for the job
A freelance marketing specialist or a marketing agency are likely to have a variety of marketing tools at their disposal. That’s one of the hidden benefits of outsourcing your marketing rather than hiring in-house. You’ll get the access to systems that help drive efficiencies with your marketing, because they’ve bought and paid for them! So bare that in mind when you are evaluating their pricing. There are systems that help marketers do their jobs, from creative to analytical packages that cost a pretty penny. So if budget is a consideration for you, just look into the extra perks you may or may not be getting for your money.
Creativity and clarity
Does their work meet your creative expectations. You can tell a lot about your outsourced marketing help by checking out their portfolio. Look for how creative they are, how good their language and copywriting skills are, as good indicators of the level of work you can expect.
Cultural Fit
Do you click with them? Having a marketing supplier that is easy to deal with, will embed themselves into your business with ease and just make your life easier is worth its weight in actual gold. When it comes to hiring a marketing employee, all your usual recruitment rules apply when it comes to business culture. Hiring for the perfect fit will ensure this person remains a part of the furniture for a long time to come.
Check References and Reviews
Don’t forget to check references and reviews! There are lots of ways you can do this with agencies and freelance marketing consultants. They will have Google reviews, Facebook reviews and LinkedIn recommendations that will give you accurate insights into their capabilities. Take your time to properly assess and question references if needed.
Relationship that lasts
We hope this article helps you to make a good choice for your marketing support & build a relationship that lasts. It is a big decision and one that you want to get right. But by clearly defining your goals and requirements in the early stages, you will clear up any potential for confusion and have a greater chance of success in the long term. If you need help with defining your marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
