If Marketing were easy. Everyone would be doing it. Sometimes it feels like they are. All experienced marketers will be able to share examples of when they’ve been approached with some ‘helpful social media or marketing ideas’ from IT/Sales/HR/Finance, pretty much everyone who isn’t working day to day in the field.
In an industry as competitive as marketing it can be difficult trawling through hundreds of CV’s to search for ‘the one’. At Designated we have worked with freelancers and full-time marketers for many years and can quickly identify the character and skills that sets apart the stand-out candidates.
With so much noise out there these days, it’s no secret that you’ll want to get the most out of your marketing efforts and your marketing manager must decide how best to use limited resources to create an effective strategy.
We believe your marketing manager should possess all of the following skills on some level:
Social Media Savvy
Love it or loathe it, social is here to stay. A good marketer will know their way around the platforms as well as the most suitable ones for your audience. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach with social media and it takes a lot of time (and money) to get things going. Finding the right mix of content, frequency, and engagement for each network can be a challenge.
We mention money as social media is still considered (by some) a free marketing tool. It is not. Organic social can often feel like going into a dark room, locking all the doors and windows and then shouting about your company. Social media is a pay to play game, but it’s not all bad. Paid targeted campaigns can give you data-driven insights to help you pinpoint who your audience is and how best to market to them. An experienced marketing manager will have paid social media experience and can help guide this process.
Creativity
Marketing has always benefited from creative types using their gifts of coming up with campaigns and slogans which make the masses laugh, cry, think, and most importantly, purchase.
One of the biggest challenges today in creative marketing is standing out in a saturated market. Your marketing manager won’t always have new products or updates and so a bit of creative thinking is required to re-market and re-introduce existing content or ideas in new and interesting ways.
An eye for design is always beneficial and if they have the technical design skills, even better! They can turn content around quickly and independently. This is especially useful in social media, to piggyback on trending topics or news stories.
A Clear Communicator
A marketing manager needs to be able to communicate effectively and start with asking what is going to be the end goal of a project. It often involves gathering lots of information from several departments.
Avoiding miscommunication online and offline is key, and there will be many times your marketing manager will be required to explain a strategy or plan that might initially feel quite alien to other key stakeholders. A great marketer will be able to get the rest of the team/company excited about the campaign helping to excel employee advocacy.
Resourceful
We cannot stress the importance of this skill. If you’re a business owner or senior leader, you are going to need your marketing manager to be resourceful. Their work may often involve making something out of nothing depending on the size of your organisation. They need to be able to make the most out of the tools available to them and where additional resource is required, make their case for additional marketing tools or team members.
Multi-tasker
Any marketer can attest to multi-tasking being a necessity. Having thirty tabs open at any given time, flicking between programs and projects is often second nature to experienced marketing managers, who are trying to cram a lot in during their working day. With so many platforms and technical processes, a seemingly simple task can actually take a lot of time. As well as multi-tasking we would also add highly organised with excellent time-management to this point.
Data-Driven
If you’re looking to hire marketing manager, it is important to consider a candidate’s analytical skills. From social platforms to email and website insights to CRM systems. Marketing is as much about the numbers as it is about something looking good.
Data-driven marketing bases brand communications on information that has been gathered through research or previous campaigns. Testing and optimising will form the basis of many marketing strategies, great marketers will need to be able to read the data and adjust accordingly. Marketers need at the very least, to have a knowledge of what their benchmark is and know what impact their campaign is having. Marketers who are naturally curious do well in this area of the role.
Marketing managers are a great asset to a company. They ensure that the business they work for gets noticed by consumers and consumers can communicate directly with them if they have any questions or concerns. It is a job that requires persistence, intelligence, discipline and patience among all of the skills above. No doubt there are many more we don’t have room for in this article, but if you take one thing away from this blog post, it is that some of the top marketing managers can bring a tremendous amount of value to your organisation.
At Designated, we have sourced some of the best marketing talent to save you the time. So, if you’re looking to hire a marketing manager for 5 hours a week or 35 hours a week, we can provide the best person for the job based on your specific requirements.
We don’t pretend to know your business; you know your business, but we will ask questions and push for answers through our business review/discovery sessions. This will ensure we have a full understanding of your goals, what your market looks like and how we can position your message clearly, to give your brand value in the marketplace and ensure you are a consideration for your target audience.
If you’re looking for support in the areas of Marketing, Accountancy, Bookkeeping or PA we’d love to talk.
