Thinking Of Hiring An In House Digital Marketing Manager?

(Source: UX Collective)

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Every business needs support. When it comes to marketing, support is especially essential if you're actively looking to expand your business. The help can come from an in house marketer, a team of marketers, or even an outsourced agency.

Each business’s needs are different, and so the best-fit marketing support should be explored. No matter what you choose, you want your in house marketer or outsourced agency to have the expertise to better your business for good.

Here, we have crafted a few points to consider before conducting the in house digital marketing manager interviews and three questions to help find the best-fit candidate.

Before The Interview

Prior to the interview, consider your business's marketing needs, budget and options. From website design and development to social media management, ask yourself a few questions.

What will be the focus of your in house digital marketing manager’s job? How much are you expecting to pay them? Would you consider exploring the avenue of hiring a freelancer or agency instead?

Marketing Needs

List your marketing needs down, and create a list of all your in house manager's responsibilities. For most businesses, the list of expectations includes:

• Branding
• Graphic Design and Digital Design
• Digital Strategy
• Performance Marketing
• Ad Management
• Lead Generation
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Website design
• Content Topics and Copywriting
• Social Media Management
• Analytics Reporting

Marketing Budget

Determine if your budget matches your expectations. If you ask the interviewee to do more than just one job, you’ll likely need to pay on the higher side of a salary. For example, if you want someone more experienced, you’ll have to be willing to up the pay, as salaries can range:

• Copywriter - $65k-$90K
• Marketing Specialist - $60K-$95K
• Software Developer - $72K-$100K

Marketing Options

Compare the options, and decide if there’s a better-fit solution to your marketing needs. Three primary options other than an in house digital marketing manager you could consider hiring include:

• Marketing Director
• Freelancers
• Digital Marketing Agency

The Interview

When hiring an in house digital marketing manager, you’ll want to be sure they are the perfect fit – primarily if you’re investing hard-earned money and time into them. From personality to experience, you want to have a thorough understanding of your new in house manager.

Hard Skills

Identify a potential candidate's technical abilities, knowledge and experience to determine if they are suitable for your business.

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What do you think sets our business apart from our competitors?

A great candidate can identify the connections between the current marketing environment and what your business is offering. What does the candidate notice about your business that they see others don’t do? What to listen for:

• The right candidate should show awareness of your top competitors.
• Look for clues that the candidate can identify what makes your business distinct.
• Answers should offer insight into the candidate's knowledge and how they can align your marketing strategy to meet your need.

Soft Skills

Assess a potential candidate’s personality, including their traits and cognitive skills and abilities.

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Tell me about a time when your project’s demands changed. How did you ensure a successful outcome?

A candidate’s adaptability is crucial in the ever-changing marketing world. If a project’s budget was decreased or team members were assigned to new tasks, you want to understand how the candidate can handle sudden changes but still deliver a successful project. What to listen for:

• Answers should show that the candidate can adjust the marketing strategy to suit new requirements and direction.
• A great answer may cover how the candidate kept their team's confidence and discipline high despite a change of direction.
• The right candidate should show a solution-oriented mindset, with the ability to use new requirements to provide a successful outcome.

Behavioural Skills

A history of past success in handling situations is something to look out for in a candidate.

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Describe a time when you were involved with a marketing campaign that failed. What did you do?

Marketing is experimentation – there’s always going to be a few failures on the journey to success. The right candidate should take responsibility for the situation and look forward, acknowledging that their focus is on the solution and they are still learning from every stumble. What to listen for:

• The right candidate should discuss what went wrong and demonstrate high emotional intelligence.
• Answers should indicate what the candidate learnt and view their past failures as opportunities to optimise future campaigns.
• Be aware of if the candidate is unwilling to admit mistakes, as this can be a red flag of inability to take responsibility.

The Hiring

Once you’ve discovered what your business needs to continue growing, determined the characteristics of your ideal in house digital marketing manager, and conducted the interviews, the way forward is simple. The right candidate should align with your business's goals and hopefully would have ticked all the boxes.