Around 75% of the world’s marketing budget will go on digital marketing over traditional channels by 2021, according to Salesforce. You can’t miss the growth in video, the opportunity for targeted marketing and the growth in providing rich content. As the rise in digital marketing continue its steep growth, you need to make sure your marketing team can spot the opportunities for growth.
Here we look at 6 steps to ensure you have the right talent on board to execute your digital marketing strategy.
1. Identify your objectives
Marketing 101 but can often get missed. Digital marketing by its very nature can involve many new and innovative tactics that can often distract you from hitting your marketing goals. Your SMART marketing goals should align to your overall business objectives (e.g. generate 50 new leads next quarter or increase conversion rate to 5% next year).
Have your goals in mind when you are evaluating what talent you need to hit them.
2. Evaluate the marketers you have already
If you’re happy with your digital marketing team already… you’re in the minority! If you work at an agency, only 8% of brands are very satisfied with your performance which will mean plenty of room for improvement.
Do you have mix of experience within your marketing team? Or are you finding that some of your team aren’t mature or sophisticated enough to spot opportunities?
For all companies with digital marketing teams, your evaluation will involve a long-term strategic plan. With the strategic plan in mind, do you need specific specialists to join your team? A video specialist? An email marketing expert? Or you need a data guru to scope out the analytics?
It’s unlikely that one person is a specialist in everything.
3. Measure what you are generating already
What is measured, is improved. You need to know where you are now, to understand the direction in which you want to be heading. For any digital marketing team, I would suggest the analytics that actually matter are:
- Traffic (organic, direct, referral, social or paid)
- Conversions
- Engagement
- CTR (Click-Through Rate)
There are many other areas of data that you can analyse, however the above are the most likely to generate leads for your business. See where you are at now and know where you want to be.
When you know where you want to be, you’ll know the type of talent that you’ll need.
4. Develop a top hiring process – and hire them
For smaller digital marketing teams, hiring has a much larger impact than those businesses with huge marketing resources. Smaller companies feel the effects of bad hires and are left with a big cost with little leads generated.
Using the best interview process will help you to make sure that bad hires are few and far between. Use a recruitment firm to help you along the way – not to mention the time they will save.
Also, think about the actual process – telephone calls, face-to-face interviews, making offers and sending out contracts. Have you lost out on hires because of a slow process? Or you’d gone too quickly and hadn’t qualified someone as well as you could? The interview process can always improve.
5. Train and motivate your marketing team
You should have; clear marketing objectives, a measured team and a superb hiring process. Next, concentrate on onboarding, training and motivating your digital marketing team. Companies with an engaging onboarding program retained 91% of their first-year workers. We know how frustrating it is when someone leaves before they have become fully productive!
Run incentives, stay creative and provide both work and life-coaching – because as Generation Z take over the work place, they will look for fulfilment not just in work but in their personal lives too.
6. Give them the tools needed
Last point is – invest in the best tools possible. If you have the budget, there are plenty of digital marketing tools that can provide clear ROI which can be a legal money printing machine! If you have given your marketing team the right knowledge, allow them to provide them as many leads as possible for the business. I love this article from early in 2018 about the best digital marketing tools to use.
I’d love to know what makes a brilliant digital marketing team. What advice do you have? Drop in a comment below or contact me on 0161 773 8455 or jamesh@alexjamesresourcing.co.uk.