Marketing is the soul of business, but as a small business owner or manager, it can be challenging to manage marketing all on your own.
Every business needs an active marketing team, and more importantly, you need a competent manager to lead that team. This is particularly true if you cannot afford to hire a marketing agency or outsource marketing.
The marketing manager plays a strategic role in ensuring the success of your business. Marketing managers coordinate marketing teams in their efforts to attract the right prospects and convert leads into loyal customers.
Marketing managers have to plan and execute marketing strategies, coordinate campaigns, and manage the day-to-day activities of the marketing team. While this might seem like simple tasks that most CEOs can handle, it takes a professional with a wide array of skills, knowledge and leadership skills to effectively manage the responsibilities of a marketing manager.
In this article, we will explore all you need to know about how to hire a marketing manager for your business.
Marketing Manager Responsibilities
As the name suggests, the marketing manager is the individual responsible for managing a company’s marketing and advertising efforts. For a small business, this might be just one marketing person who handles all the company’s marketing activities.
In bigger companies with a large team, the marketing manager is the top marketing hire. He/she is the head of the marketing team. They oversee the marketing team’s efforts and coordinate their day-to-day activities.
For large teams, the different members of a team have their own defined responsibilities while the manager mainly handles managerial responsibilities. The following are some of the main responsibilities of a marketing manager:
Research
The marketing team conducts research to better understand the potential customers, competitors, and market trends in order to find the perfect positioning and marketing strategy for the company and its products or services.
Branding
The manager coordinates efforts to craft and communicate the company’s brand identity. He also ensures the consistency of the company’s identity across all marketing channels and campaigns.
Marketing Strategies
As the top marketing person, the manager is in charge of creating and executing your company’s marketing plans. They also evaluate existing marketing campaigns and may rework strategies based on changing consumer behavior, evolving business goals.
In performance marketing, for instance, the manager evaluates ongoing marketing strategies to ensure the desired actions or outcomes are being achieved. Monitoring and revising strategies this way is a core responsibility of your top marketing hire.
Managerial Responsibilities
As your top marketing hire, a huge part of the marketing manager’s work is building and managing your team, providing the needed guidance and support for everyone on the team. Marketing managers are also expected to build strong relationships with other teams and departments within the organization.
For instance, the marketing person has to work in tandem with the product development team in developing new products and ideas that best meet the customer needs.
In some cases, they may also need to collaborate with a marketing consultant, marketing agency and other third-party marketing pros your company decides to work with.
Coordinating Campaigns
A marketing generalist or manager manages your company’s ads and marketing campaigns across various channels. This includes social media marketing campaigns, email marketing, content marketing, paid advertisement, new product marketing and so on.
They also manage the marketing budget and analyze the performance of running campaigns to ensure their alignment with the company’s marketing goals.
Skills Needed For A Marketing Manager Role
To find the best marketing person for this role, you have to build a profile for the ideal candidate. This means highlighting the responsibilities of the candidate as stated above and identifying the core skills that will be needed to perform effectively in that role. This should include both soft skills and technical skills for this role.
To a large extent, the required skills depend on the direction of your marketing efforts and what it’ll likely entail. For instance, if you’re looking to do a mix of traditional media and digital marketing, you need a top marketing talent who has the skills to handle both effectively.
The following are some of the technical and non-technical skills you should look out for in a marketing generalist:
Digital Media Design
The manager will participate directly in the process of creating media materials for marketing purposes. This may include websites, graphic design, video content, animation, and other forms of interactive media. They should have a solid knowledge of the process of creating these materials.
Even in cases where the marketing manager is not directly involved in creating media materials, he/she oversees the production process and needs to know how to choose the most compelling designs that will catch the attention of potential customers and drive marketing goals.
Project Management
One of the responsibilities of the marketing person in this role is to oversee marketing campaigns and other related projects. Consequently, whoever you hire for this role should have project planning, time management, and other essential project management skills.
They also have to figure out how to put your marketing budget to good use. The ability to use project management software will also be a big advantage for this role.
Branding & Marketing Strategies
Sometimes, marketing managers may also double as branding specialists or marketing generalists. This means the right marketing person should have the core skills needed to help define, develop, and grow your unique brand identity.
This means having a good knowledge of brand strategy and how it fits into a company’s marketing plan is an important criterion to consider in hiring a marketing person.
Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
As part of your marketing efforts, creative managers should know how to build trust with a target audience through high-quality and useful content. This is what content marketing entails.
Your marketing manager should know how to coordinate content creation efforts and leverage content to generate leads and nurture relationships with consumers.
In addition to conventional marketing skills, a good knowledge of content strategy, product marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), direct mail marketing, and social media marketing will be valuable to supercharge your content marketing efforts.
Market Research and Data Analysis
In crafting marketing strategies, the right marketing person must understand the needs and pain points of the target audience, market trends, and competitor positions.
This knowledge, which is derived from in-depth market research, is the foundation of every company’s marketing efforts.
Marketing managers may also need to collect and analyze data using different methodologies in order to make informed, insight-backed decisions. An ability to use Google Analytics, data visualization tools, and other similar platforms is a vital skill for this role.
Ads and Campaign Management
If your current marketing efforts involve running ads on search engines, social media ads and other forms of paid advertising, the marketing professional to hire must have the solid knowledge and skills needed to manage these campaigns as part of their marketing functions.
Look for a top marketing talent good at managing social media campaigns, Google adwords, paid advertising and other related skills.
Leadership
For companies with large marketing teams, a major part of the marketing manager’s responsibilities is coordinating and overseeing the activities of all members of the team. In some cases, they may also need to perform media relations and other executive functions.
The right marketing person must be able to motivate and mentor team members toward achieving the company’s goals while navigating various marketing challenges in line with the brand strategy and business goals.
Organizational Skills
Depending on the scope of your marketing efforts, a marketing lead has to attend to a long list of responsibilities.
An ability to keep everything organized, delegate tasks to the right marketing person on the team and ensure ongoing projects are achieved within the specific deadlines is a valuable skill for this position.
Communication
Marketing managers have to liaise with members of their team, other departments, executives, and even customers. Being able to communicate clearly and effectively is an essential skill to do this effectively and achieve desired results.
How To Write A Marketing Manager Job Description
Completing the steps above will help you create a profile for the ideal candidate you want to hire as your marketing manager. The next step of the hiring process is to summarize all of these in a detailed and concise job description.
A clear description will communicate the requirements of the role to potential candidates and ensure you’re attracting the most suitable marketing talent. Here are some of the details to include in the job description:
Overview of Your Company
Start by providing a brief overview of your business model, product, and service. This gives the reader an idea of what their work as a marketing lead will entail if they get hired for the role.
Responsibilities
Next, highlight the responsibilities of the marketing manager. This should be specific to your organization and the role in question.
For instance, the responsibilities of a product marketing manager will be slightly different from those of a brand marketer or a marketing generalist. You may also indicate the size of your team and possible goals the manager will be required to meet.
Qualification
What kinds of key skills, skills, experience, technical background, and academic qualifications will the right person for this role possess? You should list both the “must-haves” and extra skills that will set the best candidates apart. You should also list specific marketing tools or software that the manager might use in this position.
Benefits & Incentives
Bear in mind that the purpose of a job description is to promote the role. It should highlight the benefits of working for your company as the marketing leader and the specific incentives you offer.
Where To Find Marketing Managers
To find the ideal marketing talent for a managerial role, you should post your job notice on different platforms and recruitment channels. This gives you optimal reach and helps you attract the best talents for the position. Some of the potential places to find a marketing person include:
Online Job Boards
LinkedIn, Indeed and other online recruitment channels allow you to post job listings visible to a large audience. You can also search for potential candidates based on their specific skills relevant to your posting and get in touch with the most qualified candidates through these channels.
Networking Events
Marketing conferences, seminars, meetups, and other marketing events present a good opportunity to meet marketing professionals with the right profile to lead your team. You can attend these events to meet the right marketing person for the job.
Post On Social Media Platforms
You can put out an open call on social media for the marketing lead position. The post should indicate the specific responsibilities and skills you expect the ideal candidate for the role to possess.
Employee Referrals
You can ask your current employees both within and outside your marketing team for referrals. This makes it easier to find individuals whose values and goals align with the marketing objectives of your organization.
Examine Candidate Resumes
When you begin to receive resumes from marketing professionals, you must know what to focus on in evaluating their resumes. This is a crucial step in screening out candidates and picking the most suitable ones from a long list of top performers.
Start by checking the essential technical and non-technical skills listed in the resume. This should give you an idea of the individual’s capabilities and fit for the role. Compare this to the list of skills that you expect your ideal candidates to possess.
Next, examine the employment history section. Beyond how many jobs the marketing talent has held in the past, you want to see the responsibilities they have handled in the past and how this matches your requirements for the role.
Through the employment history, you can see the candidate’s past work, projects, and achievements to see if it’s a fit for your needs.
Interviewing Candidates
The interview is often the final stage of the hiring process. At this stage, you get to ask the potential candidates questions to help you get to know more about them and their capabilities. During the interview, you should assess the candidate’s knowledge of your business model and marketing needs.
You also need to evaluate both the technical and non-technical skills of the candidate and ensure they align with the marketing needs of your business. The questions to ask during the interview for a marketing hire may also depend on the type of marketer you’re hoping to get.
If you need performance marketers for instance, your ideal candidate must be good at measuring metrics and analyzing data since these are important skills in performance marketing.
Sample Interview Questions for Hiring a Marketing Manager
Use a mix of scenario-based questions and knowledge-based questions to assess the candidate’s fit. You should also ask questions about their past work experiences to determine if they have the right skills. During the interview, pay attention to the candidate’s communication skills, body language, and approach to solving the problems you present.
Questions Related to Strategic Thinking and Planning
- Describe your process for developing marketing campaigns for a new product or service.
- How do you stay up-to-date on current marketing trends and technologies?
- How would you define and measure the success of a marketing campaign?
Marketing Skills and Expertise
- Tell me about a successful campaign you executed. What were the marketing channels and skills that you used for this campaign?
- What do you know about social media marketing?
- What data analytics tools are you familiar with?
- What are the steps for carrying out an effective landing page optimization?
- How can we get this company’s content to the top of search engine results pages?
Leadership and Teamwork
- Describe your leadership style and how you motivate your team.
- How do you handle conflict within your team?
- How do you collaborate with other departments like sales and product development to improve your marketing efforts?
In addition to these questions, you can also ask the candidates to present a marketing campaign idea, pitch a marketing idea, or coordinate a hypothetical team meeting to see how they’re likely to perform in real-life scenarios.
Just make sure of your specific marketing needs or business goals. Practical questions like this will help you choose the right person from a pool of qualified candidates for the marketing role.
Conclusion
Your head of marketing sets the pace and direction for your marketing efforts. Hiring a good one will help boost revenue, increase visibility, and attract customers to your business.
Considering how important your marketing manager is, a lot of effort has to be invested in the hiring process to ensure that you get the right marketing person.
Using a platform like Cloudhire.ai to hire a marketing person can simplify the process significantly while helping you find the best talent with the right skills. Cloudhire helps you get matched with skilled, screened and tested talents from all over the world using AI technology.
The Cloudhire platform offers an end-to-end solution for recruitment and staffing, handling all the heavy lifting on your behalf. Contact us to schedule a demo and see how Cloudhire can help simplify your company’s hiring process.
