I've read a dozen articles on this topic and I'm ready to cry. It seems that people usually try to hire a mid-level marketer first: cheaper than a top-notch professional but still skilled enough to cover a wide scope of tasks; someone who can both communicate excellently with people and understand analytics; someone who can both develop strategies and write posts themselves.
Have you ever seen such people? I have, but they're more expensive than a helicopter and usually don't want to work on payroll because lounging in a hammock on an island is more pleasant, and they can afford to do so.
As a result, just by reading the job listing, it's immediately clear to me that this company won’t achieve good marketing results. And yet, they'll spend several months on interviews, hiring, a trial period, and also budgets on advertising... An incredible amount of money.
May I save you that money, and you pay me a part of it?
So, for a marketing department in a business to function, you need answers to the following questions:
Let's delve deeper.
This includes all long-term perspective decisions. I would say anything "in a month" or longer. Only a senior-level professional is capable of making such decisions. So you have two options: either hire a marketing senior-level, which is expensive. Or these decisions will be taken by the owner/CEO, but if they lack marketing expertise, then the quality of these decisions will be low. They can be assisted by a middle-level marketer or a senior-level marketer on a consultancy basis.
Note! If you do not have a senior-level marketer on staff, then the responsibility for such decisions lies with the owner/CEO. Not the middle-level marketer!
This includes finding the reasons for any problems in marketing. For example, why there are few leads, what is the specific reason for low sales. The person must be able to work with analytics to identify the specific stage in the funnel where the problem occurs and suggest some hypotheses for solving this problem. The decision on which hypotheses to work with will be made by the person from the first point.
This could be a middle-level marketer.
After you've identified the reasons for the problems, formulated hypotheses, and made decisions, you actually have to execute all this. Write posts, launch ads, all that stuff. Who will do this? It could be a junior-level marketer or contractors. At this level, the tasks are usually clear and formalized, so they are easily outsourced.
Note that only a senior-level person (not necessarily a marketer) can hire staff; a middle-level can manage contractors, but a junior cannot manage other people.
Usually, discussions about hiring marketers come down only to the third point: who will do the work. Meanwhile, questions about who will identify problems and make decisions are not discussed at all. However, if a strategic decision is made incorrectly, all actions are meaningless and will not lead to the result, no matter how good the executor is.
Have you ever seen such people? I have, but they're more expensive than a helicopter and usually don't want to work on payroll because lounging in a hammock on an island is more pleasant, and they can afford to do so.
As a result, just by reading the job listing, it's immediately clear to me that this company won’t achieve good marketing results. And yet, they'll spend several months on interviews, hiring, a trial period, and also budgets on advertising... An incredible amount of money.
May I save you that money, and you pay me a part of it?
So, for a marketing department in a business to function, you need answers to the following questions:
- Who will make strategic marketing decisions?
- Who will identify problems in current marketing and formulate hypotheses?
- Who will do the hands-on work?
Let's delve deeper.
- Who will make strategic marketing decisions?
This includes all long-term perspective decisions. I would say anything "in a month" or longer. Only a senior-level professional is capable of making such decisions. So you have two options: either hire a marketing senior-level, which is expensive. Or these decisions will be taken by the owner/CEO, but if they lack marketing expertise, then the quality of these decisions will be low. They can be assisted by a middle-level marketer or a senior-level marketer on a consultancy basis.
Note! If you do not have a senior-level marketer on staff, then the responsibility for such decisions lies with the owner/CEO. Not the middle-level marketer!
- Who will identify problems in current marketing and formulate hypotheses?
This includes finding the reasons for any problems in marketing. For example, why there are few leads, what is the specific reason for low sales. The person must be able to work with analytics to identify the specific stage in the funnel where the problem occurs and suggest some hypotheses for solving this problem. The decision on which hypotheses to work with will be made by the person from the first point.
This could be a middle-level marketer.
- Who will do the hands-on work?
After you've identified the reasons for the problems, formulated hypotheses, and made decisions, you actually have to execute all this. Write posts, launch ads, all that stuff. Who will do this? It could be a junior-level marketer or contractors. At this level, the tasks are usually clear and formalized, so they are easily outsourced.
Note that only a senior-level person (not necessarily a marketer) can hire staff; a middle-level can manage contractors, but a junior cannot manage other people.
Usually, discussions about hiring marketers come down only to the third point: who will do the work. Meanwhile, questions about who will identify problems and make decisions are not discussed at all. However, if a strategic decision is made incorrectly, all actions are meaningless and will not lead to the result, no matter how good the executor is.