As your business grows, you will eventually outgrow the limits of wearing all the hats yourself, and it’s time to hire additional help. Your initial inclination might be to just hire one person to do it all – or even two or three – but this is where you can run into trouble.
One of the first teams you’ll want to consider building – as your business expands – is your digital marketing team. This team will be responsible for generating new leads and sales through a strategic marketing campaign that includes SEO, social media and pay per click advertising.
The potential that comes with having an effective digital marketing team is limitless. Online marketing has become so complex and intricate that it’s crucial to have a team of specialists working on each aspect of your online presence.
But where should you start? Who are the essential specialists you’ll need to start with first? And what roles do they play? To answer these questions, today I’m going to give you the rundown of an effective digital marketing team. I’ll share which members of the team are most important and what their roles are in relation to your company’s specific needs.
1. The marketing strategist or project manager
The marketing strategist – or project manager – can pull together all the different elements of your online business promotion and make sure they work cohesively.
This person will supervise the specialist team members you may employ, oversee the strategic planning process for your company, and work with you to refine your promotion strategies in line with results.
Your strategist will help you create a better-organized content calendar in order to make sure your online marketing is running at full speed. This person will talk about the functionality and performance of your digital marketing efforts once they’re in place so you can see what’s working, what’s not, and how you can improve on both.
Make sure the person you choose has a strong online presence and a solid track record. It’s also essential for this person to be able to balance competing priorities of budget and outreach.
2. Front-end developer
You can always do this yourself, but a good front-end developer really understands your needs and is likely to build a better website than you can.
Being a front-end developer means creating the interface between the user and your website. It’s an incredibly in-demand job today. However, in order to create great digital products, it’s important for your front-end developer to fully understand your business and how it works with target users.
3. SEO specialist
SEO specialists deal with optimizing your website so it can be easily found in a search. It’s their responsibility to ensure your site is designed to drive visitors and leads. They also build relevant links that promote an optimal user experience.
An SEO specialist analyzes the way people search for terms that are relevant to your website and make necessary recommendations so your website is optimised for the right keywords. They’ll also monitor your site’s traffic and analyze user behaviour for opportunities to improve search engine performance.
A good SEO specialist is a business partner – you’ll need to be honest with your specialist while remaining patient with the process. For a business and its website to succeed online, it must have great content.
4. Content writer
There is an old saying, “Content is King!” Back then, that felt like a cliche”. Nowadays, content has become more than a king; it’s now an emperor.
The old saying couldn’t be more true today. Even the best pictures and videos can be killed by bad content. Not to mention that there are lots of businesses out there that focus so much on other forms of marketing such as email marketing, video production, and social media marketing but forget about content creation.
This is why you need a good SEO content writer to create compelling content which will help you boost traffic and sales if you want to see success in your business.
You should find a writer with a diverse set of skills who can create all types of content outlined in your content marketing strategy, including:
- Blogs
- Website content
- Guest posts
- Automated email copy
- Creative ad copy
- PowerPoint Presentation content
- Marketing/sales copy
The best content writers or copywriters are knowledgeable about SEO and can write in a variety of ways for different audiences. Make sure you carefully evaluate any potential marketing content writing partners.
5. Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a key part of your marketing team because they craft the visuals that go with your message. You need to create artwork that will resonate and engage your targeted audience.
A good graphic designer can help you define your brand and build visual assets, such as a logo, site design, headers and icons, that communicate your brand well. You should work closely with them to ensure the consistency of your branding, messaging and visual identity across all channels.
You should always add some design elements to your content. By using brand-customised striking visuals created by a talented graphic designer, your audience will understand your message more clearly and remember it longer than using text alone.
6. Social Media Manager
Your social media manager will be responsible for implementing the social media marketing sub-plan of the digital marketing strategy into action.
They will be communicating with customers and stakeholders through social networking sites. Their focus is also on the changing demographics of social media.
It’s important for your social media manager to know how to communicate your brand or business voice in a way that your customers will love.
Check out the candidate’s social media profile carefully when hiring for this position. It should demonstrate both maturity and flair. Anyone can call themselves a social media expert, but by checking their social media profiles, you can tell how skilled they are in using social media.
7. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) manager
A critical element of success in almost all marketing is content promotion and advertising. A PPC tool like AdWords is extraordinarily powerful in increasing your business website traffic and audience.
These systems also require constant monitoring, updating, testing, and optimization. This is an important job that should be entrusted to a dedicated professional – whether in-house or outsourced.
8. Email Marketing And or Marketing Automation Specialist
A strong email specialist is important to any digital marketing team. Once you’ve got a handle on how to get users to opt in to your email marketing campaigns, it’s essential to know what to do with this new list of contacts that will be generating leads for your organization.
Email marketing specialists help set up newsletters and create automated email flows — from welcome series and announcements to abandoned cart recovery, product updates and more!
If you’re using email marketing or marketing automation, then you recognize they carry enough workload to keep one person busy, so it’s better to have someone take ownership of it. It is possible to share other responsibilities on the team, such as creating the emails.
Conclusion
Having the right skill sets and strategies is key to the best digital marketing team meeting organizational goals in a comprehensive and efficient manner.
The ideal team structure and how this is achieved varies. It is not necessary that all these roles are in-house or handled by permanent employees. Many freelancers, digital experts, or marketing agencies offer gig-based projects or are contracted to work on digital projects.
The most effective digital marketing team could be either have a small and simple team structure or a large and complex one, depending on the complexity of the organization. No matter what size the team works with, constant optimization is the key to moving the needle forward on KPIs.
In determining the exact size, the team should consider the ability to produce a return on investment (ROI), including a return on advertising (ROA), along with a SWOT analysis.
