How To Hire A Digital Marketer In 2022 And Beyond
As the world turns digital, the need for digital storytellers rises. Digital marketers are in high demand as enterprises big and small pivot to online service, sales and brand building.
The position of a digital marketer in 2022 will be one of building trust and returning to growth in the aftermath of the biggest upset to the working order in decades.
This means digital marketers need to take stock of changing trends in digital audiences and learn to engage with changing customer and user demands on a rapid, agile basis. From SEO strategies to ad managers to content marketing and beyond, digital marketers are the vanguard of brand building in a hyper-competitive digital space, and as such, they need to be well-supported content pivots between sales, brand, senior stakeholders and customers.
At the core of digital marketers' skillset is communication - while much of the business of digital brand building has moved from a linear set of channel management to a multi-channel experience-based connection between customer and service, communication underpins digital marketing power.
But when it comes to hiring a digital marketer, you need to have your recruitment wits about you. Digital marketing professionals are brand obsessives who want to work with a company that invests in itself, that values the art of brand, and provides a truly competitive package of employment.
You also need to know what you need before you reach into the market - digital marketers know their skills are in high demand and they want to work with an enterprise that understands how, where and why specific types of specialist marketing works for their brand.
Where can I hire digital marketers?
While LinkedIn and recruitment jobs boards and CV databases will always contain a bevvy of connected, well-intentioned and talented workers, the vast majority of digital marketers are going to be present and engaged on Social Media.
As such, successful recruitment will exist in the fluid, half-light between public-facing and private social media spaces, and will be enormously impacted by well-communicated brand storytelling on marketing channels such as Facebook, via ads, Instagram, blogs and more.
What should you pay a digital marketer?
The average annual pay for digital marketers from a shortlist of countries are the following:
USA - $61,427
UK - £37,568
Japan - $43,206
France - €41,359
South Africa - £16,600
Italy - €44,027
Argentina - $26,638
Do you hire a specialist or a generalist digital marketer?
Marketing is a broad church of communicative qualities and means. Companies that require marketing services will, inevitably, require a certain facet of marketing to be prioritized over others, if only to better engage with an audience who will, in most cases, reside on specific channels.
For example, eCommerce and email marketing are incredibly lucrative for some clothing brands, who succeed at direct marketing methods as a primary form of revenue.
However, some brands require more “experiential”, social media-led approaches, such as gyms.
While every marketing approach will have to take stock of the 5 P’s of marketing (product, price, promotion, place and people), each sector and each niche will have its quirks and Key Performance Indicators, such as learning on email marketing and understanding the difference between good and bad open rates.
In this regard, specialist marketers will be of enormous benefit to firms seeking ownership of certain sectors or audiences. Some examples of specialist marketers are:
Social media marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Pay-per-click (PPC)
Mobile marketing
Affiliate marketing
However, for SMEs or companies who are building a brand presence, a more generalist marketer with experience across all or some of the above will stand you in good stead.
In this regard, a T Shaped Marketer may suit your needs - a marketing professional with generalist qualities across lots of elements of marketing, with one specialism they operate in in-depth.
Remote work - do’s and don’ts
The post-COVID recruiting landscape is dominated by one topic - remote work. The introduction of hybrid working setups is both attractive to workers and a productivity boon - with the right approach you can leverage remote work to draw forward-thinking marketing talent to your company.
There are, however, some do’s and don’ts with communicating your remote work package and arrangement that you need to be aware of:
Engage with your teams: the golden rule of remote work strategies is to engage your existing team. You need to understand your internal expectations in regards to remote work, and how your teams visualize workflows and team management. This sort of open forum approach has been utilized by many, many companies over the last 2 years, the result of which is a team that feels more trusted and more involved in the process of moving your brand into the future. It’s also vital for your EVP and outreach with candidates, where you can communicate with them your plans and systems of remote work with full confidence that your entire team knows what to do and how to do it.
Don’t reject remote work on “principle”: whatever principles or ideas you have of the market, whatever preconceptions of good or bad work practice in regards to remote work mean nothing. The proof is in the pudding - remote work has its own set of challenges, yes, but on the whole hybrid working creates a more productive workforce, more diverse recruitment strategies, more inclusive workforces and happier people.
What do digital marketers want?
Digital marketers want what all job seekers want in 2022 - autonomy, hybrid work options, ethical leadership and purpose-led career building. The recruitment trends that have developed amongst the ruins of COVID-19 point towards a more empathetic, more purpose-driven culture of staff management, and digital marketers know this.
Being as they are at the business-end of brand management, they often have a keen eye for brands that value positive employer culture, and most will have worked to some degree on creating attractive employee value propositions as part of their role.
Our advice is two-fold - listen to your staff, and listen to the market.
Listen to your staff: from improved salary offers to fighting ageism, candidates want to work for employees who value a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and expect their employers to operate more ethically and more sustainably while doing so. Consider the power of ESG in hiring and leading with community-minded messaging and brand positioning.
Listen to the market: the marketing sector is building a culture of intersectionality, better forms of privacy, authenticity and storytelling. We urge any company seeking marketing talent, especially specialists in the digital sector, to mirror the art of storytelling in their recruitment strategies, and emulate effective marketing outreach to find and engage your top tier candidates.
The bottom line is marketers know what sounds authentic, meaningful and real - after all, they work at the front line of communications and good marketers are attuned to honest employer branding and attractive cultures of work.
Employers need to be very aware that digital marketing professionals operate online, and live and die by effective branding and market placement. If you don’t meet their standards, you won’t attract them.
