There are some companies that decide to hire someone to manage their online marketing internally. Having internal resources is an excellent idea as managing website changes and implementing a social media strategy takes time and effort. Where I find certain companies going wrong is trying to hire a candidate that is more technical rather than a marketing specialist.
The goal of an internal online marketing employee is to market a companies brand and ideally drive online sales or leads. This employee should be an online marketing implementer instead of a technical person. I see ads for internal online marketing employees that mention:
- Website maintenance (HTML experience desired)
- Social media
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Google pay per click advertising
Companies have to consider what roles are technical and what are more marketing. A marketing candidate is perfect to do website maintenance in a website content management system. However, a marketing person is not going to know HTML and likely if they do they are the wrong type of candidate. Social media is perfect for the marketing person to do, the role here is to implement a social media strategy that has been developed by an online marketing company. The importance here is not whether you can brand a twitter or Facebook page or write html pages in your Facebook page its whether you understand what type of information and promotions will increase brand awareness and drive online sales and leads. Again, a technical person will not know how to do this effectively.
SEO is an expertise all to itself, if someone is good at SEO chances are they are not your marketing implementation person. Similar with Google pay per click, this is a very quantitative job that involves a lot of research and testing to be effective. Experience is huge in Google pay per click.
So how do I know all this, well I try to hire for all these jobs and I know how hard it is to find people with all the above expertise. The worst thing for an employer is to hire someone technical that you think knows about all the above techniques then you get them in the office and you spend your whole time trying to understand what they are doing all day. You will not speak their language, hire a marketing person, trust your online marketing firm to do the heavy technical lifting and work with someone that speaks marketing. Then you will be on the right track to achieving your goals.
Great post, John. It’s a very interesting take on online marketing and I like the way you break down the tasks by required skills. I don’t entirely agree that a person can’t fit into both positions, however, it is a rarity and a valid observation. I personally find myself on the technical side mostly specializing a in PPC, SEO and Email marketing which often require HTML experience and a great deal of analysis. As for Social Media, I think you nailed it. It’s not about technical skills even though they may help for integration with other mediums but that is a quick one-time setup. It’s about being interesting, relevant and building relationships.
I wouldn’t say that a marketing person cannot be a technical person & vice versa. But that is true for most of the cases. So the business that have separate technical internet marketing team and creative marketing strategy team has to be clear that they are both in fact conveying the same message. Otherwise it is a waste of double talents and cost.
Bertrand Russell~ Guy desires for his happiness not merely the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
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