Digital marketing as a market will reach USD 1099.33 billion by 2032. Whether you own a startup or an enterprise, digital marketing is essential to build a solid online presence.
Until recently, most small businesses or early-stage startups made do with one generalist managing all things marketing—not anymore. Evolving customer expectations, intense competition, and an ever-increasing need for personalized experiences have made digital marketing more layered.
If you’re looking to hire a digital marketing manager but aren’t sure how to go about it, we’ve got you.
Use this guide to learn how to hire a digital marketing manager—one skilled enough to add real value (and ROI) to your marketing efforts.
Let’s go!
How to Hire a Digital Marketing Manager for Your Team: The Ultimate Guide
- Why Hire a Digital Marketing Manager?
- Common Skills & Qualifications to Look for in a Digital Marketing Manager
- How to Hire a Digital Marketing Manager for Your Team in 6 Steps
- Step 1: Keep your business objectives in mind
- Step 2: Pen a detailed job description for the open post
- Step 3: Use the right platforms and channels to hire
- Step 4: Invest in HR software
- Step 5: Prepare for the candidate interview
- Step 6: Think about your hiring process as similar to your customer journey process
- Four Not-to-Miss Digital Marketing Manager Hiring Templates for You
- Set Up New Digital Marketing Manager Hires for Success
- Hiring the Right Digital Marketer is Easier Than Ever
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhy Hire a Digital Marketing Manager?
Hiring a digital marketing manager is central to your organization’s marketing success. Here’s why:
- Creative touch: They contribute creative ideas towards marketing campaigns and help you boost your social reach, all the while keeping your customers and the organization’s interests at heart
- Technical skills: As a founder or team lead, you can initially manage the general aspects of marketing. However, as your company grows, you need people with specific skills. Due to their specialized marketing training, digital marketing managers are proficient in a wide range of technical marketing skills (think: search engine optimization, search engine marketing, PPC, social media engagement, email marketing, and content marketing)
- Marketing best practices: They are aware of the latest marketing trends and will help keep your marketing strategies ahead of the curve and in tune with your established KPIs
- Versatility: They bring other skill sets to the table, such as marketing planning, media buying, storytelling, conversion optimization, analytics and metrics, and so on
- Customer engagement: Digital marketers are adept at engaging customers via new and existing digital marketing channels
Summarize this article for me pleaseCommon Skills & Qualifications to Look for in a Digital Marketing Manager
The skills and qualifications most suitable for your company’s digital marketing manager role would depend on the objectives you want them to work toward. However, here are some standard abilities to look for while hiring either a freelance or full-time digital marketer.
Remember that most marketers would be proficient in some of these areas, good enough to get by in a few more, but not very experienced in some. Again, your marketing objective would help you prioritize the skills that are a must for your digital marketing manager to have:
- Marketing strategy: Conducting competitor analysis, studying market challenges, and engaging in strategic planning to develop a contextual marketing roadmap and, by extension, a data-backed marketing strategy
- Analytics and reporting: Leveraging the right data-driven digital marketing tools to monitor performance, gather rich insights, and drive strategies
- Customer research and focus: Being able to deeply understand your target audience and existing customers and build the most effective strategy to acquire, engage, and retain them
- Content marketing: Demonstrating a flair for writing short and long-form copy that resonates with the target audience, creating and managing content as an asset, and joining the dots between content and customers
- SEO: Knowing all the current SEO tactics and strategies to make your content rank better and help your target audience find you online more easily
- Pay-Per-Click ads: Having an in-depth understanding of paid marketing, notably Google and social media ads
- Digital strategy: Knowing how to develop a full-fledged digital marketing strategy to boost the brand’s online presence, including inbound and email marketing, organic social, advertising, and more
- Web development: Possessing a basic understanding of website development with the ability to make improvements to the website as and when needed
- Graphic designing: Having an eye for design and aesthetics and guiding the team on what looks good is a bonus
We’ve listed the most popular technical and functional skills for digital marketers, but what about soft skills? A digital marketing manager must embrace the following:
- An agile and curious approach: Marketers need to keep up with changing market trends, new customer behaviors, and dozens of different types of digital marketing tools that make up a marketing stack. Being agile enough to move quickly and having the curiosity to ask questions will stand them in good stead
- A growth mindset: Digital marketing technologies change rapidly, especially now with AI in the picture. A marketer should be keen to learn and upskill in any way possible. This may include reading books, listening to podcasts, enrolling in workshops/online courses, etc.
- Collaborative working: Marketing is a team sport. Your digital marketing manager would need to work closely with many teams and stakeholders, and being able to do so well is a crucial soft skill for any marketer
- Communication: Marketing is about communicating—with existing customers, target customers, internal and external stakeholders, and others in the marketing team. A marketing manager should have excellent written and verbal communication skills. We’d go so far as saying that this is a non-negotiable quality for this role
- Multi-tasking: Marketing managers will always have a lot on, from email campaigns to product launches and influencer marketing to content creation. Multi-tasking is the superpower that helps them manage it all without losing focus
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Hire a Digital Marketing Manager for Your Team in 6 Steps
With the basics out of the way, it’s time to jump into how to hire a digital marketing manager.
Here are a few expert-approved tips to include in your hiring strategy:
Step 1: Keep your business objectives in mind
As we mentioned earlier, marketer skill sets vary across multiple areas, and you should choose the ones most relevant to your current marketing requirement. For instance, if you want to grow website traffic and inbound lead generation, focus on hiring someone strong in content marketing and SEO. If you’re struggling with conversions, you might need someone to work with you on improving email conversion rates and website CRO (conversion rate optimization).
Step 2: Pen a detailed job description for the open post
Write your job description mindfully and include the following elements:
- Detailed role summary
- Comprehensive list of duties and responsibilities
- Required (and preferred) certifications as well as skills
Also, since we live in the age of algorithms, include relevant keywords (think: marketing, digital marketing, social media, marketing manager, communications, graphic design, social media marketing, etc.) and optimize the job description for search engines.
While preparing the copy, don’t forget also to add something about:
- Your company and product or service: The background, growth story, the “Why”
- Information about standard benefits for employees and a salary range if you have one
- Anything the candidate should know before they get into an interview with you, such as whether the role is remote or hybrid, individual contributor or team lead level, etc.
Step 3: Use the right platforms and channels to hire
Building an A-team does not happen overnight. Use a mix of channels and platforms to recruit right. Here are a few tips:
- Look at existing talent in the company who may possess the required entrepreneurial and leadership skills or can be upskilled to fit the digital marketer role
- Promote the job opening across your brand’s social media platforms to attract high-potential talent
- Use targeted ads and specialized job boards, and tap LinkedIn groups and Slack communities related to marketing or your industry
- Launch a referral program within the organization and offer rewards or incentives to existing employees to refer candidates for the role. Staff referrals are often a good source of qualified candidates
- Browse online career sites for candidates with extensive experience and skills
- Post the job description on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and any industry-specific websites you know of
Step 4: Invest in HR software
Even if you don’t have a dedicated HR team or recruiter to grow your team, you can use an all-in-one HR software like ClickUp to help you manage the hiring process efficiently.
Here’s a quick roundup of useful ClickUp features:
- AI-powered recruiting: If you’re looking for AI tools for recruitment, look no further than ClickUp. ClickUp Brain’s AI Writer for Work offers suggestions and useful AI prompts for recruiters, making it easy for you or your team to write an engaging job description and engage with potential candidates
- Applicant tracking: Another feature you may find handy is ClickUp’s applicant tracking system, which helps you manage the job application process from start to finish. This includes organizing candidates and applications, sending emails, etc. You can also use automation and templates in ClickUp to move candidates smoothly through the hiring pipeline
- Onboarding: A great onboarding experience is a part of your hiring process, or should be. ClickUp’s onboarding software helps you deliver the best onboarding experience by streamlining new hire training with trackable tasks, docs, and comments for feedback and collaboration. Your candidates will be able to onboard faster and start making an impact earlier!
Step 5: Prepare for the candidate interview
When interviewing a digital marketer, you want to cover four aspects—skills and qualifications, experience, soft skills, and cultural fit. Depending on how your interview process is structured, different people might cover these aspects, or you may cover them all in one round.
Nevertheless, here are some things you can try to cover for each of these four aspects:
Skills and qualifications
Ask about their experience with digital marketing tools and relevant skills (for instance, if you need an acquisition marketer, check their knowledge about Google Ads, Google Analytics, SEO, Google Search Console, and other tools.
Try to understand their approach to strategy development, campaign planning, and project management.
Experience
Talk with them about their previous roles to understand if they have worked collaboratively or cross-functionally, whether they have managed others, and what challenges they’ve faced and overcome.
Understand how their experience so far can align with what you seek. However, don’t have a fixed idea of how many years of experience is essential for the role. You might lose out on a highly qualified candidate with less experience who could do well in the role.
Soft skills
We talked earlier about some essential soft skills for a digital marketing manager. Use some of your interview time to understand how each candidate fares on those desired skills. You can do this with situational questions and by asking about their interests.
For instance, you can gauge their approach to growth and learning by asking about books they are reading, their other sources of learning, and whether they have upskilled themselves in any way recently.
Cultural fit
You might find an excellent candidate, but they might not work out if they aren’t the right cultural fit for your organization. The culture question is often the hardest to solve but one of the most critical.
Consider what cultural fit means for you and your organization, and ask behavioral questions to bring out the relevant qualities in the candidate.
To get a head start, use interview templates to better structure your interview process, eliminate bias, and find the right fit for your organization.
Step 6: Think about your hiring process as similar to your customer journey process
Your candidate journey is no different than your customer journey. These are the typical steps of an end-to-end candidate journey:
- Awareness: The hiring team/recruiter builds awareness about your company and job position using:
- compelling job descriptions
- employer branding efforts
- recruitment marketing strategies centered around company culture and value
- Consideration: The focus is on delivering a seamless application process and offering insights into the company’s work environment, growth opportunities, and employee benefits
- Preference: The big ask is to differentiate the organization by highlighting unique selling points, such as career development programs, a supportive work culture, or innovative projects, to compel candidates to choose your organization over others
- Hire: This stage entails streamlining the selection process with efficient communication, clear expectations, and a positive candidate experience
- Engagement: Onboarding new hires effectively is the fastest road to engagement, as they have the required tools, resources, and support needed to succeed
- Loyalty: This stage involves fostering a positive work environment that encourages employee engagement through ongoing feedback and recognition
- Advocacy: The final stage is empowering employees to become brand ambassadors by building a relationship with them and encouraging them to share their positive experiences on social media, review sites, and more
The 6-Step Approach to Hiring a Digital Marketing Manager:
- Decide on the role according to your business objectives
- Write a detailed job description
- Share the role in all relevant channels
- Use HR software to reduce your workload
- Plan a structured interview process
- Think of the prospective candidate’s experience along the lines of your customer journey
Summarize this article for me pleaseFour Not-to-Miss Digital Marketing Manager Hiring Templates for You
Now that we’ve discussed how to hire a digital marketing manager let’s see how you can do it without adding to your workload. Hiring managers can cut their work in half if a suitable template is available to shorten their to-do list.
We’re highlighting four hiring templates you can use to accelerate your hiring process and track candidates seamlessly:
1. A template to streamline—and visualize—your hiring process
Eliminate the guesswork of finding the right candidate for your digital marketing team with ClickUp’s Hiring Candidates Template.
This template is excellent for:
- Evaluating candidates using customizable rating scales and ensuring a fair hiring process
- Organizing checklists, due dates, and reminders
- Comparing applicants with tracking boards and interactive tables
2. A template to evaluate candidates fairly and objectively
The biggest drawback of hiring is screening thousands of candidates at once. ClickUp’s Hiring Selection Matrix Template eases up the hiring volume by enabling you to:
- Categorize and track job applications
- Evaluate resumes and candidate data using criteria such as skills, qualifications, experience, etc.
- Drive quick and objective hiring decisions
3. A template to transform your talent-sourcing process
Simplifying your hiring process is possible with ClickUp’s Recruiting & Hiring Folder Template, which offers useful features such as:
- Easy job postings
- Efficient candidate tracking
- Standardized interview scorecards
- Streamlined job application forms
4. A template to plan—and organize—your hiring experience
They say you’ve won half the battle if your onboarding process is smooth.
To make the process easier, apply ClickUp’s Hiring Checklist Template.
This template offers a 360-degree overview of the hiring tasks to help you:
- Define—and document—your hiring expectations
- Build a streamlined workflow for recruiting new candidates
- Stay on top of every hiring stage, from sourcing to onboarding
Summarize this article for me pleaseSet Up New Digital Marketing Manager Hires for Success
Along with a pep talk and a killer ice-breaking session, your new hire needs the tools to get up to speed on how the team works.
The ClickUp marketing software comes with a host of innovative features and a suite of AI tools to help your newly-appointed digital marketing manager work their way in.
Get your new hire’s creative juices flowing
AI tools and knowledge bases can help your new hire get a head start. Enter ClickUpBrain, an AI tool that helps marketers generate campaign ideas, content briefs, blogs, case studies, emails, and more. Your marketing team can leverage expert-crafted AI tools, readily available within ClickUp Brain:
- AI Knowledge Manager: Allows you to ask questions and get answers from your docs, tasks, and projects in ClickUp
- AI Project Manager: Doubles up as a side-kick that automates your projects as well as progress with real-time AI reports on your tasks, docs, and people
- AI Writer for Work: Helps your team to create content and respond instantly with a personal assistant available 24×7
Help them curate digital marketing campaigns within minutes
Whether a new hire or a long-time employee, managing multi-channel marketing campaigns can be chaotic. Having a few ready-to-use templates prevents small details from slipping through the cracks and empowers the team to fast-track campaigns and create content within minutes.
Here are some ClickUp templates loved by marketers:
ClickUp’s Marketing Teams Template
The ClickUp Marketing Teams Template helps marketers visualize their entire marketing process in one place. It helps to keep the team’s various tasks organized, timelines tracked, and owners defined. It also provides performance metrics and analytics for each campaign.
ClickUp Marketing Plan Template
Use the ClickUp Marketing Plan Template to plan, track, and optimize your marketing campaigns all in one place.
With this template, you can easily:
- Set achievable marketing objectives
- Organize tasks into actionable steps to reach those goals
- Track progress with built-in metrics and analytics
ClickUp Digital Marketing Report Template
ClickUp’s Digital Marketing Report Template helps you track and report all your campaigns in one place. The template provides visualizations for measuring overall performance and detailed analytics to help you identify successes and opportunities. It also provides real-time updates for your key marketing goals.
Enable the new hire to bring their ideas to life quickly
Your digital marketing manager will want to prove themselves with tangible ideas from day one. This is where ClickUp’s marketing software helps the team to:
- Connect their marketing roadmaps directly to tasks and drive them forward
- View the marketing strategy docs, brainstorms, and campaign calendars in real time alongside the team’s daily work
- Collaborate across marketing work streams using ClickUp Docs, ClickUp Whiteboards, and Proofing tools, and ensure the team moves as one every step of the way
- See timelines and visualize goal progress using a visual ClickUp Dashboard that contextualizes tasks connected to your roadmap and go-to-market plans
Summarize this article for me pleaseHiring the Right Digital Marketer is Easier Than Ever
Automating your recruitment pipeline allows you to engage top talent, organize candidates, applications, and outreach, save time with templates, and improve your quality of hire.
ClickUp is an HR tool that moves candidates through your recruitment pipeline for you, effortlessly onboards new hires, and warms up your new digital marketing managers to the company’s marketing goals from day zero. Sign up today for free!
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