THE GROWING NEED FOR MARKETING SPECIALISTS

There has always been the marketing mix, a blend of disciplines that enable an integrated marketing strategy, but I see so many senior marketing people not grasping that when it comes to recruiting members for their team. Time and time again I encounter marketing teams, headed up by someone with a broad set of marketing skills and experience (which is necessary) who recuit slight more junior versions of themselves to support them. The result? a team of marketers that don’t explicitly understand any part of the mix in detail and one that will continue to rely on agency support, just to get an email out the door in some instances.

So, what’s the answer?

Well, if you’re the person heading up the team then the first thing you need to do is look at your marketing strategy and build a team around the demands you have, minimising the need for expensive agency support and making your team more efficient by bringing the work in-house. I have built a team at Xchanging which includes the following roles:

– PR & External Comms Manager – Owning all content and public relations activity
– PR & Content Exec – Supporting the above role and driving a 4D marketing approach
– Social Media Manager – Running multiple social channels and communities as well as sharing best practice
– Events Exec – Scoping, Designing, Running and Managing event activity from large conferences to round tables.
– Internal Comms Manager – Driving internal comms strategy and improving employee engagement
– Campaigns Manager – SalesForce.com and Marketo expert to assist in campaign creation, delivery and reporting.
– 2 x Marketing Managers – Broad skillset with ability manage multi-discipline campaigns and co-ordinate the marketing strategy encompassing all of the roles above

The next role I will be looking for to drive our content strategy to the next level will be a motion graphics animator.

If you’re one of the many thousands of generic marketing execs looking to make a name for yourself, then take my advice and specialise in 1 or 2 marketing disciplines and become an expert. If you follow that route, you’ll never find it difficult to find a good job.

You can follow me on Twitter here

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