How to Find Marketing Talent for Your Small Business or Agency

Finding the right marketing talent for your small business is crucial if you want to see continued growth and expansion in the future. 

Yet, top marketing professionals don’t stay available for long, as according to LinkedIn, the best candidates are off the market within 10 days. In addition, it can be difficult for small businesses and startups to acquire top marketing talent on a limited budget. 

For instance, most small to medium-sized businesses won’t have the funds to keep a top-tier marketing agency on retainer. 

Does that mean you have to settle for subpar talent or rely on a jack-of-all-trades that handles everything?

Not at all. 

With the right tactics, it’s entirely possible for smaller companies to form great marketing teams that are on par with larger enterprises. 

You just need to know where to look. 

Between social media channels, freelancer websites, internships, and specialty job boards, there’s a massive talent pool of marketers just waiting for you to call them. 

Moreover, you’ll succeed more if you can provide a set of reasons why your organization is the place to be for marketers – which can include desirable company culture, valuable experience, and innovative products and services. 

It’s our goal to help you form the marketing team of your dreams, which is why we’ve put together this post showing you how to do just that. 

Stay tuned to learn how to find marketing talent for your business. 

Avoid Dumping Everything On One Marketer 

It’s tempting for startups on a limited budget to rely on one professional to handle all their marketing work. 

While this can certainly work at first, and you should hold on to these types of versatile marketers, it’s not a sustainable solution. 

If you want to enjoy continued growth year-over-year, you’ll need a marketing team where each member focuses on one specific task full-time – such as content marketing, lead generation, and increasing revenue.

Otherwise, personal limitations will hold back your jack-of-all-trades from handling every aspect of your marketing strategy. 

That’s because it’s impossible for one person to provide the right amount of focus on each area, as they’ll only be able to devote small amounts of time to each part of your marketing campaign. 

For example, in order to generate more organic traffic, you’ll need to regularly create SEO-friendly content for your audience, which takes quite a bit of time and effort. 

To knock that out, your full-stack marketer will need to:

• Conduct detailed keyword research 
• Brainstorm topics and create post outlines 
• Write informative and SEO-friendly blog posts 2 – 4 times a week
• Make technical SEO tweaks like adding alt tags and improving page speed 
• Monitoring search ranking progress and altering the strategy accordingly

That’s quite a bit of work that’s enough to fill up a full-time job. Yet, that’s only a fraction of what a full-stack marketer has to do. They also have to focus on building brand awareness, generating and nurturing leads, and finding ways to increase revenue. 

That’s why it’s best to hire more marketing positions as soon as you have the option. 

Forming a Winning Digital Marketing Team 

Since you know that marketing should almost always be a team effort, let’s learn what a successful in-house marketing team looks like. 

When you break down a company’s digital marketing needs, you wind up with three core concepts:

• Content creation 
• Lead generation 
• Revenue maximization 

As such, if you’re going to form a bare-bones marketing team for your small business, you should hire at least one marketer for each one of these concepts (if you have the budget, you can hire more). 

That way, you’ll have someone focusing on creating content to rank higher on search engines, someone else to work on acquiring new customers, and another marketer to work on growing your money. 

Content creation team 

Your content team is in charge of not only creating all your content but also developing a content strategy. That means setting a goal for your efforts (such as ranking #1 for an important keyword in your niche) and then building a content release schedule to get you there. 

What types of content should they create?

That will depend on your budget, but the most popular types of content include the following:

• Blog posts
• Videos 
• Infographics 
• Podcasts
• Social media marketing 

Your content creators should also understand how content changes at each stage of the sales funnel. As a result, they should create content specifically for the funnel’s top, middle, and bottom stages.

Lead generation team 

If you want your business to grow, you’ll need a steady influx of new customers, which is where your lead generation team comes into play. 

In particular, they should focus on email marketing and nurturing campaigns to spark relationships with new customers and maintain existing ones. 

They should also oversee your paid and organic campaigns and track your primary KPIs (key performance indicators). Analytics play a huge role in marketing, so you’ll want to dedicate some of your lead generation team’s time to examining them. 

Revenue maximization team 

Last but not least, you need to dedicate at least one marketer toward maximizing your revenue. That includes tactics such as split testing ads and brand messages, optimizing SEO content, and finding ways to increase conversion rates and click-through rates. 

As long as you have at least one person working to maximize your revenue, you’ll know that you’re squeezing the most value out of your marketing efforts, which will help you grow your business. 

How to Find Marketing Talent for Your Company 

By now, you should have the roles of your marketing team mapped out. Now all you have to do is locate top talent and make the best possible marketing hire. 

Of course, this is easier said than done, as there’s fierce competition out there for the best marketers, especially at small companies and startups that can’t afford robust marketing agencies. 

That means you’ll need an airtight recruiting strategy if you want to land the right talent for your company. 

The good news?

We have plenty of effective tips for convincing skilled potential candidates to choose you over the competition. 

Tip #1: Positive company culture attracts the best talent 

Which company would you rather work for?

Company A has a strong employer brand and a notoriously excellent company culture. As a result, its employees sing its praises every chance they get. They’re constantly telling you how rewarding their job is and how enjoyable it is to show up to work every day. 

Company B is constantly harassing you with recruiters on social media and through email. They’re adamant in their claims that the company is a great place to work, but you haven’t heard a peep from their actual employees. 

It’s clear that Company A is the better place to work, as its actual employees are thrilled to work there. Since there are positive testimonials from the staff, it’s more convincing than Company B, which entirely relies on a sales pitch from recruiters. 

It’s the equivalent of seeing glowing customer reviews for a product you’re considering buying. It’s far more convincing to read a review from an actual customer than it is to read sales copy written by the company. 

If you elicit a positive and rewarding company culture at your organization, your employees will become loyal brand evangelists who will help you with the recruitment process immensely. More importantly, the most talented marketers out there will be chomping at the bit to apply to your company. 

Tip #2: Use Employee Referrals 

Speaking of using your employees to attract top talent, a great way to put that into practice is to start an employee referral program. 

That’s where you offer a bonus in exchange for your employees helping you find qualified new hires. A popular tactic is to offer cash rewards for onboarding new employees that last. 

For instance, you could offer a $1,000 bonus for any employee that brings in a new team member that lasts at least a month. 

The incentive for your employees is two-fold. 

First, they’ll be motivated to go after the monetary reward (or another type of bonus), especially if they already know some qualified candidates. 

Next, they’ll want to bring talented new marketers in to help lighten the workload for themselves. For example, if you only have one or two team members handling the entire marketing workload, they’ll be more than happy to look for prospects for you in their existing networks. 

Also, if you already have skilled marketers, the chances are high that they’ll know other skilled marketers, either directly or through their social networks. 

Tip #3: Check online communities, marketing forums, and LinkedIn Groups 

Take to online communities and groups on sites like Reddit to find marketers with a particular skill set. Groups like r/SEO on Reddit are great places to find talented SEO gurus looking for a new home. 

Twitter and LinkedIn are enormously valuable for this reason, as is Facebook.

Do a search for groups related to the types of professionals you want to recruit, such as digital marketing, graphic design, and lead generation. 

Your best bet is to follow the groups that have the most users and clicks, so pay attention to those metrics on platforms like LinkedIn. The more followers there are, the greater the chances you’ll find a talented professional that’s looking for a new company. 

Also, look for the users that are providing the most value in the discussions. 

Who’s considered the ‘guru’ of the group?

These users are often the most talented and have the most experience, so they make fantastic starting points. If you can’t tell if they’re currently employed (or even if they are, don’t let that discourage you), reach out to them via a private message and introduce yourself. 

Let them know that you’ve been paying attention to their posts and that they’d make an excellent fit for your organization. From there, throw out your best elevator pitch for why working for your company is an upgrade for them and will lead to bigger, better things. 

If you’re convincing enough, you may end up acquiring a solid new hire that wouldn’t have known about your company otherwise, so it’s worth the effort. 

Tip #4: Scout the competition for talent 

Your competitors can become a source of new talent, so don’t get discouraged if all the best marketers are currently working for the competition. 

You shouldn’t be afraid to aim big, either. 

Go to the biggest competitors in your field, and take a look at their top performers on LinkedIn. From here, you can reach out to them – or you can scour their network for marketers with similar titles and experience. 

Remember to bring up your unique differentiator (what makes your company different from the others), including your unique and rewarding company culture. 

There’s no shame in going after the best, and there’s no ethical breach in targeting another company’s employees, so don’t be afraid to be a bit tenacious in your approach. 

Tip #4: Check specialized marketing job boards 

When most people think of job boards, they think of sites like Monster and Indeed. While there’s nothing wrong with those types of boards, they’re far from the only ones out there. 

There are plenty of specialized marketing job boards where you can find marketers with unique skills and experience. 

This is an excellent option for recruiting top marketing talent, especially if you’re open to remote workers. 

Where can you find these types of job boards?

There are plenty of lists online, but here are a few of the most popular:

• American Marketing Association 
• MarketingHire
• Society for Marketing Professional Services
• ProBlogger (for content writers) 
• Insights Association 
• Communo 
• VentureBeat Careers 
• We Work Remotely 

It’s crucial to note that many of these boards will require you to pay to create job posts, but it can be worth it to access their extensive talent pools filled with skilled marketers that you won’t find elsewhere. 

The Top Sites for Hiring Freelance Marketers

We’ve only scratched the surface of how to find marketing talent so far. Besides job boards, social media platforms, competitors, and referrals – there are also many websites that allow you to hire freelancers to take care of your marketing needs. 

You can find writers, editors, marketing managers, graphic designers, web developers, and many others on these types of sites. 

They’re especially popular amongst startups and small businesses that lack the budget for hiring full-fledged marketing agencies. You can also use freelancers to bolster the efforts of your dedicated marketing team. 

For instance, your content creation team may consist of two in-house employees that brainstorm topics and outline posts. From there, you turn to freelance writers and designers to actually create the content and then have your marketers edit it/tweak it, so it fits your brand. 

It’s a winning strategy because it’s effective and affordable, so let’s take a look at the most reliable freelance websites online. 

UpWork 

UpWork is one of the largest freelance marketplaces on the internet, with millions of registered users spanning nearly every industry. 

With a few quick searches, you’ll be able to find musicians, writers, designers, developers, and, you guessed it, marketers. What’s great about UpWork is all the information they provide about each freelancer. 

You’ll be able to see their user reviews, hourly rates, resumes, skills, credentials, and examples of their past work. 

That way, you’ll be able to quickly gauge if a freelancer is an appropriate fit for your brand or not. 

They also have an internal messaging system that enables you to conduct detailed job interviews for potential candidates. In fact, you can use this system for interviewing multiple candidates at a time to ensure you wind up with the best possible fit. 

Last but not least, UpWork has an escrow system that ensures you won’t have to pay a dime until you’re 100% satisfied with the end product/service. 

iWriter 

If you need content writers, iWriter contains one of the largest networks of freelance writers across the globe. 

It’s a reliable service you can use to generate content for your blogs, ebooks, video scripts, press releases, and whitepapers. 

There’s a rating system you can use to show the level of satisfaction you have with a writer’s work. If the work is completely unsatisfactory, you can reject the article and won’t get charged. Once you find a writer that suits your needs, you can send them special requests to collaborate with them again in the future. 

ClearVoice 

ClearVoice provides managed freelance teams to its clients, and they have many talented individuals in their database. 

You can find top digital marketing experts, SEO gurus, content strategists, videographers, and other marketing specialists with ease. 

ClearVoice works in a unique way, as you start by setting your guidelines and budget level. From there, the platform will recommend a team for you based on your needs. You can accept or deny as many freelancers as you want to ensure you wind up with your dream team. 

Final Takeaways: How to Find Marketing Talent 

You should now know how to find marketing talent in several different ways. 

Between social media, freelance recruiter sites, specialized job boards, and your competitors – you’ll have more sources of great talent than you know what to do with. 

From there, you should have no problem growing your business and expanding your influence. 

Do you need help with your digital marketing strategy?

Then you need to consult with our digital marketing specialists at The HOTH. Our team will revolutionize your marketing approach, so don’t wait to book a call today.

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