Content marketers are in demand, but not always so easy to find. According to a recent report from The Creative Group, 27% of respondents say they expect to fill content marketing positions in 2016, making it the most in demand creative marketing job. But over half of the respondents (58%) say it is somewhat or very challenging to find skilled creative marketing and advertising professionals for open roles. Before you start your own search for a content marketer, there are 5 tips to consider that will help you quickly find the right person for your team.
Begin With Strategy
In preparation for your content marketing hire, you should first think about strategy. How do you want the content marketer to support your company’s mission and goals? What types of messages do they need to get across to your customers and what medium works best with your audience? If you’re not sure how this person can make an impact on your company’s goals, then you should rethink why you’re hiring them in the first place. Most of the time, a company’s main goal is to increase revenue so it’s important to factor in how a content marketer will help you achieve this goal.
Outline Specific Job Duties and Frequency
After you figure out how a content marketing hire can impact your bottom line, you can then figure out which specific activities you want them to do to accomplish these goals. What type of content do you want them to create and how often? For example, a blog post takes a lot less time to complete than a detailed infographic or high-quality video. You also want to make sure that these efforts can be maintained on a regular basis. You don’t want to have three blog posts written and published one week, but wait two weeks until the next blog post because the content marketer’s time is spent creating a white paper. When figuring out a timeline, make sure you factor in the right frequency of the content to make sure you’re not sacrificing quantity for quality.
Determine Your Budget
Once you know the strategy and activities you need to accomplish, you can set a budget to help determine what kind of content marketer you can afford. If you decide that you want to start off with one blog post a week and one whitepaper a quarter, then you might want to use a contract marketer or freelance writer to get started. Then you would need to budget for two days of work at the contract marketer’s fee, or the price per piece of content for the writer. On the other hand, if you really want to ramp up your efforts and hire a content marketer full time, you will need to factor in this cost. Remember that you should always aim for quality over quantity. If you pay a freelancer a low price for three blog posts, then you will probably get lower quality content. Content marketers are in demand and trying to underpay them is not a good strategy.
Network
Now comes the part where you can actually start your search for a content marketer. The first place you should start is within your network. Reach out to your LinkedIn connections to see if anyone knows of a quality content marketer for hire or contract. It’s very common for companies to use content marketers on a contract basis and there’s a good chance one of your connections knows a reliable marketer, or they actually provide these services. Make sure you’re upfront about what type of marketer you’re looking for and the amount of content you need each week.
Use a Specialist
A great way to streamline your search for a content marketer is to go to a freelance website or company that specializes in contract or permanent marketing hires. Various freelance sites give you access to people who are ready to work and you can even review their writing samples. Also, using a company that specializes in finding contract and permanent marketing hires likely has a database full of quality hires and the resources to find skilled marketers quickly.
Before you begin your search for a content marketer, make sure you know exactly what you want out of this candidate and what you can afford. Then, once you determine the frequency of the content and the quality you want, you can seek out references from people in your network, or request the assistance of a recruiting company or freelance site to help you find the perfect candidate for your position.
