Many businesses have been switching to a digital model in recent times. This shift has been accelerated due to the recent pandemic outbreak.

One of the first things you do during this digital transformation is hiring a digital marketing manager. The role of a digital marketing manager is to identify the key marketing channels for your business online and execute campaigns that can help you achieve targets.

The role of a digital marketing manager is partly technical and partly marketing. The ideal person for the job will be able to track analytics as well as have a fundamental knowledge of your web front-end; in addition to their marketing skills.

Make sure you have assessed these skills even during the hiring process – a note in the ATS system about their specific skills will go a long way in ensuring you hire a candidate with a balance of technical prowess and marketing ability.

That’s not all. Every digital marketer has his or her own preferred tools and processes. It is important to make sure that these tools and processes are in sync with what you need for your business. 

The onboarding process thus needs to be an interactive one where the business takes in pointers from your hire while executing your knowledge transfer (KT).

Discuss your marketing strategy

During onboarding, it is important to sit down and work out a digital marketing plan for the future. Specifically, you must discuss the marketing channels that you would be focusing on initially. 

The challenge with digital marketing is that there are plenty of different channels to choose from. Starting with SEO, PPC, and social media marketing, marketers may also have to pick and choose among the different ad networks, social media platforms and SEO strategies on offer. 

List down your KPIs

Key Performance Indicators are metrics that you make use of to gauge the performance of a campaign. Once you have narrowed down the list of marketing channels and strategies you shall be focusing on, the next step is to list down your KPIs to measure the success of each of these strategies. 

Let’s take Instagram marketing, for example. As a marketer, you may measure the success of your campaign either in terms of the following you build, the content you produce, the engagement you get for your posts, or simply by the sales you make. Pick the KPI that resonates well with what you want to measure.

Finalize the tools

This may seem like an inconsequential step, but when you are hiring your first digital marketing manager, the tools that will be used to execute and monitor your marketing performance can be crucial.

For example, when it comes to SEO, tools like Moz, Ahrefs and SEMRush all have different ways they analyze the quality of a website. Moz, for instance, places heavy emphasis on backlinks when calculating their metric, “domain authority”.  However, DA does not tell you if the website in question is facing a Google penalty or not. Using this platform solely could undermine your SEO campaigns.

KPIs too play a vital role in the choice of tools. For instance, if content marketing is a focus area, you may have to invest in keyword research tools if your KPIs have SEO targets. In such cases, your repertoire of content marketing tools would include Surfer or PageOptimizer Pro that help with competitor benchmarking. 

Work on a delegation plan

It goes without saying that your digital marketing manager is not going to be handling all the execution by themselves. You will ultimately need to hire people for specific roles like content production, social media, advertising, and so on.

It is a good idea to be forthright with your budgets and timeline for this growth with your newly hired manager. This will allow them to plan for further recruitment or outsourcing. Outsourcing is particularly effective for tasks like content creation or social media management.

Depending on the size of your organization, you may not really need someone to handle content on a full-time basis. Also, hiring a freelancer may be a good way to get quality content prepared without having to pay for a full-time employee. 

In conclusion, hiring a digital marketing manager is only the first step towards building a truly successful digital marketing team.