hiring a marketing manager for a tech company

[Suffolk911]

Hi everyone,

I run an enterprise software and services company. We are growing quite quickly and need to hire a digital marketing manager. So far we have had many applications, but most of the candidates are not a great fit - too low energy, not tech savvy, no relevant experience etc.

Has anyone got any suggestions where we might be able to advertise or what online forums good marketeers read? Or any other suggestions (excluding recruitment firms) that might help?

Suffolk

[rog007]

Are you looking for a perm member of staff or some other model? Assume they don’t need to be PAYE and exclusive to you, why not look at how your competitors do this and see if they use any good marketing companies. Or if they have their own, do some targeted headhunting to find the best out there.

[StevieBee]

I would suggest scrutinising the job description some more.

The term 'Marketing Manager' is commonly used where the term 'Sales Manager' would be more appropriate.

A Marketing Manager will develop a marketing strategy and oversee the creation of marketing communication content that supports the sales team. If this isn't reflected in the Job Description this may explain the quality of applications you've received.

[DSLiverpool]

If they are a manager they will be working with your marketing Agency? Or do you want them to actually do the marketing with internal help?

Two different things, and different people.

[Cheeky Jim]

Similar to previous post.

Be very clear what you mean by Digital Marketing Manager

1. Digital content owner? - commissions and manages the creation of e.g. youtube, podcasts, video content, manage the website etc

2. Field Digital Marketing - where someone is engaged in driving leads possibly via Digital (and more traditional means), e.g webinars, virtual round tables etc

There seems to be a whole variety of definitions.. but we tend to have

Content Marketing - i.e. the creation and management of your content in whatever format - whitepapers, youtube, video etc etc

Field Marketing - the generation of leads via shows, webinars etc etc

[Frimley111R]

Your big challenge, and this affects every company up to SME, is that marketing is a very wide ranging activity. For example, it could cover websites, to content marketing, to agency management, to reporting and host of other activities. I used to do/manage 22 at one time on my own with a bit of agency help but I had a lot of experience and the skillset to do this but I have never seen that in anyone else (although obviously there are others like me).

People, especially young people, love marketing because they see 'the icing on the cake' which is websites , social media etc and yet not have a clue how to combine them or even how to make them work.

Best I can suggest is a part time experienced consultant and an agency.

[jeremyc]

I'll reinforce what has already been said. I have plenty of experience in your specific sector, and 'Marketing Manager' potentially means many different things to different candidates, so be clear what you want in your job description.

The broad church of marketing that you wish your manager to run might include any or all of:

• product marketing - helping to define the capabilities required by the market, price point and target market.
• brand marketing - raising awareness of your company, brand and/or products within appropriate audiences.
• marketing communications - press releases, presentations, content production, communication with internal and external audiences.
• event management - managing corporate attendance at conferences and other events, potentially running your own events.
• sales lead generation and CRM.
• digital marketing - web site, social media channels, SEO, ecommerce.

Depending what you are looking to achieve, you might consider part time consultants with relevant domain expertise together with agencies rather than a single superstar.

[DSLiverpool]

Op check out SoPro lead gen it might bring in enough work to negate “marketing” as such.

[Aquarius909]

I would suggest you try CV Library. Instead of you advertising and waiting for applicants to come, CV Library has a database of all the CVs uploaded to Indeed, Monster and all these job sites and you use their search engine to find suitable applicants.

You can search using Boolean search and also within a certain radius of a postcode. When the list of CVs come up you can see all the relevant details on the CV but the CV owner's contact details are redacted. We pay an annual subscription that allows us download a set number per year and these then don't have the contact details redacted so we can reach out and contact the would-be applicant ourselves. I find it saves time as you only end up talking to candidates you want to talk to. Our last three hires have been don using CV Library and I recommend it.

And just for the avoidance of doubt, I don't work for CV Library; I just think it's good and may help you as you look for a different approach here. HTH.

[fat80b]

jeremyc said:

I'll reinforce what has already been said. I have plenty of experience in your specific sector, and 'Marketing Manager' potentially means many different things to different candidates, so be clear what you want in your job description.

The broad church of marketing that you wish your manager to run might include any or all of:

• product marketing - helping to define the capabilities required by the market, price point and target market.
• brand marketing - raising awareness of your company, brand and/or products within appropriate audiences.
• marketing communications - press releases, presentations, content production, communication with internal and external audiences.
• event management - managing corporate attendance at conferences and other events, potentially running your own events.
• sales lead generation and CRM.
• digital marketing - web site, social media channels, SEO, ecommerce.

Depending what you are looking to achieve, you might consider part time consultants with relevant domain expertise together with agencies rather than a single superstar.

This is a decent summary. For marketing in a tech company, I would suggest that you probably do want a single person that can manage all of this to start with (that person then outsourcing a bunch of it is the normal way to deliver it all).
I'd be wary of looking for a digital marketing person (who might have one of the skills that you are looking for but none of the others).

If you do want someone who can do the lot, a former colleague of mine is available - someone who would single handedly deliver all of the above with years of experience in tech (small and large), PM me if you want an intro.

[CarPrintGuy]

Suffolk911 said:

Hi everyone,

I run an enterprise software and services company. We are growing quite quickly and need to hire a digital marketing manager. So far we have had many applications, but most of the candidates are not a great fit - too low energy, not tech savvy, no relevant experience etc.

Has anyone got any suggestions where we might be able to advertise or what online forums good marketeers read? Or any other suggestions (excluding recruitment firms) that might help?

Suffolk

In my day job I work as a marketing manager for an SaaS company, feel free to PM me and happy to help discuss over the phone (phone number is on my website). jeremymc's aforementioned summary is very good.

[DSLiverpool]

Can you just say if you want A - brand awareness or B - more customers.

We needed B and got more than we could cope with using social profiling at £3k set up and £600 a month. We only needed 3 months activity.

This was web dev targeting specific types of potential client.