How to Hire a Marketing Specialist

Marketing Specialist: What is the cost of hiring?

What is a marketing specialist?

Marketing specialist is a broad term that can be applied to marketing professionals, such as marketing manager or marketing coordinator, as well as those with specialist skills, such as digital marketing coordinator or social media marketing coordinator.

Marketing specialists coordinate market research and analyse their findings to identify opportunities to sell or develop a business’s new and existing products and services. They create or coordinate marketing material, including ideation of a marketing campaign, the creation of graphic design, text, audio and visual content, and publication of materials in appropriate advertising media.

Why hire a marketing specialist?

A marketing specialist may drive product sales or increase clients by ensuring your product or service meets the needs of consumers or is promoted and advertised to them. Those who specialise in a particular aspect of marketing, such as digital marketing or product marketing, will typically have advanced knowledge of that area, so they will be valuable if you have identified that area of your marketing strategy as requiring a boost. For example, if you have successful print and radio marketing campaigns but are struggling to see results in your digital marketing campaigns, a digital marketing coordinator may be a valuable recruit.

Contributions of a great marketing specialist:

• helps to drive business growth by devising marketing campaigns for existing products and services
• identifies emerging trends and opportunities for the business to explore or implement
• researches and analyses the behaviour of consumers as it relates to your business.

Defining your hiring needs for a marketing specialist

A marketing specialist can be a useful addition to your business development or communications teams to ensure there is a significant focus on developing quality marketing activities. Some businesses may have a communications manager or business development manager who also performs marketing activities as part of their role, but hiring a marketing specialist will ensure a greater level of focus is applied to that task.

However, if you find your marketing strategies need to expand beyond traditional campaigns or are not as successful in a particular area as they could be, a marketing specialist can help you overcome this challenge. For example, an SEO marketing specialist may ensure your website attracts an increased number of visitors by ensuring it is optimised for search engines.

What are the types of marketing specialists?

Marketing specialist is a term that can apply to all marketing roles. Marketing manager, marketing coordinator, marketing assistant, social media manager, digital marketing coordinator, SEO marketing coordinator and content marketing coordinator are some of the job titles that can be interchangeable with marketing specialist.

When writing your marketing specialist job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on marketing specialist jobs, according to Indeed data:

• marketing
• marketing specialist
• digital marketing
• social media
• communications
• graphic design
• design
• creative
• visa sponsorship, marketing.

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Where to find marketing specialists?

To find the right marketing specialist for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Create an employment portal on your website: Encourage people who are interested in working for your business to express their interest in opportunities via your website.
• Ask for staff referrals: Your existing employees may know of quality candidates in their networks and may be willing to recommend your business’s working conditions and career opportunities to them.
• Engage a recruiter: Recruitment firms have talent pools they can draw on, or they can headhunt quality marketing candidates for your role.
• Appoint existing staff: If you have an existing employee who is interested in or has developed specialist skills in an area, such as digital marketing, consider appointing them.
• Post your job online: Try posting your marketing specialist job on Indeed to find and attract quality marketing specialist candidates.

Skills to look for in a marketing specialist

A successful marketing specialist candidate will typically have the following skills and competencies, which may be gained through a variety of experience, training or education:

• thorough knowledge of marketing techniques and tools
• organisational and project management skills
• advanced marketing skills for the specialised skill set required, for example, SEO skills
• brand and commercial awareness
• strategic planning and problem-solving skills
• interpersonal and communication skills.

Writing a marketing specialist job description

Now that you know the key skills, salary expectations, popular job seeker search terms and hiring insights for a marketing specialist, you’re ready to write a job description.

A marketing specialist job description typically includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities, and the required and preferred skills for the position. You may also want to include information about your company culture, benefits and perks to attract candidates to your vacant role.

Ready to get started? See our full guide for writing marketing specialist job descriptions.

Interviewing marketing specialist candidates

Strong candidates for marketing specialist positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• previous experience in developing and implementing successful marketing activities
• proficiency in specialist marketing areas, such as digital marketing or SEO
• speciality areas of interest in marketing methodologies
• experience and proficiency in using market research tools
• ability to solve problems and collaborate with other departments.

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of marketing specialist interview questions for examples (with sample answers).