How to Hire a Content Marketer For Your Business

As featured on Quora

with Intro/Extro Added

How do you hire the best content marketer for small business?

How do you find a content marketer who gets results that you can see and feel -- not just numbers on a spreadsheet. You do this by being informed about what you need and what great content marketers look like.

• What goals does a content marketer have

• How do these goals meet your ultimate goals

• How skills are required to be an effective content marketer

• Where can you find the best content marketers for small business

• How do you proceed with screening and hiring

The Primary Goals of a Content Marketer

First, it is important to understand some basics about what a content marketer does. This will help you in your efforts to hire the right person for the job,

Here are the 4 primary goals of a content marketer

1. create/expand brand recognition

2. build/maintain trust

3. increase average CLV (customer lifetime value)

4. generate promoters

A comprehensive content marketing strategy will address all of these, but if you know that you have strengths or weaknesses in a certain area, you may want there to be a focus.

Isn't a Major Goal Missing?

You may be thinking: what about sales?

Increased profits (typically your ultimate goal) are the result of a content marketer successfully meeting the above goals. The job of a content marketer is to position you in the marketplace, so that you have more and better opportunities to make sales.

Their efforts help lower your expenses, particularly in acquisitions, and increase revenues.

How do they meet these goals

They meet these goals by setting short term objectives like increasing traffic by X or reducing your bounce rate (people fleeing your site) by X%. You and your content marketer will discuss these objectives in consultations and you will receive reports to see your progress. These short term objectives allow you to see the results of your efforts before those efforts are converted at a high rate to sales, etc.

What Skillsets Do Content Marketers Need to Meet their Objectives/Goals?

Content marketers wear many different hats not unlike small business owners and managers. This requires a diverse skill set which include but are not limited to

• Creating Valuable Content

• Attracting and retaining the right customers

• Managing Social Media

• Improving User/Customer Experience, especially your site

• Increasing search rankings through SEO

• Managing your online reputation

• Analyzing competitor’s and your own strategies

• Adapting to stay ahead of the competition

• Measuring results

How to Hire a Content Strategist?

Next, you can go with an big agency but the most affordable and effective way hire a content marketer is directly. Find a content strategist / marketer on professional networks like Linkedin or Quora.

Content Marketers are teachers at heart, so they love sharing what they do and are often easy to find. Listen to what they have to say, evaluate their written communication skills and then reach out.

Anyone can call themselves a content marketer or strategist so don't go on title, number of followers, connections, etc. alone. Judge for yourself, by reviewing some of their content, what their former clients are saying, etc.

Content Marketers work on independent contract, so you will have an initial consultation, perhaps evaluate a few of their services to make sure it’s a great fit, then enter into a partnership wherein they provide you with comprehensive content services that provide measurable results.

If you need someone to develop and implement a content marketing strategy, contact me at Already Content. We'd love to talk about putting content to work for you.

~Leigh