Marketing Specialist: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a marketing specialist?

The need for new staff can affect both your existing team and your bottom line. A great marketing specialist hire can help your business:

• Develop marketing strategies for individual products and services
• Create and manage lead generation programs for your sales team
• Ensure creative media and product packaging adheres to brand guidelines

Deciding between a full-time vs freelance marketing specialist

Depending on your company’s needs, it may make sense to hire freelancers for marketing specialist jobs. If you need trend research and marketing strategies targeted on a short-term project or a specific product roll-out, for example, hiring freelance marketing specialists could be an excellent solution.

On the other hand, if you need long-term support for lead generation and the tailoring of marketing materials across your product and service lines—particularly if it’s crucial to have a consistent vision behind all these things—it’s best to go with a full-time marketing specialist in-house.

What are the types of marketing specialist?

Marketing specialists are marketers who specialize in specific forms of analysis, planning and quality control for a company’s marketing initiatives. There are a number of types of marketing specialists, sometimes also called analysts:

• Market research analysts: Market research analysts concentrate on the analysis of trends, competitors and consumer behavior, creating reports that can guide the crafting of marketing strategies to adapt to new realities.
• Digital marketing analysts: Digital marketing analysts assess the performance of online campaigns and provide recommendations on how to adjust campaigns and improve performance.
• Communications specialists: Communications specialists focus on public relations and the crafting of messages, from press releases and online statements to media appearances. 
• SEO marketing specialists: These marketing specialists focus on the optimization of a company’s content for maximum visibility on search engines. SEO marketing specialists ensure content adheres to best practices for each search platform.

Where to find marketing specialists

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

• Leverage social and professional networking. There’s no shortage of conventions, conferences and forums focused on the marketing field. These venues can help you find professionals who can point you toward marketing specialist candidates.
• Maintain an easy-to-use applicant database. Whenever a qualified applicant reaches out to you, hang on to their resume even if you’re not hiring at that moment. By including them in a database that’s easy to update, access and search, you’ll have candidates at your fingertips for the next hiring cycle.
• Get mileage out of employee referrals. The marketing staff you already have in-house may well know of qualified candidates who could fit your requirements.
• 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 great Marketing Specialist

A great Marketing Specialist candidate will have the following skills and attributes as well as work experience that reflects:

• Experience in a marketing-related role
• Proficiency with analytics and advertising tools
• Strong understanding of the Microsoft Office Suite
• Strong organizational skills
• Attention to detail
• Deadline-oriented

Writing a marketing specialist job description

A thoughtful description can help you find qualified marketing specialist candidates. A marketing specialist job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities and the required and preferred skills for the position.

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
• Social media
• Marketing specialist
• Digital marketing
• Graphic design
• Marketing assistant
• Communication specialist
• Email marketing
• Media
• Social media marketing

Interviewing marketing specialist candidates

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

• Portfolio of projects related to bringing products to market
• Ability to draw analytics from finished campaigns
• Collaboration style with sales and creative teams

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