Why is an internet marketer a business?

Today we will discuss the topic of why a business needs an internet marketer. This topic has arisen for a reason; it is indeed a significant problem in Ukraine, stemming from the fact that businesses do not fully understand why they should hire an internet marketer and what to expect from them.

On the other hand, there is also a problem for specialists who go to work as internet marketers, as they are often hired for tasks that are incorrectly assigned or are given responsibilities that do not fall within their authority, resulting in stress for them. At the beginning of my career, I worked as an in-house marketer, so I know this situation from the inside.

So let’s start; the first important point is to understand that an internet marketer is not an SEO specialist, PPC expert, SMM specialist, email marketer, content marketer, event manager, web analyst, and certainly not all of these at once. The primary issue from a business perspective is that often, especially in small companies, due to the inability to hire various specialists, people look for an internet marketer who will: manually launch contextual advertising, manage newsletters, handle social media, promote the website, and at the same time design brochures and organize exhibitions. It is important to understand that even if you find such a versatile person, who, first of all, must have a sufficient understanding of all these channels to not just control them but actually execute them, even if you are lucky enough to find such a person, they physically cannot combine all of this effectively. Therefore, at best, they will do something well, while other tasks will be done poorly. But in most cases, the specialist will do everything poorly not because they are incompetent, but simply because a person cannot cover everything in an 8-hour workday or even a 13-hour workday. Of course, if we consider the situation in small startups where the staff consists of 3 people, then perhaps one person can cover several positions simultaneously, but this should not be a long-term solution.

What Should an Internet Marketer Actually Do in a Company?

First and foremost, they are responsible for the company’s positioning on the internet, because the key word here is still marketer, and they essentially do the same thing that a regular marketer does, only online, and they are responsible for:

• Positioning the company/product online
• Studying and creating a portrait of the target audience
• Increasing sales through the internet
• Enhancing the value of the product and loyalty of the target audience
• Analyzing the effectiveness of promotion methods
• To build a product/company development strategy online and monitor its implementation

Essentially, this is a strategist who oversees the work of specialized narrow experts. Accordingly, he occupies the following position in the company: after the director/manager, there are two most important people in the company, in my opinion – the marketing and finance directors. The rest belong to them, meaning the sales department, marketing department, human resources department, production. And the internet marketer, one could say, is the third person in the company. That is, after the director and the marketing manager, the next level consists of marketers and internet marketers. 

The internet marketer handles the work of an SEO specialist, a contextual advertising specialist, social media, email work, programmers if any solutions for the site are needed, and other specialized areas (copywriters, designers, etc.). In other words, this is a person who is the connecting link between all specialists, who must understand the global tasks, the overall development strategy of the company, and ensure that each direction aligns with common goals and works effectively. For example, the coordinated work of the team. 

How to Help or at Least Not Hinder Your Marketer? 

• Do not listen to lazy employees

First and foremost, a business owner or manager should not listen to lazy employees. Paradoxically, despite the fact that marketing and sales go hand in hand, it is often difficult to distinguish where marketing ends and sales begin. The most common conflicts in a company arise between the marketing department and the sales department. It is important to understand that marketing is the most crucial area of any company’s activities; it is what brings you money. Contrary to the frequent beliefs of many of our entrepreneurs that marketing only spends money, this is not the case. It brings you money because marketing is responsible for how people perceive you, whether they will need your product, and whether they will want to buy from you and do so repeatedly. 

According to some studies, about 42-47% of products released to the market are stillborn, meaning there is no demand for these products; they solve problems that do not actually exist. Therefore, the task of marketing is to understand what the target audience needs and provide them with a solution to that problem, present it correctly, and show the value of the product. Often, this contradicts the interests of specific employees in other departments, as it adds extra work for them. Thus, the position of the owners should be this: marketing is the most important direction; it directly affects sales, and if additional work is required for marketing, it must be done, regardless of whether it may not be liked by other employees who need to retrain, work with different software, etc. 

• Do not overload the marketer with secretary tasks

Often, businesses do not understand who a marketer is for them; it is something unclear and frightening, which is why they assign uncomfortable tasks to them, but this should not be done. It is important to understand that the task of marketing is to attract and retain your customers, position your product/brand, and they should not be involved in finding cheap tickets for vacations or making reservations—hire a secretary for that. 

• Allow choosing the contractor

Next, the marketer needs to be given the freedom to act. If you set specific KPIs for a person and assign them tasks, they must have the appropriate authority, including the authority to choose a contractor. This is because most tenders are conducted solely based on price, and no one is interested in why prices may differ. Often, significant costs are incurred while the volume of work done and its effectiveness differ drastically, not in a positive way. Therefore, it is necessary to allow the person who understands this to choose the performers. 

• Do not panic when receiving interim results

It is important to understand that marketing is always about testing hypotheses. No specialist can give you a 100% guarantee of what will work and what will not. The marketer formulates a hypothesis and then tests it. Therefore, if you receive negative results in the short term during testing, this is not a reason to dismiss the marketer and panic that everything is lost. 

• Allow attendance at industry events

 You need to allow your in-house specialists to attend industry events, conferences, and courses. If you have a strict work schedule and a person must be in the office from 9 to 6, and taking time off is simply impossible, you must understand that you are not giving your marketer the opportunity to develop. It is essential to stay up-to-date, to know the latest trends, so the marketer should regularly attend industry events, communicate with colleagues, and participate in networking, conferences, courses, webinars, and seminars. 

• Allocate time for the marketer

The most important thing for business owners or managers is to allocate time for communication with marketers. Often, entrepreneurs do not understand why they hired a marketer, and they neglect meetings with them because the work and the accountant’s field are more important and understandable to them. The first expenses that are cut during a crisis are advertising expenses. This logic cannot be correct a priori because if you reduce marketing expenses, you decrease the number of clients you will attract. During a crisis, marketing expenses should not be reduced; everything else can be. Of course, this does not apply to production and product quality because if you have good marketing but the product or service is of poor quality, marketing will not save you in the long run. 

How to find the perfect marketer?

You need to understand that you are hiring a person, not a superhero; a marketer is not a magician, and they will not perform magic or create miracles for you. They can only systematize, structure, and improve results, and only if you allow them to do so.

 Key skills a candidate for the marketer position should possess:

• ability to learn
• analytical mindset
• basic understanding of all tools
• understanding the basics of web analytics and the meaning of each metric

How to create a job vacancy?

• Understand whether you really need a specialist in-house
• Remove age restrictions from requirements 
• Think through the payment and motivation system linked to KPIs
• Seek recommendations from commercial courses, specialists, clubs, and organizations
• Make sure once again if you and your company are ready to step out of your comfort zone and embrace constant changes?

 Answers to questions:

Advantages of an in-house marketer versus outsourcing

A full-time employee knows your business inside out. A full-time marketer studies your niche and is an expert in it; an agency or outsourced specialist cannot know the business thoroughly and, moreover, will not have direct contact with all the necessary employees, meaning this is a narrow focus but with a more blurred perspective. Specialists working in agencies are the first to receive new information; they have a broader understanding of the market in terms of tools, and the cost is also a plus—if you need a non-global project change, outsourcing will be cheaper.

How effectively can a full-time marketer and an outsourced one be combined, or is it better to choose one?

In fact, it’s better to have an in-house marketer who will manage the work of contractors, while a specialized area (SEO or PPC) is better hired externally, but consider the size of your business and your own sales, production, and order volumes. If you are as large as Rozetka, then you need an in-house employee, but if you are a small online store with 20 employees, it’s better to use outsourcing.

How to check a marketer’s competence?

First, what you definitely should not pay attention to is case studies. Case studies are generally not a reliable indicator, especially in the IT and marketing fields. They are usually not truthful; they are just a nice illustrated story. Secondly, success in one project does not affect success in another. Thirdly, you cannot verify the information presented in a case study; it may not only be their achievement but also the team’s, it may just be luck, or the client may have been proactive.

The most correct way is communication, to understand the adequacy of the person, to raise not so much their experience and knowledge as their willingness to learn, openness, and honesty. You can discuss recommendations if they are recommended by a well-known expert or your acquaintance, or some organization that trained them.

Key analytics metrics for an online marketer working in a tech store?

Metrics can depend on tasks and may change. 
– Traffic growth
– Conversion growth
– ROI growth
– Increase in LTV

Everything else may be either intermediate or will stem from these indicators.