Particularly if your brand is small, you may be tempted to handle all your content promotion yourself. How hard can it be, after all? Manage a Facebook page, post a blog every now and then… How many people do you need? Well, it depends. If your goal is to cut costs while still going through the basic motions of an inbound marketing campaign, then you can probably get by with being a jack of all trades.
But if you actually want to run your campaign successfully, so that it has an impact on your audience, increases website traffic and ultimately boosts sales, then you need to put some more effort and manpower into it. There are a number of jobs to be done in any marketing campaign, and if you want them done right, they each require a separate person who can give that job total focus. Here are the people you’ll need on your team.
Marketing Strategist. The proverbial brains of the operation. It may be you, or someone whose marketing expertise you know and trust. They plan the big picture as far as a marketing campaign goes, and figure out how each of the other components fits into that picture.
Content Writer. This is one of the most important roles, and one of the most often overlooked. The person writing your content needs to be both an expert in your field and someone with great writing skills so that people will remain engaged and keep coming back for more. When you sacrifice one or the other of these assets, your content suffers, and it won’t draw people to your brand. Hiring a good content writer is vital.
SEO Expert. What are people talking about in your industry? What are they searching for, and how are they finding your website? These are the questions a good SEO expert needs to be able to answer. They not only need to be able to pick out the words and phrases that are of interest to your target audience and use them to drive people to your site, but they also need to keep up with Google’s search algorithms, which are constantly being revised, as well as experience with things like link-building and meta data.
Web Designer. So you’re using your content and SEO to drive people back to your site. Once they click on it, though, what do they see? What do they find and how do they navigate it? This is what the web designer handles. They create a single, unified aesthetic for not only your site, but all distributed content, from blogs to videos to social media. Your web designer creates the face of your brand.
Social Media Guru. This might not seem like one person’s full-time job, but it is. George Takei, one of the most popular public figures on Facebook, has several interns who handle the content he posts. It’s about much more than posting links. It’s about building up a following and engaging with those followers in your brand’s unique voice as they interact with your content.
Marketing Software Technician. While the other members of your team are each doing their jobs, someone needs to monitor HubSpot to see if it’s having any impact. They need to be able to study analytics on every aspect listed above, to figure out what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong, so you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Like any good team, there is no star player in inbound marketing. If you want to succeed, everyone needs to work together towards a common goal.
