So your business is growing and you are looking to scale up your digital marketing efforts - congratulations! There are several options that will facilitate your next steps.
For example you could:
- Hire your first in-house digital marketer, who will work full or part time and be solely dedicated to your business.
- Seek out the services of a digital marketing agency to hit the ground running with digital marketing campaigns.
- Find a digital marketing consultant to audit your business’ marketing processes, create a marketing strategy and oversee its execution.
For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume you are wanting to explore the first option and hire a digital marketer to work for your business as an employee.
That said, a consultant can help you assess your business’ current online presence and leverage these insights to pinpoint the profile of your ideal first digital marketing hire. They can also build a strategy based on their findings so your new hire can concentrate on execution and getting results straight away. Book a free consultation here.
As a B2B Digital Marketing Consultant, I’ve been on both sides of the hiring process and know that interviews are critical for understanding the true depth of knowledge your candidate has. You can also get a measure of a candidate’s communication style, as well as how they approach problems and juggle deadlines.
But before you even select applicants for the first round of interviews, it’s wise to ask yourself what your expectations of this person will be.
Chapters:
- Questions to ask yourself before the interview
- Interview questions for your first in-house Digital Marketing Manager
- Industry-specific digital marketing manager questions
Questions to ask yourself before the interview
Think about the following:
- What am I expecting this hire to execute?
- Based on the answer to question 1, what level of seniority should I be looking for?
- What is my budget for this hire?
Now ask: Does my answer to question 3 align with my answers to questions 1 and 2?
Many B2B businesses in the post-startup or scale-up stage make the mistake of hiring someone too junior for executing tasks that require a larger amount of experience. Things like strategy, budget management and rolling out solid foundations for scaling up marketing in the future (for example data hygiene and tracking). You can read more about this and other common problems businesses in this stage experience here.
Now you’ve aligned your expectations with the resource you are willing to allocate to your new hire, we can think about some questions for the interview.
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Interview questions for your first in-house digital marketing manager
The questions below are just an outline - you should adjust them based on your specific business problems, objectives and current marketing tech stack. You will also want to include some questions related to your specific industry - I will provide examples of these later on for SaaS, Biotechnology / Life Sciences and Publishing.
Bear in mind these questions are also angled towards B2B services and products. I’m going to assume that you are looking to hire someone to take charge of all elements of your digital marketing, including more strategic elements like budget management and big picture planning.
General questions
- What made you apply for the role we are advertising? Why do we as a company appeal to you?
- Give me a brief summary of your career in digital marketing, and a more detailed drilldown of your responsibilities in your current role.
- What would you say have been your key achievements at your current role? (if they can provide statistics, that’s even better)
- What specific campaigns or projects have you worked on that you find most relevant to our industry and target audience?
Strategy and planning
- How do you approach developing a digital marketing strategy?
- Can you share an example of a successful digital marketing campaign you've led and the strategy behind it?
- How do you align digital marketing efforts with broader business goals and objectives?
Analytics and Metrics:
- Which key performance indicators (KPIs) do you consider most important for tracking the success of a digital marketing campaign?
- How do you use data and analytics to optimize and measure the performance of your campaigns?
- Can you provide an example of a campaign where you used data-driven insights to make strategic adjustments?
Content Marketing
- How do you approach content marketing for a target audience?
- Can you discuss your experience with creating and promoting content to generate leads and nurture prospects?
- What types of content have you found most effective in reaching and engaging your audience, and why?
Lead Generation and Conversion
- What strategies do you employ to generate high-quality leads?
- How do you nurture leads through the sales funnel to increase conversion rates?
- Can you share a specific example where your digital marketing efforts directly contributed to increased lead generation or conversion?
Technology and Tools
- What marketing automation tools and technologies are you familiar with or have experience using?
- How do you leverage technology to streamline marketing processes and improve efficiency?
- Have you implemented or managed any CRM systems or integrated marketing technologies in the past?
Adaptability and Innovation
- How do you adapt your digital marketing strategies to changes in the market or industry?
- Can you share an example of a time when you had to pivot a marketing strategy due to unexpected challenges or opportunities?
- What initiatives or innovations have you introduced in your previous roles that had a positive impact?
Collaboration and Communication
- How do you collaborate with other teams to align marketing efforts with overall business goals?
- Can you share an example of a successful cross-functional collaboration that enhanced a marketing campaign?
- How do you communicate marketing results and insights to non-marketing stakeholders?
Budget Management
- How do you approach budgeting for digital marketing initiatives?
- Can you provide an example of a successful campaign where you achieved strong results within a specified budget?
- How do you prioritize spending across different channels and tactics?
Continuous Learning
- In the rapidly evolving field of digital marketing, how do you ensure you stay up-to-date with industry trends and changes?
- Can you discuss a time when you had to quickly learn and adapt to a new digital marketing strategy or platform?
You will also want to find out whether the person you are interviewing aligns with your values and will help you build a company culture that makes all employees feel valued and comfortable.
Industry-specific digital marketing manager interview questions
Of course you will also want to ask your digital marketing candidate some specific questions related to the industry you are operating in. Here are some examples for various sectors.
Biotechnology and life sciences B2B digital marketing manager interview questions
- How might you pivot your marketing tactics to ensure compliance with health claims regulation in our geographical area?
- Given the complex and technical nature of the biotechnology / life sciences sector, how do you ensure a deep understanding of the industry to effectively communicate with our target audience?
- Can you provide examples of B2B digital marketing campaigns you've led in the biotechnology or life sciences industry, and how you navigated the unique challenges and opportunities?
- How do you tailor digital marketing strategies to effectively engage with researchers, scientists, and other technical decision-makers?
- How do you approach creating and promoting content that positions our company as a thought leader in the industry?
SaaS B2B digital marketing manager interview questions
- Our product has a high ticket price and this has resulted in very long sales cycles. How would you use digital marketing to mitigate this problem?
- SaaS marketing often involves promoting intangible software solutions. How do you approach developing digital marketing strategies to effectively showcase the value proposition and benefits of SaaS products to B2B audiences?
- SaaS products may require in-depth understanding, and product demos play a crucial role. How do you incorporate product demos and educational content into your digital marketing strategy to facilitate lead conversion and customer education?
- How do you conduct competitor analysis and use the insights to differentiate our brand in the digital marketing landscape?
- Roughly in what manner would you split the digital marketing budget between different stages of the buying funnel and why? (you can also make this more specific by asking for a particular channel e.g. LinkedIn Ads, content creation for the blog etc)
B2B publishing digital marketing manager interview questions
- AI developments within search (such as Google’s Search Generative Experience and Bing Chat) could have a significant impact on the organic traffic our publishing website receives. What steps would you take to ensure we are ready for these changes?
- Our target audience is B2B but the topics we cover also receive a lot of interest from consumers. How do you approach developing and adapting SEO strategies to ensure our content ranks well in search engines and attracts the right B2B audience?
- B2B publishing often relies on subscriptions for revenue. How do you integrate digital marketing strategies to maximize subscriptions and engage B2B audiences effectively?
- Building a community around content is vital for B2B publishers. How do you use digital marketing to foster audience engagement, encourage discussions, and strengthen the sense of community within the B2B publishing audience?
- As a publisher we have 1000s of URLs and our analytics data is a bit of a mess. How would you go about extracting critical information from our past data to help inform strategy and budget spend? (you could also allude to a specific tool, for example Google Analytics 4)
If this is your first digital marketing hire and you are not digitally-minded yourself, understanding what a good answer to any of the above sounds like might be difficult. This is also where an impartial 3rd party with extensive digital marketing experience might be invaluable. They will be able to analyse the responses of candidates and make recommendations based on the profile that fits your current business goals best. They will also be able to identify any red flags and candidates that use extensive jargon to cover up a lack of knowledge.
As a B2B marketer with 10 years of experience in various industries (including biotech, SaaS and publishing), I can help you make the best choice. Book a free consultation today to find out how we can work together.
