Marketing units make more inroads across teams than any other in an organization, which makes onboarding new hires crucial. Perfect marketing employee onboarding with the help of CSS ProSearch.
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Why marketer onboarding is different from every other team
Managers, you have just hired a promising prospect ready to develop riveting content and add value. Marketing new hires, you have just landed the career of your dreams joining a powerhouse marketing team in a booming industry. Excitement pulses through a team looking to hone strategy and expand content reach with a fresh team member, but there’s work to be done before this newbie adds tangible value.
Onboarding a new hire on any team is a delicate process with lasting effects. Marketing departments, however, have a unique set of hurdles that comes from the heightened departmental crossover. To market a company holistically, new hires need to understand not only their internal marketing team strategy, but each individual business unit’s as well.
“To maximize the impact of a marketing new hire, managers should take a collaborative approach rather than a top-down one when onboarding talent. Treat your new hire like a “business partner” that you are bringing up to speed rather than a “direct report” that you are indoctrinating,” says Stephanie Staiano, ProSearch Sales Director.
Share your company
Marketers are the storytellers, the narrators of an organization’s history and goals to the outside world of clients, competition, and industry players. Start out by telling the story of your company to your new hire with purpose and context. Although subject matter catered toward your ideal customer profiles will structure content, your company’s core values and purpose are the pillars on which your content outreach stands.
Managers should, with full disclosure, outline their organization’s core values, mission, company journey, organizational structure, growth levers, financials, revenue goals, and more. New hires should know exactly whose story their telling to create content strategy that guides stakeholders in the direction of company goals.
Cohesion with coworkers
A company story is rooted in the people that drive it. The best content touches on human interest and success making it imperative that marketing managers focus new hire onboarding around team integration. A great marketing team highlights every corner of a growing business from sales to stakeholder management. New hires need immediate exposure to build comfort with each intrinsic business unit to accurately market them across marketing channels.
Managers should book one-on-one and group meetings for new hires across departments as soon as possible in both formal and casual settings. This will build familiarity and promote dialogue between new marketers and the teams they will be highlighting through their storytelling process. Additionally, new hires will build a sense of belonging and purpose within marketing and the company overall by cultivating these relationships.
Teach your content and your systems
Misunderstood technical systems and processes create the highest potential to cause problems down the road if not troubleshot in the first months of employment. Ensure your marketing new hires have accounts created for them on day one for all software outlets and provide the required hardware. This includes, but is not limited to, company email, video communications, market analytics tools, social media accounts, benefit and payroll software, native homesite content publishing access, and any other resources.
Once software and hardware systems are understood, managers can move on to content. Although new hires may specialize in a specific marketing niche like customer marketing, or data analytics, they should understand each point of communication and its associated tone and style. Understanding content variety will help new hires contribute down the road allowing for project collaboration and deliverable delegation. An understanding of the various types of marketing strategies that a company practices like search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), targeted content marketing, and others is crucial.
Build your ideal customer profile (ICP)
Customer profile and need are the key indicators of what content offerings work and what do not. Educate your marketing new hire on the industries you serve and the customers within those industries. Make sure new hires follow current industry news and press releases from current and prospective clients.
Do players in your industry respond better to newsletters? Press releases? Educational content? Event presence? Make your new hire keen to these trends and preferences to acclimate them and promote effective communication methods. Train new hires to be thought leaders that clients can look to for education and advice within their industry.
Identify your competition
Knowing your target audience inside and out gives you a leg up, but understanding your competition puts you at the top of the staircase. By keeping your clients close and your competition closer, you understand what competitors are putting out for content which then allows you to creatively conjure a unique campaign to make you stand out amongst a sea of content.
Have your marketing new hire run a competitive analysis on similar organizations and report back with insights and metrics on content type, frequency, tone and style, SEO, keyword usage, and more. This gives you – and more importantly your new hire – an idea of what’s already out there. This is how you will build a superior campaign.
Recruit and onboard new hires for marketing, sales, and more with the help of CSS ProSearch
Onboard the best talent in marketing, sales, and other corporate departmental needs by partnering with CSS ProSearch, the recent winner of Corporate Vision Magazine’s 2022 Best Sales Executive Recruitment Firm in New Jersey. The seasoned professionals at CSS ProSearch exhaust talent pools to present stellar, coachable talent to your organization. Not only does CSS ProSearch provide talent, but also a plethora of industry insight and data to provide your team with valuable business insights. Connect with CSS ProSearch today to maximize the production of your sales and marketing teams!