Four kinds of Marketing Hire

The good, the bad and the ugly of each kind of marketer, and how to appoint.

Four statements from founders and brand leaders.

Descriptions of how they feel about how the performance of their social media channels:

1. 

“Our social numbers are very good and our content is effective, but I don’t feel like we’re really nailing how we express our brand identity.”

2. 

“People love our posts and they praise us for our high quality content, but that’s not being reflected in our sales.”

3. 

“We’re on it, when it comes to posting, trying not to overthink it, Yet it feels like we don’t truly have an audience who like us for us.”

4. 
“I believe in our strategy; we have so many great things in the pipeline, but it is somewhat frustrating that we can’t post more freely without disrupting the plans.”

These four statements highlight the core challenges for founders and brand leaders. Social media and marketing are rife with mismatches, overlapping roles, and misunderstood capabilities.

The act of selecting who to hire and discerning the priority and nature of the mission is incredibly consequential. It’s the difference between repeating one of those four statements above or escaping the loop and progressing as a brand.

When considering contributing factors to the factors above, the shortcomings of personal networks comes to mind. Is there a reliance on recommendation, proximity or responding to whoever reaches out first?

After the personal network has been raided, the question of due-diligence and the depth of understanding of the challenge comes to mind.

How much clarity is there regarding the challenge and who is best placed to solve it.

Do brand leaders even have a framework for discerning the kinds of marketers and social media professionals they could turn to?

That’s the aim of this article, I want to assist you with selecting the right kind of person for your specific challenge.

The main deciding factor for your next hire is their capacity and capability to respond to the challenge of the opening statements.

After 12 plus years working in social media and marketing, I’ve seen enough to step in and point you in the right direction. In the current marketplace, I believe there are 4 kinds of marketing professionals you can turn to. Each with core strengths to address one of the four opening statements.

So allow me to introduce you to the four.

1. “Our social numbers are very good and the content is effective, but I don’t feel like we’re really nailing how we express our brand identity.”

Problem: Good Numbers, Brand Weak

Diagnosis: You hired a performance marketer.

These are the kinds of people who live inside Google Ads, Tiktok studios and Meta Ads manager. Everything is a test or hypothesis. They’ll have 10 versions of the creative by Friday, and whichever wins, wins. There’s no sentiment, investment or debate. There are only results, calibrations and adaptations. No overwhelming creative decks, instead you’ll receive a catalogue of creative assets and copy options with variations they’ll test with audiences. They dominate the bottom of the funnel, converting intent into sales.

Ask them for brand insights and they’ll show you a dashboard. Ask them about influencer selection and they’ll show you a dashboard. Numbers, graphs and meters are always at the ready.

Brand building in the traditional sense is superfluous; instead, the focus is on winning the attention race and backing winning content. No hiding behind taste, concepts or instinct.

Credit where credit is due, when you need revenue in a quarter, no one else on the list will get it for you as efficiently. They’re also attractively set up for accountability, in the way the others styles of marketers aren’t. Spend tracked and every claim tested. They’re the only ones with a straight answer to why something worked or not.

Now for their dark side, regrettably it’s not all efficiency and ‘grandmaster’ Microsoft Excel roses.

Their instinct is to optimise for what can easily be measured. They understand the attraction of metrics and their perceived objectivity. The desirability to provide signals for quick judgements. In an overwhelming and busy world, that opens the door to relief almost instantly.

The grey strategic positioning areas are where they fall down:

Why a person searches for you and not a generic product keyword?
Why your product is considered premium’ over identical cheaper alternatives?
Why someone chooses you even when you’re not in the feed?

I’ll be impressed if they have a dashboard column or widget for that.

So whilst the performance numbers will undoubtedly improve and look good, their efforts will never address the fundamental aspects of building a strong brand. The moment the ad spend pauses, you discover how little loyalty and ownership of the audience you’ve actually built up.

In other words, the performance marketer will hand you a BMW M badge engine. Technically brilliant and a feat of modern engineering: the “ultimate driving machine”, but they won’t hand you the rest of the car. They’ll somehow install it in your Nissan Micra, and yes, it will be fun, but it’s not sustainable for long term brand growth.

2. “People love our work and they praise us for our content, but that’s not being reflected in our sales.”

Problem: Beautiful work, nothing selling

Diagnosis: You hired a Creative

Directors, photographers, illustrators, 3D artists & etc, they’re exciting and refreshing to work with and capable of creating a healthy buzz for your brand. They normally come ready with a vision too, they’re either brimming with ideas or a signature style that’s ready to go.

They’re the people you turn to when you want to stand out from the crowd. Helpful if you’re operating in a crowded marketplace or sector where there’s fine differences between products and services.

Legacy moments and lasting impression are within their purview too. Their work often ends up as references in decks for other brands. Pioneering quality is woven into how they work and operate.

Whilst it’s exciting, “interesting” (IYKYK) and sometimes an honour to work with these kinds of professionals. Their shadow side comes in the shape of a loyalty issue.

Creatives to serve two clients, your business and their portfolio.

Most days, you’re aligned and all is well. When a rift appears between the beautiful and effective, that’s when you find out which of their clients come first.

Some creatives are more understanding than others, specially if they’ve worked with brands before. However, if you allow them too much leeway, you can very quickly find yourself funding an artistic endeavour rather than a marketing campaign.

If the artist in question has a substancial following, the direction of the work may be designed to satisfy their own personal audience and not yours. Not to mention the legal side, as creatives are partial to copyrights, licensing and usage rights disputes. All for legitimate reasons from the creative’s standpoint but as a client it’s always important to think about the long-term value and usage of the work.

When working with creatives, always think about the trade offs. They’ll assist you to achieve distinction and recognition, but at what cost?

3. “We’re on it when it comes to posting, trying not to overthink it. Yet it feels like we don’t truly have an audience who like us for us.”

Problem: On every trend, still invisible

Diagnosis: You’ve hired a cultural curator

‘Cultural Curators’ are the lovable darlings of the marketing and social media professionals world. They’re incredibly instinctive and in tune with popular culture; to a level that they probably don’t even understand themselves. It’s like a flow state or like a House DJ ethereally mixing between songs.

They know how to execute and are always ready with phone in hand. Pass them in the office hallway at your peril.

Cultural Curators’s main strength is social relevance, you hire them if you want to be apart of the conversation. Cultural Curators thrive in product categories and sectors where audiences naturally form community with one another. The final positive is they’re good at getting reach and engagement, given their trend friendly content approach.

The issues start to arise when your brand content feels interchangeable with other brands that are also embedded in online culture. The trends and the cultural moments come and go and worse if a trend ages badly it’s associated with your brand.

The primary risk is you don’t get to develop your own voice, you’re constantly inspired by others or translating relatable experiences.

This method has a race like feel to it. The route is already somewhat known and the only difference is how fast you move. If you’re lucky to be one of the first, you’ll be considered a pioneer. If you’re slow, you might get a participation medal at most. That fact remains that distinction is an issue, as you’ve still fundamentally ran on the same race track as many other brands.

4. “I believe in our strategy; we have so many great things in the pipeline, but it is somewhat frustrating that we can’t post more freely without disrupting the plans.”

Problem: “Great thinking, nothing published”

Diagnosis: You hired a Strategist

First and foremost, full disclosure this is the house or college I would belong to, if marketing was an educational institution. So, I know where “most of the bodies are buried”.

Strategist love a launch, an event or a milestone moment. Everything is done in arcs, layers, chapters and phases. Think of album rollout or blockbuster film press tour. Teasers, reveals, deep cuts, encores. Ask a Strategist for a post, and you’ll get a framework. Ask a Strategist why, and you’ll get a compelling twenty minute presentation, with diagrams and technical rationale built right in.

For them, every project is a seven-course tasting menu. With every course setting up the next. Nothing is random, Everything connects seamlessly.

Strategists know how to meet the moment and how to execute comprehensively. These are the people you hire when something really matters. They’re your John Wick or Jason Bourne of the marketing world. They’re thorough and relentless in how they operate. They’re the reason why a brand feels organised and orchestrated, rather than bouncing from post to post.

I’m sure you’re already anticipating it, and yes there is indeed a dark side. Primarily it can be characterised as time management and resource allocation. The thinking to deepens, the decks grow and the quarter ends. What did your audience see? Nothing because the plans are still being carefully crafted. They’re massive over thinkers because they want to give you a seven course meal, when a quick sandwich will fill you up just the same.

The theatre of it all can sometimes be too expensive for an audience of nobody.

The Question?

So who should you hire?

Firstly, that’s the wrong question to ask.

Asking that question is how we end up back at the beginning with you saying one of the four statements I opened with. Dive a layer deeper and the descriptions above actually provide a subtle caution against purity of one mode or model over another.

Instead, the correct question to ask is, what is the priority for my business or brand right now?

If you want sales to survive the quarter? Hello performance marketer.
If you have a major product launch or moment coming up? Enlist a strategist.
If you’re operating in a crowded market place. Call a creative.
If you want more engagement and cultural relevance. Trust a cultural curator.

Before you race off to find a single perfect pairing for one of the four priorities above. I should point out that great brands don’t pick a single winner. They have a rotation of all four on their books.

Like most things in life, dynamism is your best friend. On a project by project basis, focus on matching the right person to your specific business needs. Be mindful of your current challenge and identify who is the best for the challenge. Then set your expectations accordingly.

Expectation Management

Let’s return to the start and those opening statements. The point of failure across all four is the expectation that one type can do the job of all 4 types. Performance marketers didn’t fail because they didn’t build up your brand equity. Creatives don’t betray you because they care only about their craft. If you’re asking a long jumper to run 200 metres or vice versa, don’t expect record breaking results. Yes, both are fine athletes, but each discipline requires a high level of finesse. That can only come from years of specialisation.

To close I hope you now have a stronger grasp of the different styles of marketers and social media professionals.

I also hope you have a strong appreciation of the strengths and shadows of each one.

Finally, I hope you accept that the most important question is not “who do we need?”, but instead “what do we need”.

Focus on the what, and it will lead you to the who.