How To Build A Successful Digital Marketing Team: What To Look For As Leader

If you are a leader of a marketing team, you know that not all marketers are created equally. When you throw digital marketing into this mix it has become even harder to identify the right people to bring into your team. With digital marketing, you need a blend of creativity, analytical abilities, and adaptability. These are essential to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of online marketing. But with so many specialties within the field, what are the key skills to prioritize when building a high-performing digital marketing team? Let’s look at the top three.

1. Strategic Thinkers

At the core of any successful digital marketing initiative is a well-thought-out strategy. Strategic thinkers excel at:

• Aligning Goals with Business Objectives: They ensure marketing efforts directly contribute to overarching company goals, whether it’s increasing revenue, improving brand awareness, or driving customer engagement.
• Anticipating Trends: With digital marketing constantly evolving, strategic thinkers stay ahead of trends and think outside the box to beat out the competition.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: They use insights from analytics to optimize campaigns and maximize return on investment. For that, they also need to have technical expertise, which takes me to the second thing.

2. Technical Expertise

The technical demands of digital marketing have grown significantly, making it crucial to have team members who are proficient in them:

• Platform Proficiency: Optimizing websites or managing paid search campaigns requires both skill and experience to achieve visibility in crowded digital spaces. But it doesn't stop there. As a leader, you have to know what questions to ask to fully understand the level of expertise they have. Just broadly talking about tactics like SEO, paid search, social media, etc. is not good enough. Challenge them on specifics, have them get technical, and pay attention to their answers. Are they being specific or talking broadly and just using industry jargons.
• Proficient in Tools: Marketing Automation and CRM platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Marketo streamline operations and provide valuable customer insights. Having a team that understands these platforms is crucial. They don't have to know all the CRMs and all the tools out there but they should have experience with a few that are most commonly used in the industry. Don't just have them list out the tools they have worked with. Again, ask them specifics on how they used these tools in the past to be successful in their role.
• Performance Analytics: Similar to the marketing automation and CRM tools, mastery of analytics tools ensures that campaigns are continuously measured, and improved. Ask them what reports they most frequently use on these platforms, and what they like or dislike about the capabilities of these tools. If they are comfortable with the platforms you will know immediately, but if they are not you will hear very generic responses such as; "it's not bad, just need time getting used to it" or "I usually just use the ad platform data and I don't have to go into the analytics platforms that much" etc.

Having technically skilled team members ensures your campaigns are not only creative but also built on solid, measurable foundations.

3. Ownership and Accountability

Ownership and accountability are not skills but are complementary concepts that play a critical role in any successful team or organization.

Key characteristics of ownership to look for are: Proactive attitude: Are they taking charge without being asked? Decision making: Are they willing to make calls and own the results? Long-term perspective: Are they seeing beyond immediate tasks to understand their impact?

Key characteristics of accountability are; Transparency: Are they willing to openly share progress and setbacks? Responsibility: Are they following through on commitments and tasks? Last but certainly not least; Integrity: Are they owning up to mistakes and working to resolve them?

Together, ownership and accountability foster a culture of trust, initiative, and continuous improvement within a team or organization.

Wrap Up

A successful digital marketing team is a well-balanced mix of strategic thinkers, technical experts, and people who take ownership and are accountable. By prioritizing these skills, you’ll not only build a team capable of navigating today’s digital complexities but also future-proof your marketing efforts for whatever challenges come up as a business.