The rise of the ’Renaissance Marketer’

In a marketing landscape where power has shifted to the users it’s become increasingly important for a marketer to be able to create content that drives a company’s brand, message and audience outreach not only to generate traffic but to make conversions. Its a common problem for startups to find the right marketer who ’knows it all’ in terms of tools and tactics so they want a ’Marketing Superhero’. But can they find one?

Content has emerged as the centerpiece of most startups’ customer engagement efforts. But the models for managing production of relevant contents have been slow to adapt due to the rapid growth in demand. Also with the expanding functionality of digital marketing platforms (e.g., Google platforms, automation tools, social media etc.) many marketers have elated the worth of the digital tools over the content nurturing through those tools.  The problem is that content still seems to be everyone’s job and no one’s job. It is quite difficult to achieve strategic integration for a small business company through a variety of tactics as opposed to just being good at one particular skill. With lead nurturing most startups are already doing the hard part in generating the content for their prospects and clients. A startup can grow and thrive by adding the right approach to its marketing goals and certainly need a marketer or more for that.

In the minds of startups content marketing is often associated with campaigns and tactics at the top of the marketing funnel. But the right approach should be to connect the work you do for your users throughout the funnel to actual closed sales. That means that the ROI of your content marketing program should be analysed and then managed according to your strategy.

In a startup’s marketing strategy it is improtant to deploy content-based lead nurturing programs so they can send relevant content to their audiences at just the right time in the life-cycle of lead generation. And the content doesn’t have to stop at getting attention at the top of the funnel but with the right content and tools entrepreneurs should and can nurture prospects throughout the funnel to get closer to your business goals.

When a startup wants to get prospects and customers it has to find creative ways of marketing content generation so they can save money and engage people. This is the time when a startup CEO starts to search for a marketer in the team and wants a copywriter, social media manager, information architect, product manager etc. on board who can speak to every audiences. And of course he or she needs to be a marketing strategist as well who is saying ‘this is the message we need to create in the minds of our target groups and key customers and this is how we should deliver it across online and offline platforms’. So they search for ’Marketing Superheros’.

There are two kind of problems with that.

On one hand when startups are searching for a ‘Marketing Superhero’ aka ’Growth Hacker’ they will find easily the ones who pride themselves on knowing all the tools and processes. But these kind of marketers usually just eager to get a job – even in a startup – which is good in terms of determination but many times they miss the key point of understand the business issues of the startup and its customers. This is a big problem because the nature of early-stage marketing is to realize the needs of customers and create relevant and interesting content for them also to find the right messages to address.

On the other hand there is no such thing as a ’Marketing Superhero’ who knows every tool and tactics also there is no need for one! Please wake up! If you are a CEO of a startup and you want a marketer on board at first you should decide what kind of professional do you need! A PPC manager? Social Media manager? Copywriter? A Strategist? Of course it is needed to have a multi-discipline approach but you won’t find an ’all in one’ professional. You should find the one who helps you at a certain point of your business and product development.

What you need at the end of the day is to create a lineup that rounds out an effective marketing team. You will need a strategist who understands the big picture and the platforms and able to guide communications for the users. You’ll need a digital designer who is familiar with webpages and web engines, landing page design and email best practices. Then you should find a copywriter who can condense key messages into a hundred words. If you dont concentrate on content rather than tools that can cause undesirable consequences like the decline in creativity also in the company’s ranking of innovativeness. And you’ll need a marketing technologist who is kind of a power user but don’t need to be a tech guru. He/she should be handy with web systems and welcome learning new tools and platforms, someone who loves to create, manage and report on your marketing campaigns.

Of course I know that in the beginning a startup cannot afford a marketing team but the point is that as a CEO you shouldn’t search for a ’knows it all’ also referred as a ’Marketing Superhero’. Who you need is a ’Renaissance Marketer’ instead. Who is that professional?

You should search for an enthusiastic professional who has a wide interest, a holistic view of marketing and who is both analytical and strategic. He/she has the ability to synthesize insights about your business and users and bring solutions to them. A ’Renaissance Marketer’ should be innovative and creative enough to create content that fuels your users’ engagement because the bottom line is that clients want their content and you can generate leads by delivering it for them creatively.

Today’s demand for such ’Renaissance Marketers’ is still greater than the supply so those who want a long-term success in the marketing profession should move towards that approach – at least who has the ability to do so – and startup CEOs should define their needs more accurate. Thus both parties will find a mutually beneficial cooperation in the future. So be it.