Even in the midst of major developments in technology and digital, content will continue to be a core pillar of effective marketing. This means the demand for qualified content marketers will remain at an all-time high, making the competition in the job market increasingly intense.
How do you measure up against the competition when seeking opportunities to move your content market career forward? Are you proactively seizing the growing value of the content marketing landscape?
Related Video: How to Write Great Content
Video by Adam Erhart
What Content Marketing Recruiters Look for in Master Content Marketers
As content marketing recruiters, we recognize that standing out in a crowded industry is challenging. When employers are in need of content marketing staffing or recruiting services, they expect marketing candidates who possess a mix of high-level skills.
Being able to write effective pieces of content with the right style for the web is paramount, but it’s not enough anymore. In today’s digital world, it goes beyond that. Whether you’re looking to jumpstart your content marketing career or propel it forward, there are a few key traits that can help hit the ground running and take your career to the next level.
You’re Technically Savvy
To be a well-rounded content marketer in today’s digital world, you must have a combination of strong marketing expertise and technical skills. The type of marketing talent content marketing recruiters pursue is marketers who are always at the cusp of new trends and evolving technology.
Sure, you may be able to write great content. But you must be able to optimize it and push it out to maximize your reach through digital channels. This means knowing how to optimize copy for SEO and social media. To do so, you must be able to write targeted meta descriptions and meta tags, and optimize headings and subheadings. Possessing CSS and HTML coding skills, and knowing how to work with automation tools is also important.
If you find that you don’t possess many of the technical skills that are highly sought after, seek out knowledge and expertise from experts in your organization. However, if you’re looking to land a content marketing role, take charge of your own training through online courses and programs.
You Know How to Connect with Real People
As a content marketer, your job is to create compelling content that gets your audience excited about your brand, sells your brand in a tasteful [non-salesy] way and engages with real people.
However, as experienced content marketing recruiters, we know it can be more challenging than it seems. To truly become the best content marketer you can be, your content needs to be valuable and helpful.
In order to connect with people, you must develop the ability to empathize with them. This means identifying your key audience, listening to them and understanding the type of content that works best for them. Learn how people behave to understand them emotionally. Customers today prefer real interactions and conversations – get a good grasp of the different buyer personas, sales funnel, sales process, and how to effectively target your audience at different points along the process.
You Dive Deep into Research
In order to create content that creates maximum impact and provides value, you must understand your customer’s interests and pain points. This means gaining insights from thorough, extensive research.
Great research is more than scouring for stats and numbers to throw into your content – you must understand how they relate to your audience, and the type of value your audience will take from them. You will only know this if you are completely in-tune with your customer.
The quality of your research can make or break a piece of content. Diving deep into your customers to truly understand the type of content they want and need is what will help you become a standout content marketer.
You’re Analytically Driven
It’s always been important for content marketers to be creative and innovative to produce original, compelling content. However, it’s become increasingly important for creatively-driven marketers to take ownership of data and analytics to further enhance their content.
You must have the ability to go into analytics tools and measure how your content is performing and adding value to the organization. This means not only being able to conduct valuable research, but being able to interpret and translate data into useful information and actionable insights. This will help you further create in-depth content that’s supported by research and data.
If you find that you’re uncomfortable with working with data and analytics, get familiar with widespread tools like Google Analytics. Analytical tools will help you understand what needs to be improved, ultimately making you a better content marketer.
You Have a Strong Personal Brand
When employers are in need of content marketing staffing or recruiting services, they look for professionals who not only have great skills, but who own their personal brand. Whether you’re actively looking for a job or not, it’s important to create your own brand and market yourself, especially in such a competitive space.
From networking, to contributing to guest posts, to engaging with potential employers on social media, make sure you build a strong personal brand that demonstrates your expertise as a proficient content marketer. Get involved with similar groups in your industry and attend networking events to stay abreast and keep your brand relevant and attractive.
Parting Words
Content has become a mainstay of marketing and an essential piece of business growth. The rise of content marketing’s importance to organizations makes it increasingly valuable in identifying cutting-edge marketing talent. The rapidly growing industry calls for the demand for top content marketers, and nothing less.
As content marketing recruiters, we encourage marketers to constantly revamp their skill sets to stay relevant and ahead of the curve for a successful marketing career. Those who neglect to do so will quickly fall behind the curve.