9 Digital Marketing Experts You Need in Your Virtual Team
A digital marketing team is like a toolbox.
You see, a toolbox is a box (duh) with specialized gadgets that let you tweak, fix, and create anything much more easily.
Want to build a new dog house? Tune up a bicycle? Put together a new bed frame?
You need a full-blown toolbox to get it done right.
And for making your business a shining success story, you need a digital marketing team to help you achieve just that.
And when building your digital marketing team, you can go with a single marketer who dabbles in every stage of a campaign. And that might be perfect for especially small businesses or startups that are just starting out.
BUT for everyone else (you!), it’ll take a full-stack team of experts in your digital marketing toolbox to get the best results for your business.
That’s why in this article, I’ll tell you:
- The 9 key digital marketing experts you need in your virtual team.
- How each role will help you make your business a shining success story.
- And how this one single tool can save you time, money, and facilitate your company’s growth by hiring the talent for you.
And as an agency, marketer, or entrepreneur looking to scale, you should ask yourself this...
First Off: Do You Even Need to Hire a Digital Marketing Team for Your Virtual Staff?
Yes!
More likely than not, you probably do.
For a lot of you entrepreneurs out there, the do-it-yourselfer in you is probably thinking, “Well why do I need to hire anyone at all? Can’t I just do this myself?”
And the good news is, you could!
With enough elbow grease, research, and good ol’ fashioned grit, you could certainly handle all of your marketing on your own.
In fact, one survey from financial company Fundera found that 70% of small business owners and entrepreneurs work more than 40 hours a week.
Plus, 19% work more than 60 hours.
And on top of that, according to the same survey by Fundera, 81% of business owners work nights.
Over 89% work weekends and 57% of those frequently work weekends.
That being said, most entrepreneurs and business owners like you find that you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to tackle every single task on their to-do list.
What does this mean?
Sure, sure, entrepreneurs are busy.
We all know that.
But more importantly, entrepreneurs have a hard time delegating.
No matter how hard you try, a single person simply cannot run a successful business alone.
And in order to succeed, you need to learn to delegate.
That way you can spend your time more wisely in other areas of your business.
Properly delegating tasks is a significant predictor of high growth too.
Gallup found that among Inc. 500 company CEOs, those with a high delegator talent achieved on average 112% points greater 3-year growth compared to CEOs with limited or low delegator talents.
Added to that, adept delegators also generated 33% greater revenue than those with poor delegation skills.
The point here is clear: entrepreneurs, small business owners, and CEOs in general need to learn to entrust pieces of their business to others in order for it to grow.
And that includes digital marketing.
So yes, you do need a digital marketing team.
You could spend some time going through tips for recruiting virtual employees.
But we know the hassles you face daily trying to avoid the bad hires and creating the perfect skill test template for new applicants.
That’s why…
There’s a Solution for All Your Hiring Needs & Digital Marketing Projects...
Yep. You don’t have to do all the hiring on your own.
If you don’t have the time or money to invest in your hiring process, there’s always a solution.
And that’s AutoGrow.
We are like project management software but with proven pros already inside ready to work.
You don’t have to worry about hiring. We take hiring off your plate.
You don’t have to worry about completing the work. We take all your digital marketing tasks off your plate.
You don’t have to worry about money. Our pricing packages are super affordable.
You only need to submit through our convenient web app unlimited requests for emails, landing pages, funnels, graphics, ads—anything!
Then it's done for ya!
And we’ve already earned a fistful of testimonials…
But if you prefer taking care of your hiring process from top to bottom, the question is, how do you hire a digital marketing team in the first place?
So… Which Skills Do You Need to Look for in These Digital Marketing Experts?
Depending on the size of your business, you may be able to skate by with just a single expert to handle all of your marketing needs to start.
But as your business grows, you need a virtual team skilled in…
- Writing persuasive and visually engaging copy
- Designing landing pages that convert and engaging graphics
- Targeting the right audiences
- Navigating technical tools like CRMs and email marketing platforms
- Creating a general marketing strategy
- Boosting conversions with Quality Assurance
Your digital marketing experts should handle all small-scale marketing tasks on their own.
However, while a single marketer may be somewhat skilled in lots of different aspects of digital marketing, they likely won’t be experts in any of them.
It’s like the old saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
As a result, your marketing efforts may result in some new business, but certainly not at the same level as if you had a full-stack team.
Added to that, a single person can only handle so much in a day.
And that means a single project is going to take a lot longer to complete.
With a full-stack marketing team (toolbox), your business can tackle bigger marketing goals faster.
And since a well-made team is composed of experts in their fields, your business will likely be much more successful too.
Alright, now that you’re ready to assemble your marketing team, it’s important to know which roles you need to start filling.
Depending on your goals, you may need more team members than the following or fewer. But in general, these roles will cover the full gamut of your perfect marketing team.
Final word: if you really want to start seeing results, hire these digital marketing experts.
#1 Digital Marketing Team Role: Digital Marketing Strategist
This is where your entire digital marketing campaign begins.
Where should you start advertising?
What will your target market respond to?
How should you position your business to bring in the most customers?
These are all questions best answered by a digital marketing strategist.
A strategist will be able to evaluate your market and develop a complete campaign around it.
They’ll also use a variety of marketing methods to attract, nurture, and convert your audience, including:
For instance, at AutoGrow, our Digital Marketing Strategist (we’re hiring btw) has a very important role.
One of the most important ones is creating our clients’ lead generation sales funnels (or any other funnel diagram like coaching sales funnels), and conversion pushups.
Here’s the checklist we use for this Marketing team role that you can model for your business...
Your Team Without a Strategist: Your marketing campaign will be directionless and likely won’t attract the right audience for your business. To make matters worse, you probably won’t figure out that your campaign is doomed until you’ve already spent weeks or even months building it.
#2 Digital Marketing Team Role: Highly Organized Project Manager
A project manager is your marketing team’s accountability expert.
They’re detail-oriented, organized, and able to spot bottlenecks and project snags before they become a serious problem.
They’re also effective communicators that are able to clearly state expectations so that everyone’s on the same page.
A skilled project manager will have two goals specifically in mind:
- To make sure a project is completed on time
- To make sure a project is completed under budget
“How much can a project manager save my business,” you ask?
Well, according to the Project Management Institute, organizations that invest in proven project management practices waste 28X less money than other organizations.
One more time for those of you who couldn’t hear me in the back: project management helps you waste 28X less money!
Your Team Without a Project Manager: Your marketing campaign may bring in your target market and actually lead to new customers. However, it likely will not be completed on time and will probably run way over budget without anyone there to keep track of spending. As a result, even new customers won’t be able to offset the time and resource costs enough to call it a success.
#3 Digital Marketing Team Role: Designer
Designing a lead magnet as part of your digital marketing strategy?
Haven’t yet updated your website?
Considering advertising on Facebook or LinkedIn or any other platform that allows ads in pictures?
You need a designer.
If visuals come into the equation at any stage of your marketing campaign, it’s critical to have the right designer to make sure your aesthetics are spot on.
Because whether you like it or not, first impressions are highly visual. And if your audience is immediately put off by your design, it could cost you money.
Need more proof? Check out these design statistics.
- Adobe found that if the content on a website is unattractive in its layout or imagery, 38% of users stop engaging completely.
- 48% of people cited that a website’s design is the #1 factor in determining the credibility of a business according to Blue Corona.
The takeaway here is clear: sharp and eye-catching design counts.
For AutoGrow, design became a bottleneck for us not so long ago.
Specifically, landing pages submitted weren’t meeting the standards we set up.
So we created the checklist below for any new designer that’d join the team.
Your Team Without a Designer: Your targeting’s spot on and your project is moving along according to schedule. But upon launching, you aren’t getting nearly the rate of engagement you planned for. And in fact, most users who engage with your content only stick around for a few seconds—just long enough for your design to leave a bad taste in their mouths.
#4 Digital Marketing Team Role: Persuasive Copywriter
I may be a little bit biased here but having a skilled copywriter on your marketing team is an absolute must.
While smooth and attractive design is without a doubt the face of your business, copywriting is the voice. It’s the personality. And it’s also the content.
You need a copywriter who can persuade your readers by implementing copywriting formulas that convert.
After attracting an audience with great design, you still have to convince them to buy from you. And that’s what great copywriting does.
With the right copywriter, you can...
- Distill the value of your brand clearly and succinctly.
- Empathize with the pain points of your target audience and convince them that you’re holding the solution to their problems.
- Tap into your audience’s subconscious decision-making processes with tiny copywriting tweaks that can lead to enormous conversion boosts.
Simply put, if you want your marketing campaign to actually convert, you need a solid copywriter. ‘Nuff said.
Here’s the checklist we use for copywriting at AutoGrow…
Your Team Without a Copywriter: Your ads are getting in front of the right people. Your project is on track in terms of time and budget. And your assets are polished, eye-catching, and make users want to engage. But since your copy is off, when they do engage, it doesn’t take long for them to lose interest. Your messaging is confusing. Your analogies are dated and jumbled. And your brand’s personality is… well, off-putting. So conversion rates suffer heavily.
#5 Digital Marketing Team Role: Digital Ads Manager
Most marketing campaigns have at least some paid advertising component involved.
Whether it’s advertising on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other platform, using paid ads to fuel your sales funnel (at least in part) is practically a given these days.
And if you want to do so effectively, you’ve got to know how to use these platforms effectively.
For example, you may have your target audience defined thanks to your Digital Marketing Strategist.
But how do you actually reach them through Google Ads?
How do you create retargeting strategies?
What specific keywords are they searching for?
And which of those keywords are the most cost-effective options for you to start targeting?
Not only that, but each platform also comes with a long list of technical specifications.
Character counts, image size limits, text-to-image ratios—they all come into play.
And if you don’t have an intimate knowledge of these specifications, your ads can end up warped, cropped, and entirely ineffective.
And finally, there are the advertising best practices.
Keep the copy clear and short. Avoid super salesy gimmick words. Don’t overload your audience with multiple CTAs or claims.
Because what might work in long-form copy could actually alienate your audience in short advertisements.
#6 Digital Marketing Team Role: Detail-Oriented Quality Assurance Specialist
Alright, so you’ve got your ad manager, your copywriter, your designer, your project manager, and your strategist.
That should be enough to create a tight and high-converting ad campaign, right?
Maybe.
You may get lucky and strike all the right chords, catch all the small slip-ups, and nail your audience expectations on the first go. But odds are, you won’t.
- Your copywriter might use a term they think is universally understood, but really isn’t.
- Your designer might create what they think is a visual masterpiece, but people will actually find it chaotic and unappealing.
- Your strategist may insist on a marketing direction they think is a home run, but for your audience, it’s an infield fly ball (and an easy out).
How can all this go unnoticed?
Experts are still people. And many times, they can be too close to the work to see the glaring errors.
A Quality Assurance Specialist serves as that extra pair of unbiased eyes.
They’re masters of seeing an ad, a landing page, or an email campaign from the customer’s perspective.
And with a talented Quality Assurance Specialist, you can learn how to improve conversion rates by catching serious mistakes (we call them zero multipliers) early on and avoid massive wastes of time and money later.
Your Team Without a Quality Assurance Specialist: Your marketing campaign is finally complete. All your experts sign off on their respective tasks and your campaign is now successfully launched! However, there are some problems… Your copy is missing the mark, your design is awkward and flawed in several places, and the customer flow through your campaign is jumbled and confusing. And as a result, your campaign falls flat, leaving you wondering, “What the heck happened?”
#7 Digital Marketing Team Role: Administrative Specialist
Your time and the time of your team is valuable.
Ads managers are always staying on top of platform and algorithm changes.
Strategists are thinking up new ways to target the right audience.
Project managers are making sure you come in on time and under budget.
Designers and copywriters are… designing and copywriting.
And QA specialists are scouring over your content to make sure it all flows smoothly.
So when you ask a team member to upload their work into ActiveCampaign, contact Clickfunnels’ customer support because the site is down, or take the time to integrate your endless list of tools, don’t be surprised if you’re met with an audible groan.
Because asking your team to do so is taking valuable time away from their area of expertise. And that can slow your campaign way, way down.
Enter the administrative specialist.
This invaluable member of your team handles all that time-consuming background work so the rest of your team can spend their time where it matters most.
But don’t be fooled here.
An administrative specialist is an expert in their own right too.
They have to be able to develop an intimate knowledge of your team’s various tools and processes and stay organized in times of chaos.
They also have to be able to pivot and adapt to new technologies quickly and effectively too.
Your Team Without an Administrative Specialist: Despite having what’s looking more and more like a dream team of marketing experts, your campaign still doesn’t perform as well as you’d hoped. Your team members are held up by a slew of technical problems that they have to solve on their own. And that means they don’t have the time to commit to quality work in their field of expertise. You’re finally able to launch.
#8 Digital Marketing Team Role #8: Web Developer
This role is often overlooked on a marketing team.
And that’s a shame because a talented developer can actually help your marketing campaign succeed in a number of ways.
For instance, they can…
- Spot and fix bugs that can make user experiences a real pain
- Analyze the usability of your content across different devices
- Create custom content that helps boost conversions
- Improve your site’s loading speeds (an incredibly important aspect of any high-converting site)
- Create exciting new ways to interact with your audience
Ensuring a solid user experience is vital for your marketing campaign’s success. In fact, customers who have an unpleasant experience on your website are 88% less likely to return according to web performance company Gomez.
And with the right developer, you can be sure your customer experiences are as smooth.
Your Team Without a Developer: It’s done! After weeks and weeks of hard work, your marketing campaign is finally launched. But despite having other digital marketing experts on your team, your campaign still falls far short of expectations. The culprit? A buggy website experience that’s slow to load, incompatible with mobile devices, and ultimately a pain for the customers you tried so hard to connect with. And because of that, users who are enticed by your ads to buy are so turned off by website experience, they forget about your brand entirely.
#9 Digital Marketing Team Role: VP of Operations
Last but not least, there’s the VP of Operations.
This is a key role in your digital marketing team.
Why?
Because this person will ensure that the other team members are performing their best. It's your eyes.
Your VP of Operations will supervise all processes and systems and make sure that everything is running and working properly.
And as the CEO or business owner, you need to rely on someone who can take care of supervising the process for you.
And the most reliable team member to do so is your VP of operations!
Your Team Without a Developer: You need to make sure the company runs without you. And your VP of operations is the one working closely with the team members and making sure everything works 100%.
Conclusion
There you go. Those are the 9 digital marketing experts you need in your virtual team.
See how those exact team roles are the ones who make everything possible at AutoGrow?
For most businesses, a successful digital marketing campaign depends on a team of experts who specialize in their particular field.
Experts like a…
- Digital Marketing Strategist
- Project Manager
- Designer
- Copywriter
- Digital Ads Manager
- Quality Assurance Specialist
- Administrative Specialist
- Web Developer
- VP of Operations
The only question is, do you have the time to find, interview, and hire each?
Probably not…
But as I said before, at AutoGrow, we actually take care of all your digital marketing tasks for you.
No hiring hassle. No HR drama. And no waiting to find the right people for the right roles.
Just a one-stop shop for all your digital marketing needs. We’re like project management software but with proven pros already inside ready to work.
Now tell me something, what are the key positions in your virtual team? Is there one you think I should include in this list?
Let me know in the comments below
And as always…
Keep AutoGrowin’, stay focused.
