So…you think you need a Marketing Coordinator

Senior marketers, does this sound familiar? You’re trying to be strategic, but when you’re part of a small marketing team or the only marketer at your business, you find yourself bogged down with the “doing”, which doesn’t allow much space for the big picture work that is designed to drive the business forward. You’re frustrated, overworked and perhaps feeling like your career is stagnating.

Well, we have a solution for you, one that has worked for many businesses over the years..

Enter the ✨Marketing Coordinator✨.

Yes, it’s a junior role and hiring and managing someone in this position may seem like a lot of work for you, but once they’ve got the hang of things, you’ll be out of the day to day and back in the world of strategy and growth – exactly where you want to be.

So…what does a Marketing Coordinator do?

Well it’s in the name, isn’t it? They coordinate, a LOT, and help you manage your admin tasks. Whether it be briefing designers or agencies, booking in events or advertising, organising merch or print collateral for your sales team or upcoming events, scheduling in social media, keeping your database clean or any other admin type task you can think of, they’ll do it.

They’ll also act as a conduit between your company and other businesses that help with your marketing. You’ll manage the relationship, but when you need to send over something like assets for an upcoming ad or artwork to be printed, they’ll do that for you.

Finally, they can take some of the more day to day tasks that aren’t as admin heavy, but take up a lot of your time (with your oversight of course) – think creating content and writing social media posts, writing emails, blogs and articles and making updates to your website.

So…what type of person am I looking for?

The first step before identifying what you are looking for in a potential hire, is to figure out the areas that you as a senior marketer feel less competent in or perhaps have less interest in, and then rank them in order of priority.

Look for someone who has the skills to help you with these tasks, however it’s important to be realistic at this point and not look for somebody that can do absolutely everything.

Beyond this, when someone has limited experience, much of your decision will be based on how they are able to demonstrate initiative, passion and most importantly an appetite for continuous learning.

You’ll want someone who is highly organised, detail oriented, on the ball and can juggle numerous things on their plate. Great communication skills are a massive plus, as well as a willingness to get stuck into whatever’s on their to-do list.

A passion for marketing and/or the industry your company works in is always helpful – you don’t want them getting bored and moving on quickly.

Finally, if they have agency experience, that’s a massive plus. They’ll be used to a fast paced environment, so they’ll manage whatever you throw at them and do it quickly too. However, don’t take this as a must have, plenty of people without agency experience will also be able to work quickly and nimbly as well.

So…what should the interview process look like?

At this level, we would suggest a two stage interview. The first stage should be about getting to know each other and assessing them on whether they’re a cultural fit for your organisation and their ability to demonstrate some of the traits and qualities we’ve listed.

The second stage would involve asking the candidate to work on a short task that will help you assess their skills. Come up with a hypothetical business task, like producing copy for an email for a specific segment of your audience or creating a social media post on a certain topic for your social channels. It’ll give you real insight into their style of writing and also give you confidence that they understand the tone of voice the business has (bonus points to any company that pays unsuccessful candidates for the time they worked on the task – we recommend giving them a voucher).

So…when should I consider a freelancer over hiring a full time Marketing Coordinator?

Hiring a freelancer is a great way to “try before you buy”. Often as a business it can be difficult to fully know if there is enough work to hire someone all year round, but hiring freelance talent can be a great barometer of this. Plus they can help remove a bottleneck in the business or even cover someone (like yourself!) on leave.

Creative Natives have a deep pool of marketing talent that are available straight away and will hit the ground running. When looking for freelancers, we often recommend looking at someone with more experience as they’ll need little guidance and time to get up to speed.

So…how much should I pay them?

Marketing Coordinator salaries vary depending on what industry you’re in and the size of your business, but on average it would range between $60-75+super.

A freelance rate would typically be around the $500/550 per day mark, including fees.

If you’re ready to hire a great Marketing Coordinator to take all of your admin worries away, we’re here to help! Get in touch with our expert team of recruitment consultants today at hello@creativenatives.com.au.