All you need to know while hiring Marketo Email Specialist

Gone are the days when having a marketing automation software was considered a luxury. It has become a necessity. And Marketo is probably one of the most coveted automation tools available in the market today. It is not only suitable for large enterprises but is also a great choice for small and medium-sized businesses.  However, it is even more important to have the right team to make the most of the tool. 

If you are planning to hire a Marketo email expert, here are some things you should bear in mind:

1. Experience

Purchasing Marketo is not enough if you are looking for business growth. You also need to hire someone who would be familiar with the correct usage of the platform and the effective execution of the marketing strategy. For any professional to learn how to implement marketing programs using Marketo, a minimum of three to five years of marketing experience is a must. You should hire someone well-acquainted with the industry and the current market trends.  

2. Thought process and hands-on execution

Learning a new technology is not as challenging as its strategic execution. The Marketo email specialist you hire should be able to carry out the marketing campaigns strategically and bring you more conversions with help of custom Marketo email templates. 

For example: You should ask the professional how he or she tracks lifecycle stages using Marketo. 

A seasoned professional would explain to you how to create a Marketo lead lifecycle program and how the status of every lead should align to stages in the funnel. He or she might be able to give you an insight into a lifecycle program he or she has previously worked upon. If the prospective recruit has no practical experience, he or she would end up beating around the bush that the business didn’t have a traditional sales process or blame it on incompetent management. 

3. Management of campaigns over diverse channels

More often than not, Marketo email specialists have enough experience related to email marketing. However, it would be a bonus if they can plan tailormade experiences for buyers across different channels like your company website, social media channels, mobile apps, and third-party websites. Having someone who takes a holistic marketing approach is surely an asset for any organization.  

4. Analysis of the right metrics

While hiring a Marketo email specialist, it is of foremost importance that he or she understands the importance of formulating SMART goals and parameters to consider while determining the benchmarks. The performance of the company’s past campaigns and buyer cycle are two variables that will influence the measurement of the metrics. It is also important to bear in mind that marketing professionals like to talk about clicks and conversions while sales leaders are more interested in the ROI, pipeline, and opportunities. 

5. Familiarity with latest technologies

For any email specialist, it is of paramount importance to be confident enough to use the latest technologies and have a knack to learn new skills. A modern-day Marketo email specialist should understand the lead scoring model, filters, segmentation criteria, HTML, CSS, email deliverability, and compliance for different anti-spam laws operating at different geographical locations (like CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR, and CCPA to name a few).

6. Competency in drafting content

Look for language proficiency and content writing skills in your Marketo email specialist. While it is not a mandate, it is surely a bonus if you can find someone who has a flair for writing – the reason being that he or she will have to devote time in writing promotional copy, engaging subject lines, and reviewing the same. 

7. Certifications

Hire someone who holds the badge of “Marketo Certified Associate” or “Marketo Certified Expert”. Hiring someone who has cleared these exams would assure you about their skills and knowledge in using the tool. 

Marketo Certified Associate is a credential that certifies that the holder has the knowledge, skills, and ability to successfully set up basic email marketing initiatives in line with the best practices, and analyze the performance of every campaign. 

The designation of Marketo Certified Expert validates technical competency, expertise, and operational knowledge in the broad use of Marketo. 

Professionals holding these credentials are certainly a class apart from the others. Besides, you can also look for additional certifications like HubSpot email marketing certified or Salesforce certified, or any other email-related courses on online learning platforms. 

Personal Traits to look for in a Marketo Email Specialist

As email marketing comprises several steps, a Marketo email specialist should be a team player. Whether it is sales, customer success, services, marketing, or support, he or she should be amicable enough to collaborate with every department and successfully execute the activities. 

Moreover, the Marketo expert should also oversee that the email campaigns are deployed on the deadline and automation workflows are well in place while driving the business goals. 

Last but not the least, they should be proactive in their approach and strive to make things happen. They should be geared up to embrace positive outcomes as well as negative ones, and keep the team motivated to give their best without worrying about the results. After all, there is no substitute for hard work and effort. 

If you think you have such a person around you, you can consider training him or her for Marketo certification exams and see how it goes. In case it works well, you are spared from the entire hiring process and associated expenses. 

Some Questions to ask your Prospective Marketo Email Specialist (with probable answers)

1. How to optimize the lead scoring model?

An experienced professional would mention feedback from the sales team while answering this question. Lead scoring is a process that cannot be effective without the correct sales feedback. Your email specialist should understand this fact. It will also reflect that he or she knows how to work collaboratively with different departments. 

A novice would simply talk about creating scoring campaigns and using scoring tokens or be totally unsure of how it works. 

2. Can you explain your nurture strategy?

The right candidate will tell you all about content mapping according to the buyer personas and their stage in the funnel. They will let you know how to repurpose content based on this data. An average candidate would limit the answer to sending triggered or personalized emails to different segments in the list. 

3. Which mechanisms did you use to maintain clean data?

A beginner would most often discuss things like simple data maintenance programs available in marketing automation platforms. On the contrary, a great answer will be about data governance and documentation that informs who owns the data and defines its origin. He or she will also let the interviewer know about explicit rules that apply to duplicates and how to manage these issues.

4. How far did your emails influence the sales pipeline every month?

While an amateur would skip this answer by saying that they don’t measure these, an expert email professional would give you a detailed account of how the business spent a particular amount in sending out emails and helped drive a revenue far greater than the expense. They might also speak about the tools they used for reporting this information. If you get an answer like that, you know that your Marketo email account is going to be in the right hands. 

Wrapping Up

Of course, all these qualities are at the core of every email specialist but when it comes to using a specific tool, continuous learning and staying in the know of the changing paradigms is equally important. You should make sure that you not only hire the right people and retain them but also encourage them to keep their inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge alive.