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The first reaction I’m probably going to get for writing such a hot-button topic is, “Garry, why’d you talk about my company”.  Don’t you worry, it’s not your company, or my company, or any company, it’s most companies.  Face it, if you knew the questions to ask, skills to look for, business processes to change, you’d be retiring at forty in the Caribbean or embarking on your fourth start-up.  Finding and keeping top online marketing talent is tough, mainly because of the things you can’t change.

Let me step aside for a minute and set the record straight.  Online marketing isn’t new, but the multi-faceted disciplines that make up the DNA of a good online marketer are so diverse and ever-changing that you alone, or your marketing department as a whole cannot do an adequate job of hiring on your own.

When you take into consideration the skills required for traditional marketing, the list can get pretty long as-is:

• Solid understanding of business and accounting processes, budgeting, revenue models, profit and loss statements, expenses, opportunity and labor costs.
• Creative messaging, design, and target appeal.
• Demographics and persona mapping, voice, tone, and aesthetics.
• Project management, resource management, prioritization, and organization.
• Strong negotiation skills, vendor sourcing, and promotional material acquisition.
• Reporting and presentation skills, influence, and cross-silo selling.

Now take a look at some of the other skills that can be tacked on to finding a good Online Marketer:

• Basic to intermediate (or even advanced) understanding of website programming or coding: any of HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, SQL, heck even .NET.
• Communicating the nuances of web analytics, conversion attribution, goal tracking, and total cost analysis.
• Understanding of paid search systems, budget management, position optimization, call to action, simple A/B ad testing, match-type, and engine-specific reporting tools.
• Ad serving experience, targeting, creative testing, promotion.
• Social network development through channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, and community sites.
• Finding opportunities in syndication, online partnerships, rights management, revenue sharing.

Granted, no simple task to fill all these check boxes, but you don’t necessarily have to if you define and understand your own business goals clearly.

Your Target Hire’s Dream Organization

I can blue-sky every once in a while, can’t I?

Looking from the outside in, and the inside out, I can see why companies fail by hiring who they think is a good fit: it’s because the best fit looked elsewhere pretty quickly.  Your online presence is anything but private, so quit acting like it’s a secret.  Marketers that know what they’re doing can research that you had a terrible Q4 last year because your competitor kicked your ass in the search engines.

So what attracts online marketers to an organization?

• A fundamental shift from old-school business practices to at least a glimmer of acknowledging change; a shift from offline to online (we can tell whether a company is serious about online growth).
• Previous online success and failure, a challenge to improve channels and vehicles for success (we appreciate efforts, good or bad, and agility).
• Clear understanding of campaign attribution across the company (we can be change agents, but we need support).
• Appreciation for success, rewards for achievements, (at least) average industry salaried pay, (or for great marketers) the opportunity for individual bonuses (we know we can move the needle)
• Freedom to be the expert in their domain, and on your domain.

There’s always a chance your organization will shift gears, change directives, or alter holistic strategies, but be careful not to misrepresent current objectives from change required to proceed.  Which brings us to…

How to Keep your Top Online Marketing Talent

Turnover is usually inevitable, but there are lots of things an organization can do to curb turnover rate by making the decision to jump ship less appealing (but not in a vindictive way).  Of course, the obvious tenants still ring true: respect your employees, be supportive, foster professional and personal growth, etc.  You know, fluffy stuff that’s non-specific but important.

For online marketers, there are some pretty specific “nice-to-have’s” that make talent stick:

• Professional development through a program like Google’s famous “20% time”.  That’s where employees are given 1 day a week to work on a project outside of their comfort zone and test out curiosities that might spur innovation.  Brilliant!  Why?  Because online marketing is a very self-centered, self-taught discipline.
• Social development and idea sharing.  Online marketers are social animals, they need to get out of their cages, they need to interact with peers.  What does that mean?  They’re usually going to need to collaborate using instant messenger, check out discussion groups on LinkedIN, write blog posts (on or off the company’s time, on or off the company’s online properties), go to conferences – heck, speaking at conferences.
• Fun environments.  Online marketers, some at least, can be a little A.D.D., not that that’s a bad thing.  The same mechanism that tells top online marketers whether an idea can go viral is the same that begs to take friday afternoon off.  Hard work, big profits, strong growth, and long hours in an industry that doesn’t sleep begs for flexibility.
• Autonomy.  That’s a big one.  Micro-management is a no-no, especially for long-term or iterative projects that require a lot of front-end lifting with minimal initial returns.

In the end, it doesn’t always come down to these specific do’s and don’ts, but rather the realization that online marketing gurus don’t live by the same old rules.  In my experience, they are likely to switch jobs more often for different challenges, industries, specialties, or maybe even due to boredom.  And fear of the economy is less of a factor for top talent because they can impact positive change to your (or your competitor’s) bottom line regardless.