If you’re starting your own agency, or are thinking about doing it, chances are you’ve already worked on a premiere. You have a general idea of how they manage, who does what, how customers are presented, how work is billed and so on, so it can be tempting to go ahead with your new business without taking the time to think about it.
The “agency” component is still important for our work in the way we operate and specialize in our areas of expertise.
Companies are spending more of their marketing budgets on digital advertising than ever before, and everyone wants to reach the top. In this guide, I will list the professions you need to have if you want to build an online marketing agency from scratch.
If you are an energetic young gen Z youth with great visions of becoming Neil Patel immediately after accepting your diploma, chances are you will fail miserably.
You can be creative, intelligent and very bright, like anyone else in this game, but if you are not prepared and experienced enough to deal with the many nuances of account management and customer relations, you will look for another concert very quickly. It could take years to develop the necessary skills, or you can follow this list.
Workplaces are much more complex than we think as we grind inside them. In addition to the actual work you produce there is a multitude of expectations, communication gymnastics and verbal and non-verbal politics.
Now follow this list and create, your perfect marketing agency, not only for today, but for the future. Tomorrow is today, and you must have solid and specific professionals.
DIGITAL STRATEGIST
A Digital Strategist is a person focused on personal development and discipline. These two lays the foundation that provides for strong support from which stands the formidable digital strategist. So, what are some of the selling points that a digital strategist ought to have to be one of the strongest forces in a team? To drive the company to the stratosphere of success and growth, the digital strategist must be a mentor. He or she should be able to assist the brand to solve problems and generate opportunities by mentoring the team in digital stuff. That means he or she should additionally be a good listener and ready to reflect on the opinion of other team members, even when they are incorrect.
As a mentor, to workmates working under him or her, one is required to be intuitive, contemplative, and never forceful. He or she should be able to inspire mentees by way of his or her work ethic and concrete and reasonable arguments. In the process, the digital strategist is also able to get insights and pick vital wisdom nuggets that are great for personal development.
A digital strategist is also a critical and creative thinker. She hardly allows campaign materials to pass her without analysing them critically. Her mind is constantly imagining and creating scenarios for better digital plans. She reviews proposals with a sharp eye, offers invigorating tidbits, and come up with solid solutions. She comparatively considers issues at hand and makes choices that go beyond feelings.
Apart from critical and creative thinking, a strategist is emotionally intelligent. She knows when to empathise and when to sympathise. This helps when customers come into play. It also helps when her seniors are involved, for she can rein back their overconfidence and help them be real.
All these may sound easy in theory, but in practice, a strategist is confronted with complex problems that necessitate complex solutions. This is why a strategist should have mental mettle and backbone made of steel.
MARKETING MANAGER
A marketing manager is a creature of infinite enthusiasm. She is creative. She does not just conform to the norm and resign to fate. Instead, she crafts means and ways of looking at problems and finding solutions in an incredible way. She does not just maintain that this is just the way things are but endeavours to devise solutions out of the box. The issue here is not re-inventing the wheel but rather looking at it the way no other person has looked at it and helping the team see this new vantage point. That is the creativity that steers the organization into the new territories of marketing.
The marketer is fiercely loyal to the brand. They wake up and sleep the brand. The brand is ingrained in them. They have forged a unique relationship with the brand, and that is how they sell it to other people. They make customers see how the brand is unique and should be part of their lives, and helps them develop affinity toward the brand. This takes us to the next point.
The marketer ought to know the customers and potential customers, and where they are to be found. This calls for tailor-made messages and specific adverts that are directed at the customers and potential customers. Consequently, a marketer does not just shoot her bullets randomly or aimlessly; she aims and then shoot with precision and accuracy. Understanding the psychology of customers is crucial. For example, a marketer should not waste time selling physical fitness ideas to an octogenarian.
If a marketer was an animal, then she would be a chameleon. Why? Because a marketer must be a master of adaptation. A marketer ought to analyse her environment and make adjustments accordingly, even if they are uncomfortable adjustments. The adjustments are for the survival of the organization. This means that a marketer is not afraid of change, she just changes colour and becomes part of the change.
Listening is a skill, and it is best honed in marketers. A marketer par excellence is a skilled listener. She listens to her superiors, her teammates, her juniors, her competitors, her customers and regulators. She listens and takes concrete actions for the good of the organization. She also knows which questions to ask and how to ask them. She knows which information to look for and how to get it. She is sensitive to the words of her customers and pays attention deeply.
Hot on the heels of listening is sale skills. A great marketer can sell snake oil. She should be able to sell sand to a barber. Do not get me wrong, what I mean is that a great marketer should be able to appeal to the potential customer to the level that she sells her products effortlessly. A clear communication strategy is extremely essential in persuading the customer why they need the product. Being a great storyteller is an advantage.
The vision and the mission of the organization should always be at the back of a marketer. All marketing objectives should be derived from the vision and the mission. Thus a marketer is a person who sees the big picture. She visualizes and sees what should be done in the marketing department to make the organization effectuate its mandate.
Finally, though very important, the marketer is a team player. She cannot win in the game of marketing while playing solo. She performs in a team. A marketer goes out of her cocoon to embrace teamwork spirit. She listens to others in the management; she does the same with superiors and learns to take responsibility in teamwork. She is a system thinker – always seeing how various components of the organization weave into each other. She considers her juniors as a team. She encourages them to play as a team and shows the way.
SEO MANAGER
Digital marketing is a prerequisite of any corporate or business that wants to get noticed by today’s consumer. This is so because Search Engine Optimization is paramount for any business that wants to reign supreme on the internet.
This calls for an SEO manager with an array of skills and talents.
The SEO manager should have a strategy. That means the SEO manager should have a long term vision that crystallises into the overall vision of the organization. Insight and ability to recognize goal and objectives and act on them is supreme.
The SEO manager is a creature of critical and creative thinking. She should be able to engage in thoughtful and objective thinking. When we break it down, we find that the SEO manager should understand logical relations between and among ideas and solve problems systematically. In this vein the SEO manager asks the questions of Who, What, Why, When, Where? For, example, who are our target on the internet? What strategy should we use so that our website ranks higher? Where are the opportunities in the online world? When can we make changes to our website, and how? Why should we adopt one method versus the other? How much investment should the corporate put in the SEO?
The SEO manager should be a good speaker and writer. The manager should not only be a person who dispenses advice but be ready to research in keywords and generate content by herself. She should be able to masterfully and logically convince – through writing and speeches – the team and the clients to do the right thing. This should be done in a language that can be understood by the target population. The fact that an SEO manager can distil ideas and concepts into actionable concepts is wonderful.
Technical and Programming skills are invaluable assets to an SEO manager. When the rubber meets the tarmac, and technical issues crop up, such as page speed, lazy loading, server-side redirects, microdata tagging, and basic HTML tags, then the SEO manager should be ready to address them. With the right technical skills, the team and the customers will be satisfied and content.
Social skills also come in handy. It helps when an SEO manager can make relationships with team members, superiors and juniors, customers and other stakeholders and keep them. This guarantees that she can communicate clearly, continue learning and achieve much by working with a variety of skills. A sense of humour is great.
Analytical skills are needed to get data, manipulate it, and use it for an organization’s growth. Skills in using excel and spreadsheets are vital. Without analytical skills then it becomes arduous for significant changes to occur.
Self-motivation and drive push the SEO manager to keep working at a goal even when others would quit. It also acts as a catalyst that propels the manager into a world of self-development; keep learning and improving. The manager has thick skin; she does not bow down to discouragement and inertia, whether from within or from outside.
UX CX DESIGNER
The UX CX designer is social media savvy. She tarns a story, a blog post, a message that communicates persuasively.
Branding and marketing experience should be her vademecum. Branding, sales, PR and crisis management and data analysis are particularly pivotal. Using social media, she can engage customers and users and address their concerns, needs and challenges.
The emotional intelligence of a UX CX designer comes to play when handling customers and users. She is well developed emotionally to know how to handle emotionally erratic customers and users. She must be able to feel empathy and practice patience.
DATA ANALYST
A data analyst has visualization skills that help her to be able to paint a comprehensive picture of the current situation of the organization. She pays attention to the context and not the content only and this makes her communicate her insights through the reports, interactive dashboard or charts effectively.
The presentation skills of a data analyst are judicious. There is no question for someone who can manipulate data and milk out impactful information. She knows how to present the information through the digital means and through the click of a button and at the same time can do it to live audience.
Critical thinking is one skill that is the backbone of data analysis. It involves thinking above and beyond the task under the radar. It involves diving deeper into the uncharted water and asking questions such as, ‘what do these outliers mean? What does the spike in data mean?’
What else does a data analyst have? She has stakeholder management skills. She develops data that serve the stakeholders. She communicates it to the stakeholders in a voice they recognise. She helps the stakeholders form action points from the data. She collects more data from them and let them know its value in the decision-making process. Fostering the exchange of information with stakeholders is highly critical as it ensures that you are always close to them and helpful.
Communication skills are necessary for any workplace setting. Everything we do at workplace stems from communication. As a result, it is relevant to have a data analyst who can read well, write well, speak well and listen well.
Last but not least technical skills are vital. A data analyst ought to have Software systems and data skills as they form the core of her duties. Technical insight, while rooted in understanding serves well.
DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Development Managers are responsible for developing the business side of an organization.
Identifying growing business and creating long term prospects relationship ensures continuity and sustainability, profits and revenue. Knowledge, theory and hands-on experience come in handy.
Communication and interpersonal skills drive the development manager to achieve results through writing, presentation, speaking, and articulation. The skilled communicator is also a skilled listener.
Teamwork or collaboration skills provide a background to launch into worthy relationships and influences with members of the organization and with the outside members. Navigating through the politics within the organization and with the stakeholders is a vital skill for success.
Negotiation and persuasive power of a development manager help the organization wade through any situation and come out hardly scathed. The development manager is diplomatic, rational, calculative and tactful.
With project management skills, the Development Manager is poised to turn the prospects of the organization around by setting goals, planning and managing projects and risks, make budgets and calculate costs and time.
The development manager conducts research and formulates strategies to steer the company forward. This is achieved by benchmarking the competition and making amends as necessary.
Business intelligence acumen is one of the preserves of the development manager. The environment and processes of the organization and the competitors present opportunities to advance systems and solutions that will outdo the competition.
QUANTUM PHYSICIST
Scientific and mathematical skills are required for the growth of the organization. Scientific methods and mathematical applications can be used to solve both existent and emerging problems. The use of creative and critical thinking, public speaking, complex problem solving, reading and writing are assets to any organization. All these mixes of skills, education and experiences, make a quantum physicist valuable team member.
ACCOUNTANT
The detail-oriented accountant will pick up practices and approaches that could be crippling the organization’s health. The accountant has little time locating where the problem is by examining the hard facts, figures, data and paperwork.
Professional accounting wealth and ethical aspects help the accountant be a reliable person in the team and among the stakeholders.
She is as creative as it can get and uses her creativity to craft unique solutions to the organization’s financial problems. Some of these problems are not necessarily in books and thus require the creativity of an accountant.
Effective communication helps the accountant convey her findings to the superiors and the stakeholders for action. This accountant is also flexible and can adapt to changes in the market and technologies for the sake of the business.
Lastly, the accountant works with the customer at the back of her mind. One of the important objectives is to work towards satisfying the customer and attracting more customers.
PROJECT MANAGER
The project manager inspires a shared vision within the organization and this drives every member to work towards that vision. The visionary flourish on change and the ability to manage it. This is transformative leadership and guarantees the success of an organization.
Through effective communication of goals, obligations, performance, expectations and feedback, the project manager secures the seamless running of an organization. Persuasion and negotiations are paramount to handling stakeholders.
The Project manager set the modus operandi of the organization by practising and speaking with integrity. This means that the manager is committed to and regularly demonstrates ethical practices.
Enthusiasm is defined as the heart and the mind of the manager. She is active and excited about the goals of the organization. Confidence, even in the time of challenges is enough to make the organization pull through.
Emotional intelligence of the leader makes it possible for her to know how to deal with different emotions at the workplace. These include anger, disappointment, discouragement, satisfaction and more. The leader understands the role of empathy in an organization and harnesses it for harmony and mutual good.
She is a competent project manager; and this means that apart from technical expertise, the leader also has leadership, experience, ability to inspire and challenge and courage to make decisions and take on challenges.
Delegation of tasks is great. And with the right project manager, you are sure that the team will work in harmony and everyone will still play their role. The manager mentors members of his team and develop their confidence to take on challenging tasks. It also involves the aspect of the manager trusting the team members with responsibilities to accomplish.
Team building skills by a manager provide substance or glue that keeps the team together. This calls for the careful deployment of leadership skills.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
The social media manager is an innovator. She keeps her tabs on developing trends and updates accordingly. She formulates solutions for problems of an ever-changing world of social media. Thinking outside the box gives leverage and takes the organization’s media department to the next level.
A social media guru is a creative person. Her ability to bring a new idea and a solution is exceptional. This can be demonstrated in several ways such as crafting Facebook posts that appeal to the target. It can also be showcased in producing a video that goes viral.
The social media person pays close attention to details. No detail ought to pass her as the consequences can be disastrous. This means trying as much as possible to get it right the first time. Posting on social media and deleting is not a good sign. Making grammatical mistakes or posting poorly shot video is a no go zone. Therefore meticulous attention to detail is an important skill for a social manager.
Excellent communication is important. Crafting posts that carry the message the way it ought to be understood should be the goal of the social media manager. She gives honest information and has a heart to heart conversation with the clients.
Analysing the media data to determine the effects of media intervention is perfect. That is why the social media manager possesses the skills to analyse what happens on social media, interpret it and apply it for the good of the organization.
The manager is passionate about social media and organized in the way she carries out her mandate.
FILMMAKER CREATOR
The technological expertise the film creator brings on the table is great. The film creator should be able to know about camera work, lighting, sound, special effects, design, post-production processes and the actual knowledge to apply.
The filmmaker is creative enough to come up with products that stand out in the market place. This would give the organization a competitive advantage. She is also a storyteller – and her stories are told in films.
A problem solver and a decisive negotiator is the filmmaker.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
A designer is always learning. Just like a sponge, she keeps absorbing skills and information from the environment and experience. There is no space for arrogance or pride; only learning.
She constantly looks for inspiration. This inspiration is what informs her designs. What goes on in the design world ought to whet the appetite of a designer. Inspiration, just like fuel to a vehicle, keeps the graphic designer going.
COMPUTER AND NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR
C & N administrator has an analytical mind. Her mind can split hair – not as in chasing rabbit trails, but in trying to get to what simple minds and casual reasoning cannot observe. She evaluates networks in the organization to make sure that they are in top form. She studies the current trends and anticipates the future needs hence ensuring the organization is not left behind in terms of science and technology.
The fact that an administrator can analyse, means that she can also communicate solutions and data from networks in clarity.
Analytical mind has a way of weaving creative solutions to some of the complex challenges that could be facing the network systems of the organization.
Researching from a large pool of data, and sorting out what is relevant and useful to the organization is the hallmark of analytical skills.
Critical thinking is significant. Analysing data objectively and making reasonable conclusions requires critical thinking skills. And these skills make the Computer and Network department rolling. The ability to think through situations without biases, emotions and personal opinions, and come to rational judgment is excellent.
The administrator is also a good communicator, computer proficiency, and innovation, multitasking and problem solver.
RESEARCHER AND EXPERIMENTER
This is a serious department. The holder uses scientific theories and explanations to develop hypotheses. These hypotheses are subjected to tests. The researcher also translates knowledge gained from the findings of experiments and researches.
This calls for a researcher who is a critical thinker. She can appraise your work and that of others, constructing conclusions about the worth of information and drawing decisions from data. She should be able to communicate this to the organization team and even stakeholders with ease. She presents her work to peers, handling discussions and defending the position of the organization skillfully and with confidence.
The researcher works without or with minimal supervision. She manages his time and resources independently and without manipulation. At the same time being humble and embracing criticism positively is important.
MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY BUDGET
The budget manager needs to have problem-solving skills. She must be able to make quick decisions, and at the same time evaluate every possible action and make choices that benefit the organization. Management of time is key too.
The ability to demonstrate logical thinking and find and critically analyse every information is paramount.
Exceptional management and leadership skills make a budget manager successful team player. She carries out budget activities while inspiring others to stick to the company’s budget and implementing the proposed recommendations.
Communication skills, being humble and professionalism are pivotal.
