5 Telltale Signs of a Bad Marketer
Why are there so many “bad” marketers in companies (or hired as consultants)? Marketing is a fairly broad skillset, so it may be difficult for hiring teams to evaluate. Success is mainly measured by campaigns driving revenue, which interviewees can easily fabricate.
Other times, employees in other departments see marketing as a creative and fun opportunity, so they switch over. They may or may not have the training and resources needed to succeed.
These scenarios don’t always lead to failure, but they create easy paths for bad marketers to slip into departments (and oftentimes, leadership roles).
In any case, here’s how to spot a bad marketer on your team.
1. Their ideas are creative, but random.
The best ideator or the most creative thinker is not the best marketer! How many times have you heard one of these:
“Our competitor does __, so we should too.”
“Look at this cool new technology, we should implement it!”
“I have a really unique idea for landing page design, let’s change them over.”
This sort of random thinking will not get you far. Instead, marketers should be searching for problems to fix and opportunities to foster.
“I see our bounce rate has increased 15% on top-converting pages. Let’s run a series of A/B tests to try out some improvements.”
“Surveys indicate trustworthiness is the primary decision factor, and we have less reviews than competitors. Let’s spend this quarter trying to generate new reviews.”
2. There is no data-first thinking.
One of the easiest ways to build data-first strategies is to look into Google Analytics and Search Console. Use data to answer questions like:
What are our key web pages for driving traffic, driving leads, and driving revenue?
What keywords drive organic traffic?
Which paid keywords convert?
These questions start painting a picture of where you might have issues. Even the simplest, free tools should provide enough data to build smart tactics.
A marketer who doesn’t look at the data is likely pulling ideas out of their head to appear busy.
3. They do not complete tangible tasks.
Some marketers are in highly strategic or leadership roles, while others are more of executors. But regardless of the marketers’ position, they should be completing work.
Can you see the work this person has produced? Do they generate ads, write content, and build or execute strategies? Or do they spend their days pointing to issues, finding no ways to solve them. Maybe they are even on a wheel of constantly using data to make excuses for why campaigns are failing.
4. They have no iterative processes (or accountability).
Accountability goes beyond reliably completing tasks and executing plans. Is this person documenting failures and compiling insights? This type of work will build a foundation that is needed to push forward and improve.
Without documentation of results and plans to pivot based on these results, you’re essentially spinning in circles.
5. There is no desire to learn or improve.
If bad marketers are acting in any of the ways mentioned above, they likely aren’t carrying out plans they can learn from. Other essential ways to continue learning as a marketer include:
Collaborating with team members with different specialties
Researching to learn more about your industry or product
Attending conferences, finding webinars, or reading blogs every week.
Ignoring all of these would be like ignoring basic job duties.
Why do people act like this?
Many times poor performance from employees stems from insecurity and fear they’ll put in the work and it will fail.
Other times, it’s simply narcissism. If you think all of your ideas are gold, why would you put effort into researching and planning to set the team up for success?
And finally, not all bad marketers were born bad; sometimes work cultures encourage bad behavior. Be sure that your culture rewards effort, results, and continued learning.
How to prevent hiring (or creating a culture of) bad marketers.
Spotting a bad employee usually starts with the interview process. Avoid asking marketers basic questions about their preferences and job goals. Instead, ask detailed questions about the types of projects they’ve executed and what they would suggest for your company.
Better still, give a simple take-home project candidates can complete in two hours. Fun fact - my persona-based keyword guide walks through an example that was actually a take-home interview project. And I was thankful for that opportunity! I personally like to show my skills rather than describe them to my interviewer.
And managers/team leads - please remember, keeping a bad marketer around can sabotage the rest of your team from achieving results! It’s demoralizing to work with bad characters.
How to spot a bad marketing consultant
If you’re considering outsourcing marketing strategy, beware of marketing consultant scams. It’s much easier to lie about experience and capabilities when you aren’t part of the company - some people are happy to fake their way through a contract before moving onto their next victim.
Here are some ways to vet your consultants before hiring:
Make sure they are more focused on results than work. Agencies and consultants that use hourly models (and most do!) tend to drift into generating work to stay profitable. Are they creating busy work for themselves to bill you hourly, or are they focused on tasks that will drive results? Find a consultant that pairs strategic projects with quick wins, and make sure they have a plan to evaluate results of their work.
Beware of consultants that don’t have an interest in learning your business model. Marketing isn’t cookie cutter - it’s important for the consultant to be dedicated to learning your industry and core competencies.
Just like a standard job interview, ask for case studies, detailed work examples, and specific experience. You want to make sure your consultant is extremely well-versed in the marketing channels you plan to use.
You might also like…
