Do you ever wonder how brands and businesses capture the attention of 4.8 billion internet users and 4.48 billion active social media users? It’s possible with digital marketing. Digital marketing covers push-and-pull marketing or inbound and outbound marketing delivered via search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click advertisements, social media marketing, content marketing (e.g., videos and blog posts), and email marketing, mobile marketing, and marketing analytics (e.g., conversion funnels). In addition, digital marketing allows organisations and brands to use sophisticated targeting features that produce personalised, high-converting messages for specific leads online.
Digital Marketers create these kinds of valuable, tailor-fit content. Large corporations usually hire big-name digital marketing agencies with several team members performing unique digital marketing duties. However, SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) and startups typically employ an in-house Digital Marketer, or a Full Stack Marketer, who fulfils all digital marketing roles. More often than not, working with a remote Full Stack Marketer is a more cost-effective option than recruiting and training an all-around digital marketer on the payroll. When you’re ready to give outsourcing a more thorough review, you can also include the advantages and disadvantages of being a Full Stack Marketer in your research. We’ve provided some of the pros and cons below.
I. What is a Full Stack Digital Marketer?
According to Process Street, a full-stack marketer is defined as “someone with experience and knowledge spanning the entire marketing ‘stack’.” Normally, a full-stack marketer might specialize in a certain discipline but generally should be able to understand and work with whatever project they’re assigned to. Note, that this does not mean that a full-stack marketer knows everything with the same degree of specialization or mastery. It simply means that they have experience with everything relevant to your operations but isn’t necessarily a master of all of them.
II. The Pros and Cons of being a Full Stack Digital Marketer
Cons
- As one-person professionals, they multi-task and may take time to start and finish different digital marketing projects. In addition, they cannot partially or fully delegate their work to a fellow digital marketer, so they’re obligated to complete multiple ongoing projects. As a result, any delay can negatively impact the workflow of Full Stack Marketers.
- They may have to prioritise a specific project over another. Certain digital marketing tasks are time-sensitive and have top priority over the others. Full Stack Marketers have to know how to manage their time well and decide which task or project to prioritise.
- Their ability to take on a variety of jobs may lead to a creative block or job burnout. Too many tasks and digital marketing campaigns to manage can overwhelm some Full Stack Marketers. Even if they pride themselves on being excellent at multi-tasking, they still have to make sure that they’re consistently producing quality work.
- They’re often perceived as “jack of all trades, master of none.” It’s somewhat challenging to master every element of digital marketing since it consists of many facets. That’s why Full Stack Marketers may not necessarily have the same mastery level of each aspect compared to subject-matter experts whose skill sets are highly specialised in a particular area.
Pros
- They’re highly trained, educated, and experienced in different fields of digital marketing approaches. They can take on various jobs, and they’re familiar with all aspects of digital marketing. When their familiarity with a particular topic isn’t enough, though, they quickly upskill with ease.
- They know how all digital marketing approaches work together, so they’re good at balancing the big picture with the essential details. They understand how SEO, content, social media, and inbound marketing work together to produce the best efforts and the most effective strategy. They always consider the big picture marketing plan before they set up different digital marketing approaches.
- They don’t have the same overhead costs as an entire digital marketing team. A fully-staffed digital marketing team is expensive. Full Stack Marketers already cover the skills of every digital marketing professional without the additional cost. They also have the flexibility to take on more work when needed.
- They prioritise their training so they can continually learn new digital marketing strategies. They’re aware that the digital marketing landscape constantly evolves, so they take advantage of online training programs. They’re always proactive in developing their skills because it gives them the career boost they need.
III. What are the essential skills of a full-stack marketer?
The full-stack marketer may not know precisely how to action every element of the list below, but they will need to understand and know enough to comprehensively brief a specialist and to know if that specialist is has executed the brief well.
1. Planning
A starting point for any digital marketing manager is the creation of an integrated digital marketing plan. A digital marketing plan is a document that outlines the marketing goals pursued by a company and encompasses strategies, timelines, channels, and budgets. Planning is important is it increases the likelihood of success in business marketing endeavors. A well-made plan should function as a road map of sorts with step-by-step instructions for achieving goals. Ultimately, this road map enables more efficient use of resources and creates a unified direction across different company departments because money is spent on targeted projects.
2. Branding & Design
Digital marketers are integral to the business of building brands for all online and electronic channels. If traditional marketing deals with print, TV, radio, or phone calls, digital marketing deals with everything online. A full-stack digital marketer will utilise every electronic platform to reach target audiences with consistent branded content and messaging that is appropriate for email, video, social media, and search engines
3. Financial forecasting
A key part of the process for creating marketing plans is financial forecasting – both for annual investment and for individual marketing campaigns. Creating accurate forecasts of the projected return from digital marketing is essential, especially given the growth in the proportion of spend and the results delivered from marketing initiatives. Digital marketers use data and analytical tools to generate forecasts. Accuracy is integral as this forms the basis of marketing strategies, plans, and overall budget allocation.
4. Auditing
Creative Click Media defines a digital marketing audit as “a thorough inspection of the practices and outcomes of your company’s digital marketing efforts. This includes your website, your social media accounts, the pay-per-click ads you run, and so on. The goal of a digital marketing campaign is to determine which elements of your marketing strategy are or aren’t successful in order to improve your processes.” While businesses know what they are putting out there in terms of their marketing messages and initiatives, without performing a regular audit, it is difficult to determine what those efforts are getting or not getting in return for the investment of time, creative effort, and investment.
5. HTML & Graphic Design
Design is a crucial part of marketing and digital marketers should at least have a basic understanding of how to custom code HTML – a standard markup language that deals with the language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets and scripting languages such as JavaScript but is mainly focused on the aesthetic aspect versus the more executable programming aspect.
Graphic design is widely considered as one of the most important aspects of digital marketing because it assists marketers to develop brand awareness and influence the decision-making process of their customers according to Spiralytics. Graphic design uses things like typography, images, colors, and symbols to contribute to the overall aesthetic of the message being conveyed. Additionally, design is also influenced by certain principles, trends, and concepts derived from studying consumer psychology in hopes of inspiring successful conversion activities.
6. SEO
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. In this regard, SEO must actually work closely with a content marketing strategy in order to get the fullest firepower for organic marketing efforts. Digital marketers use relevant keyword targeting and create content that corresponds to those keywords that brands want to be known for or associated with. For example, a local bakery might want to be known for its specialty red velvet cake. By adding special blogs and landing pages to its website that is all about red velvet cake would increase the quantity of website traffic from potential consumers looking to fulfil their red velvet cake craving.
7. (Organic) Social Media Marketing
Organic (as opposed to Paid) social media marketing is the use of non-paid content messages disseminated across social media platforms for the purpose of promoting a product or service. Increasing sales, attracting new leads, more website traffic, etc. are just some of the objectives of social media management. Digital marketers schedule, publish and analyze the data pertaining to social media engagement and activity in order to boost the brand’s overall marketing initiatives.
8. Analytics & Data
Digital Analytics is crucial to digital marketing, and without it, there would be no digital marketing. This metric tracks the efforts across all digital marketing channels, including strategies, content, e-books, call-to-actions, ads, remarketing, keywords, posts, email campaigns, designs, on-page, off-page, and more. A digital marketer will not be able to assess the development of the business for the work done without digital analytics, and one cannot just begin a digital marketing campaign and expect it to be successful. Furthermore, to distinguish out in this competitive industry, real-time tracking is a requirement.
9. Storytelling
According to Filtered Media, brand storytelling is “the use of authentic, emotional stories by an organisation to drive growth and foster customer loyalty.” Brand storytelling is a form of integrated marketing communications where brand-funded content is incorporated into a variety of media channels and go-to-market activities operated by an organization. This includes content marketing, social media, SEO, SEM, paid media, video, events, public relations (PR), overall brand strategy, messaging, and sales collateral.
10. Conversion optimisation
Conversion optimisation or Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is a method for increasing the number of website visitors that convert into customers, or more generally, take any desired action on a web page. For example, a landing page on the website that’s created for leads to sign up with a form (the conversion action) to attend an event can be optimised by adding a sizzle reel of last year’s event to encourage more people to attend.
11. Funnels
A marketing funnel is a visual representation of the steps a visitor takes from first finding out about your brand until they convert. Most commonly, a marketing funnel is comprised of four stages of awareness, interest, desire, and action. The digital marketer will plan a content lineup that corresponds with each of these four stages, bearing in mind what the prospective lead is looking for or motivated by at each stage of this funnel. For example, a lead that is in the interest stage is likely to be looking for more information regarding a product or service in order to find the right fit. Providing helpful information in the form of a brochure, educational blog posts, and the like are often used by digital marketers to facilitate decision making for a prospective lead.
12. Marketing automation
Marketing automation is about using software to automate repetitive marketing tasks. Marketing automation software often called customer relationship management (CRM) software, does the work of nurturing leads, automating marketing messages and content, and personalizing those messages to serve content that is relevant to what stage of the buyer’s journey a potential lead/customer may be in.
13. Video marketing
Statistics show that video content consumption across the top four social media platforms underscores how important having a video marketing strategy is in a digital marketer’s tool kit. Brands need a video marketing strategy to promote their products or services, increase engagement across social channels, educate their consumers, and continue to engage and delight their most loyal stakeholders. Digital Marketers know that, as a medium of instruction, videos are not only entertaining, they are educational. Edutainment is often the goal of video marketing – marketers are educating their consumers about the unique selling propositions of their brand and what a consumer stands to gain.
14. Content marketing
The contribution of information to content creation, particularly in digital marketing and media, for a specific audience in certain situations aids in determining which areas to enhance. The act of developing subject ideas that appeal to your audience and then developing written or graphic content around those themes is known as content creation. It’s all about making your knowledge and expertise clear to anybody who reads your product, service, or the business you are getting into. Digital marketers use content creation to assist them in achieving specific business objectives, such as attracting online traffic and new clients and target audiences.
15. Paid search marketing (Google Adwords, Bing)
Paid search marketing is a form of digital marketing where search engines like Google and Bing allow advertisers to show ads on their search engine results pages (SERPs). This form of marketing uses a cost per click (CPC) or cost per 1000x impressions (CPM) model, making it a controllable and measurable marketing channel compared to more traditional forms of advertising. Different ad formats include text ads, which can be seen at the top or bottom of the organic search results, or shopping ads, shown above the search results. Digital marketers use paid search engine marketing to add fuel to the fire of a robust content marketing strategy.
16. Paid social marketing (social, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter)
Paid social media is when brands pay money to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, YouTube, etc. to have their content shared with specific, targeted audiences who might be interested in their products or services. This can be done either through paying to “boost” organic content or by designing advertisements. Digital marketers have a variety of targeting options, depending on the social media platform of choice. Facebook, for example, allows for the creation of custom audiences and lookalike audiences that share traits or characteristics in common with a brand’s target demographic. LinkedIn allows marketers to target their audience according to job experience or position, their affiliation with special interest groups like trade associations, or education level.
17. Email Direct Marketing (EDM)
Email direct marketing is the act of sending a commercial message to a targeted group of people using email. Email marketing strategies commonly try to achieve some primary objectives such as brand awareness, continued brand loyalty through repeat business, or acquiring new customers by fostering trust and is an integral part of continual relationship-building and lead-nurturing. Digital marketers use email direct marketing as an effective content distribution medium to attract new leads, engage customers, and delight brand advocates.
18. Copywriting
Copywriting is the act or occupation of using persuasive writing for promotion or other forms of marketing. Sales copy is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a target audience to take a desirable action or a ‘conversion’ be it a sale, or a sign-up, etc. Digital marketers use copywriting to make compelling ads across different channels such as digital channels, print, radio, or television, taglines for display billboards, content for brochures, and social media syndications and other forms of marketing communications.
19. User Experience (UX)
With the sheer volume of commercial transactions done online, the quality of an individual’s online experience makes a huge impact on whether the user’s interactions with the web site’s user interface results in a successful conversion. Enlightened digital marketers know that they cannot afford to overlook the importance of intuitive User Experience (UX) design in facilitating more successful online conversions, especially when considering that 74% of people are more likely to return to a website if the UX is optimised for mobile.
20. E-commerce
Digital marketers use e-commerce marketing to advertise a brand’s whole online business or individual goods to increase sales. E-commerce is the practice of conducting business via the internet, whereas digital marketing is disseminating information over the internet. Digital marketing, when done right, is frequently the cause, while successful e-commerce transactions are the result of extraordinary cooperation.
IV. What are the characteristics of a Full Stack Marketer?
Since working with multi-skilled employees or remote workers makes more sense for startup founders and SME owners, familiarising oneself with the essential traits of a Full Stack Marketer is a practical first step to take.
1. They have a strategic mindset.
Full Stack Marketers not only execute tasks daily, but they’re able to look at the bigger picture and see how all digital marketing efforts work together. They also know which actions and measures need to be tweaked to achieve the short-term and long-term goals of the company.
2. They’re eager to learn new things.
Their willingness to acquire new skills and comprehend unfamiliar technology is well-founded because they know they have to keep up with industry news and trends.
3. They adapt well to changes.
The algorithms of popular digital platforms, such as Google and Facebook, change all the time. Full Stack Marketers keep abreast of these changes because they recognise the need to incorporate these shifts into digital marketing recommendations and content strategies.
4. Their technical expertise allows them to switch between digital marketing platforms with ease.
Juggling several tasks at once is typical for Full Stack Marketers. They’re adept at many must-have digital marketing tools, which they manage independently without much trouble.
5. Besides being creative and innovative, they’re good problem solvers.
The best Full Stack Marketers learn from their mistakes and spot opportunities from the mistakes they make. They’re aware that errors can reveal new ways to solve previous, recurring, or upcoming issues efficiently.
6. They know how to analyse data and gauge the success of any online campaign.
They routinely monitor results in real-time with the help of high-performance analytics. In addition, they understand how important it is to stay objective when setting and tracking KPIs (key performance indicators).
7. They practice effective cross-cultural communication.
They do this by balancing their hard skills with their soft skills, which allow them to produce online content that resonates well with the company’s customer base. They also use the same skillset to communicate professionally with their supervisors and clients.
V. Where do I find a Full Stack Marketer?
Now that you know the pros and cons of a Full Stack Marketer, you can decide if a one-stop-shop digital marketer is someone your business needs. An experienced Full Stack Marketer knows how to make the most of the digital marketing opportunities, especially if you don’t consider digital marketing a core business focus. Working with an outsourced professional also leads to financial advantages that can further propel your brand and business.
Click here to work with a Full Stack Marketer from My Cloud Crew.
VI. What is the salary of a Full Stack Marketer?
It depends on which country you look at. In the United States, a full-stack marketer’s salary can range anywhere from 65k to 150k per year. Full-stack marketing consultants could earn between $75 – $150 per hour.
VII. What are the benefits of having a Full Stack Marketer?
According to Riverbed Marketing, having full-stack marketers provides some distinct advantages in the B2B market. Among them are faster development cycles because coordination across different departments or teams is now unnecessary. Because full-stack marketers can handle each aspect of the marketing project and possess agility in project management from concept to completion, they can move quickly, adapt rapidly, and are agile. Also, full-stack marketers can decrease operational costs because they limit the number of specialists you need to have on payroll.
Conclusion
The characteristics of a Full Stack Marketer prove that digital marketing professionals with multidisciplinary skills can score quick wins for small companies in startup mode. The best fit for startups and SMEs, a Full Stack Marketer can make a big difference to a company’s online success, and of course, bottom line.
When you’re ready to experience the difference yourself, click here to work with a Full Stack Marketer from My Cloud Crew.
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Resources:
- https://www.webfx.com/blog/marketing/user-experience-matters-marketing/
- https://www.riverbedmarketing.com/full-stack-marketing-essential-in-b2b/
