The problem with getting marketing help, is not knowing where to go, but knowing when you’ve come to the right place. Aside from perusing resumes and profiles or speaking to a candidate about their job history and expertise, how can you know you’re finding yourself the right person for the job? Many strong marketing strategists tend to have similar personality traits and job skills that make them highly qualified to research, plan, and implement successful marketing strategies for your organization.

1. They are adaptable. Marketing is about getting a message to people. But, the channels from which people get their information, and through which you can reach them, are rapidly proliferating. For example, pay-per-click advertising like, AdWords, is subject to constant change as companies like Google and Facebook add new features that change how ads are presented to users. If you want your company to stay current, you need a marketing strategist who stays abreast of these changes. As the public starts using new media channels or older marketing channels change, your marketing strategist needs to know about these changes, evaluate them, understand them, and know how to convey a message across them.
2. They are results-oriented. If you view marketing as simply a cost center, instead of a driver of growth, whoever handles marketing for you is not doing a good job of measuring the outcome of your marketing efforts. While marketing isn’t solely based on numbers and metrics, you want a marketing strategist who details expenditure on campaigns, tracks conversions (be they leads or sales), calculates ROI, and tirelessly scrutinizes metrics to get the best understanding of how your campaigns are doing. Your business needs a marketing strategist who is knowledgeable about analytics and results-oriented. Otherwise, you have no idea what’s happening to the money you spend on marketing.
3. They are patient. While short-term solutions are critical for immediately addressing good and bad results, you also want a marketing strategist who doesn’t give up on a campaign if it isn’t an overnight success. The results of your marketing campaigns are subject to many variables, such as seasonal variations in demand and fluctuations in traffic on the channels you target. Further, the effect of your campaign is unlikely to be instantaneous. Your potential clients may only respond after several attempts at reaching them and, even then, they may need time to educate themselves about your product or service offerings. A marketing professional who is patient will set appropriate milestones and not pull the plug on a campaign before there is adequate data to evaluate its success and a proper opportunity to adjust the campaign to see if results can be improved.
4. They are ambitious. Complacency has never lead to success, in business or elsewhere. It’s one thing for your marketing professional to monitor the success of a campaign; it’s another to scrutinize the results of every campaign to figure out how results can be improved. Your marketing strategist should also evaluate new channels for marketing and re-evaluating old channels to see if they fit your current business needs.

A strong marketing strategist will be constantly seeking ways to improve their skills and stay current on the technology and tactics necessary to properly market your business. They will have the ability to focus on and plan for short-term and long-term marketing goals through careful monitoring of metrics and patience. Looking for these four critical characteristics when employing a marketing strategist can improve your company’s chances of deploying successful marketing strategies and result in a higher ROI on overall marketing costs.