I want to answer this question in the context of how marketing and advertising has evolved.

There was once a time where all a brand or business had to do to bring attention to their product or service was to bombard potential customers with it. That doesn’t work anymore. These in-your-face tactics feel overwhelming, intrusive, and quite honestly…annoying.

This shift is largely due to the ubiquity of the Internet and social media. The arrival of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest, just to name a few, gave customers the chance to interact with the brand. As a customer, this meant that if you didn’t want to see an ad from any brand—if you thought you saw it too often or if it wasn’t relevant to you—all you had to do was click “I don’t want to see this.”

This put a lot of pressure on brands to deliver more value in the way they presented their products or services to potential customers. This is where content marketing comes in. Content marketing is effective and cost-efficient. In fact, according to an Aberdeen study cited by Neil Patel, “conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters.”

However, adopting is just half the story. You need a content marketer that can effectively manage and implement the different strategies available today, and do it effectively. You also want someone who actually understands how to communicate brand offerings so that it adds value to their audience’s lives. 

So, what should you look out for to ensure that they have the expertise and inherent skills to get the job done well? Here is my checklist of what makes a great content marketer:

1. Great content marketers are analytical thinkers

The great thing about content marketing is that you can easily track the metrics needed to make more informed and insightful decisions about your brand. This often involves a lot of numbers and data that—to the untrained eye—can be overwhelming and difficult to interpret.

To that end, a good content marketer will have the experience to know what to do if they notice high bounce rates, for example. They should be able to understand how information gathered from metrics can help manage budgets better.

2. Great content marketers are strategic

Having a great instinct for marketing is a huge plus. However, great marketers are, at the end of the day, strategic how they approach their work. They have systems in place that ensure meticulous implementation of plans. They approach everything—from content planning to publishing—with thought, precision, and flexibility.

3. Great content marketers are creative

Marketing in this day and age is about telling a story. To tell a good story, you need to be creative. You need a marketer that will approach topics and subject matter that’s been told over and over again from a fresh perspective. You want a marketer to be creative enough to see your product and service from different angles so they can communicate its relevance to as many audiences as possible.

Bottom line…  

Great content marketers are essentially the jack-of-all-trades of marketing. This makes them agile in an industry that requires them to be adaptable given how quickly the business is evolving. In my years in content marketing, I find that these three traits encompass the qualities that make an effective content marketer. Do you agree? I’d love to hear what you think—so shoot me an email at Leadspanda.