The Ultimate Guide to Hiring a Growth Marketer

Your business is picking up speed, but you need one final push to make it big. Enter: growth marketing.

Whether you want to hire a marketing freelancer or have an agency take care of your needs, this guide will give you the how, why, what, and where of the hiring process for a growth marketer. The best growth marketers are enthusiastic about innovative marketing approaches and value the freedom and flexibility that freelance work provides. This makes them an ideal choice for businesses looking to accelerate growth without the commitment of long-term contracts.

Best for High-Quality Growth Marketers

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• Elite, “Top 3%” of marketing talent in the world.
• 48-hour talent matching, with 75% of clients hiring their first match.

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What is Growth Marketing and Why Do You Need It?

Growth marketing is a data-driven approach to marketing that focuses on using digital strategies to drive growth and customer acquisition. Unlike traditional marketing, which often takes a long-term view, growth marketing is agile and iterative, allowing for rapid experimentation and optimization. Growth marketers employ a variety of digital strategies, each paired with data-collection tools to provide immediate feedback and insights.

The primary goal of growth marketing is to build an ever-growing base of loyal customers. This is achieved by continuously testing and refining marketing tactics to find the most effective ways to attract, engage, and retain customers. Growth marketing is essential for companies looking to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. It allows businesses to quickly adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs, ensuring they remain relevant and effective.

By investing in growth marketing, businesses can measure and track the performance of their marketing efforts in real-time. This data-driven approach enables companies to make informed decisions, optimize their strategies, and ultimately drive customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth. In essence, growth marketing is about creating scalable growth strategies that can propel a business forward in a sustainable manner.

Considerations for Hiring a Growth Marketer

When hiring a growth marketer, several key considerations should guide your decision-making process. First and foremost, it’s essential to clearly define the role and responsibilities of the growth marketer within your organization. This includes identifying the specific skills and experience required for the position. A proficient growth marketer should have a strong understanding of data analysis, marketing strategy, and experience in A/B testing and campaign optimization.

The company’s growth stage and goals are also critical factors to consider. For early-stage companies, a growth marketer may need to wear multiple hats, handling tasks such as social media marketing, email marketing, and content creation. In contrast, more established companies might require a growth marketer to focus on optimizing the entire marketing funnel and driving customer acquisition through more specialized tactics.

Additionally, it’s important to consider the company’s culture and values. A growth marketer should be able to work well under pressure, manage multiple projects simultaneously, and adapt quickly to changing market conditions. They should align with your company’s ethos and be able to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams to drive growth.

Considerations for Hiring Growth Marketer

When hiring a growth marketer, there are several key considerations you should keep in mind regarding the type of growth marketer, the scope of the work you need, and your company’s goals. A growth marketer plays a crucial role in driving the company's growth strategy, tailoring customer engagement to different business models and making long-term strategic decisions.

Here are some important factors to consider:

Type of Growth Marketer

• Generalist vs. Specialist: Decide whether you need a growth marketer who can handle multiple aspects of growth marketing or a specialist who focuses on a specific area like user acquisition, retention, conversion optimization, or product-led growth.
• Growth Marketing Managers: When hiring growth marketing managers, it's crucial to identify the specific skills and experience required for these roles. Look for candidates with a proven track record in growth strategies, data analysis, and cross-functional collaboration. Additionally, consider their expertise in areas such as user acquisition, retention, and conversion optimization. Understanding industry expectations regarding compensation and the impact of company size and market type on their responsibilities can also guide your hiring process.
• Industry expertise: Consider whether industry-specific knowledge matters for your business since certain industries might require a deeper understanding of things like market dynamics, consumer behavior, or regulatory considerations.

Scope of Responsibilities

• Channel expertise: Determine which marketing channels you feel are essential for your business growth, like social media, content marketing, SEO, paid advertising, email marketing, influencer marketing, or partnerships. A comprehensive growth marketing strategy is crucial in this scope, as it involves creating and executing strategies aimed at increasing customer acquisition and engagement, ensuring sustainable business growth.

Goals and Objectives

• Define your growth goals: Define and articulate your growth objectives, whether it's increasing user acquisition, improving conversion rates, enhancing customer retention, or expanding into new markets.
• Long-term vs. short-term focus: Consider whether you need a growth marketer who can deliver immediate results or develop more long-term strategies for sustainable, consistent growth.

Remember to clearly communicate your expectations, and provide context about your business to ensure you find the right growth marketer who aligns with your goals and can best contribute to your organization's growth.

How to Hire a Growth Marketer: Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s take it step-by-step.

1. Define Why You Want to Hire a Growth Marketer

The first step is knowing why you’re hiring a growth marketer in the first place.

Are you starting to pick up steam with your business? Is your target market buying what you’re selling?

You may need a growth marketer to keep up the momentum. You may want a growth marketer to handle growing your social media presence, incorporate PPC advertising into your marketing strategy, or reach an even larger audience.

Once you know your “why,” it’s time to determine your “who.”

2. Decide Whether You Want a Freelance Growth Marketer or Agency

This step requires you to consider your budget and needs to find a match that meets both.

Suppose you want an all-inclusive growth marketing plan encompassing social media, SEO, PPC, and other marketing avenues to achieve maximum growth and take your company from good to great. In that case, you’ll likely need a growth marketing agency.

If you just need a hand in making your social media presence more significant, it may be more financially sensible to hire a freelance growth marketer for a shorter time.

3. Create a Job Description

If you’re going the marketing freelancer route, you’ll need to craft a winning job description that attracts the right candidates.

Include all of the necessary specifics like pay, experience requirements, the scope of the job, and what industry expertise your growth marketer needs to have. It’s also a good idea to include information about your company culture to make sure your candidates would be a good fit personality-wise. Emphasize the importance of lifecycle marketing, ensuring candidates have a solid understanding of customer acquisition and retention strategies.

If you’re going with an agency, you need to be clear about expectations and needs. This means planning out exactly what you want to tell the marketing agency about your expected marketing outcomes as well as any personality types that you would prefer if possible.

4. Hold Interviews

If you go the freelancer route, you will need to hold interviews with your prospective growth marketing candidates. Many agencies will also have you interview some hand-picked marketers so that you can curate a winning team of individuals that fit your needs.

Ask a mix of questions including ones about experience level, prior work and results, and ones that allow you to understand the candidate’s personality so that you can determine if they would be a good fit for your company culture. It's also crucial to assess their understanding of growth marketing tactics to ensure they can effectively integrate within your existing marketing team.

We’ll cover some good interview questions later.

5. Track Performance

Once you found your growth marketer or agency, it’s crucial to maintain consistent communication with them about your goals and their progress.

Tracking performance is essential to determine if this agency or freelancer is meeting your goals and if you want to continue the working relationship.

Analyzing KPI-related things like social media engagement, ROI, user acquisition, conversion rates, and customer retention.

What Does a Growth Marketer Do?

A growth marketer implements marketing strategies to drive user acquisition, engagement, and retention, all to accelerate business growth.

The primary focus of a growth marketer is to leverage digital marketing channels and techniques to optimize marketing campaigns and achieve measurable results.

This includes things like conducting market research to identify target audiences and develop customer personas, and planning and executing digital advertising campaigns across various channels like search engines (PPC), social media platforms, and affiliate marketing.

When to Hire a Growth Marketer

The best time to hire a growth marketer is once your company has achieved product/market fit.

In other words, once you have a strong value proposition, people find out about your product or service by word of mouth, you have a steady stream of customers and sales, and your product or service solves a problem within a large market.

What to Look for in a Growth Marketer

Whether you choose an agency or a freelancer, here’s what you need to look for.

Characteristics

It’s important that your growth marketer has a collaborative approach to their job and is generally pleasant to work with.

These characteristics include things like:

• Alignment with company culture: The growth marketer's values, work style, and ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams are important components of a growth marketer. Cultural fit is crucial for hiring a growth marketer to make collaboration stress-free.
• Analytical mindset: A growth marketer should possess strong analytical skills and be comfortable working with data.
• Creativity: Analytical skills are essential, however, a growth marketer also needs to think creatively to develop innovative marketing campaigns and strategies that capture audience attention to drive growth.
• Curiosity and willingness to learn: A growth marketer should have a natural curiosity and desire to stay updated on the latest industry trends, tools, and techniques. Ideally, they should be eager to learn and adapt to new strategies.
• Strategic thinking: The ability to see the bigger picture and develop a cohesive strategy that aligns with the organization's objectives is an important characteristic that every growth marketer should have.
• Data-driven decision-making: Growth marketers must base their decisions on data.
• Agility and adaptability: The ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions, consumer behavior, and emerging technologies is important for a growth marketer. They should be agile in adjusting strategies and trying out new and different approaches.
• Passion for growth: Look for a growth marketer who is genuinely passionate about driving growth and achieving success. They should be enthusiastic about their work, highly motivated, and committed to making a significant impact on your business’s growth.

Skills

A great growth marketer should possess a combination of technical and soft skills to effectively drive growth.

Here are the skills that are crucial for a growth marketer:

• Data Analysis and Interpretation: A growth marketer should be skilled in analyzing data and drawing actionable insights from it. This includes proficiency in tools like Google Analytics, Excel, or data visualization platforms to measure and track key metrics, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.
• Digital Advertising and Campaign Management: Proficiency in managing digital advertising campaigns across various platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or LinkedIn Ads is essential. A growth marketer should know campaign setup, targeting, ad optimization, budget management, and tracking.
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): CRO skills include the ability to optimize landing pages, website elements, and user flows that maximize conversion rates. A growth marketer should have experience with A/B testing, usability testing, heatmaps, and other CRO techniques.
• Content Marketing: A growth marketer should possess skills in content creation, distribution, and promotion across various channels such as blogs, social media, email, and video marketing.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Understanding the fundamentals of SEO is essential for a growth marketer. They should be knowledgeable about both on-page and off-page optimization techniques, keyword research, website structure, and content optimization.
• Email Marketing and Automation: Proficiency in email marketing tools and automation platforms is key. A growth marketer should be able to develop email marketing campaigns, segment audiences, set up automation workflows, and optimize email performance.
• Growth Hacking and Experimentation: A growth marketer should know all of the different growth hacking techniques including viral loops, referral programs, and product-led growth strategies.

Qualifications

Qualifications for a growth marketer can vary depending on the specific requirements of the role within your organization.

Here are a few common qualifications that may be a good marker of a great growth marketer:

• Education and Marketing Background: A bachelor's degree in marketing, business, or a related field is often preferred, as a solid educational foundation in marketing principles and strategies will provide a strong base for a growth marketer.
• Relevant Experience: Prior experience in digital marketing, growth marketing, or a related field is also highly valued. You should look for candidates who have a proven track record of driving growth and implementing successful marketing campaigns.
• Technical Skills: Proficiency in various digital marketing tools and platforms is essential. Look for qualifications in areas such as Google Analytics, SEO tools, marketing automation platforms, content management systems, and advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads Manager.
• Analytical Abilities: Qualifications in data analysis, statistical analysis, or experience in using data visualization tools can be valuable.
• Certifications: While not mandatory, certifications from reputable organizations or platforms can demonstrate a candidate's expertise and commitment to continuous learning. Look for certifications in areas such as Google Ads, Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Facebook Blueprint.

How Much Do Growth Marketers Cost?

Since growth marketing encompasses a large variety of tasks and positions, the price range can vary greatly.

That being said, freelance growth marketers can cost from $25 per hour/ $2,000 per project to $200 per hour/ $5,000 + per project.

Growth marketing agencies can cost between $3,000 per month/ $20,000 per project and $30,000 per month/ $200,000 per project.

Where to Find a Growth Marketer

To find the highest-quality growth marketers available, we recommend using MarketerHire (check out why in our review.) They work with companies to get a sense of what they’re looking for, then match those companies with highly-vetted growth marketing talent within just 48 hours. With MarketerHire, you get the best of both worlds with freelancing and a marketing agency. You can also use it to find brand marketers or fractional CMOs.

If you’re looking for something different or just want to see your options, use Agency Matchmaker to be matched with an agency.

Best for High-Quality Growth Marketers

---

MarketerHire

• Strength in brand marketing, growth marketing, and fractional CMOs.
• Elite, “Top 3%” of marketing talent in the world.
• 48-hour talent matching, with 75% of clients hiring their first match.

Learn More

 

Match With the Perfect Agency in Less Than 1 Minute!

Unlock the perfect agency match for free with our agency conierge experts in 60 seconds

Start Matching

And if you’re looking for a freelancer and don’t care as much about their level of experience, Fiverr has talent working at low hourly rates. Be aware that this will mean more work for you and a bit of a gamble talent-wise.

Best Practices for Working with a Growth Marketer

To maximize the impact of a growth marketer, it’s essential to follow best practices that foster a productive working relationship. Start by setting clear goals and objectives for the growth marketer. This includes defining key performance indicators (KPIs) and establishing a data-driven approach to marketing. Clear goals provide direction and a benchmark for measuring success.

Providing the necessary resources and support is also crucial. Ensure the growth marketer has access to data analytics tools, marketing automation software, and a budget for experimentation and testing. These resources enable them to execute their strategies effectively and make data-driven decisions.

Regular communication and feedback are vital when working with a growth marketer. Schedule consistent check-ins to discuss progress, provide feedback, and adjust the marketing strategy as needed. This ongoing dialogue helps ensure alignment and allows for timely adjustments to optimize performance.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Implementing Growth Marketing

When implementing growth marketing, several common mistakes can hinder your success. One major pitfall is adopting a “set it and forget it” approach. Growth marketing requires ongoing experimentation, testing, and optimization to drive results. It’s a dynamic process that demands continuous attention and adjustment.

Another mistake is relying too heavily on a single marketing channel or tactic. A successful growth marketer should be versatile, using a variety of digital strategies to drive growth. This adaptability ensures that your marketing efforts remain effective even as market conditions and customer behaviors change.

Failing to measure and track the performance of marketing efforts is another common error. A growth marketer should provide regular reporting and analysis, using data to inform marketing decisions and optimize the strategy. Without this data-driven approach, it’s challenging to understand what’s working and what needs improvement.

Lastly, underestimating the importance of customer experience can be detrimental. A growth marketer should create a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints, from awareness to advocacy. By avoiding these common mistakes, businesses can enhance their growth marketing efforts and achieve sustainable growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a growth marketer do?

A growth marketer implements marketing strategies to drive user acquisition, engagement, and retention, all to accelerate business growth.

How do I find a growth marketer?

To find a growth marketer, identify your needs, then try Agency Matchmaker or MarketerHire to find top growth marketing talent.

How much do growth marketers make?

Growth marketers make between $25 to $200 per hour, or between $2,000 and $5,000 per project.

Where is the best place to find a growth marketer?

MarketerHire is our favorite place for finding a growth marketer.