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How to Hire a dMBA

DIGITAL MARKETING BAD ASS

How to Hire a dMBA 2

ABSTRACT Digital marketing channels are overtaking traditional channels, even among the world’s most well-established brands. More than ever, firms need digital marketing expertise at their highest levels. Yet, we don’t have a fleet of business schools minting the talent to fill the digital marketing skill-gap. There are, however, effective approaches to filling strategy-level positions with digital expertise. “How to Hire a dMBA” reveals the approach of Response Mine Interactive, a digital marketing agency. Leading brands turn to RMI for digital expertise they can’t replicate in-house. RMI owes much of its success to its ability to consistently out-hire in the arena of digital executives. This is an inside look at RMI’s hiring approach.

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INTRODUCTIONIn the 1980s, the MBA became a gold standard for executive employers. The promise was, you could hire an MBA knowing he or she would have a sound foundation for a variety of executive roles. But the internet-driven customer acquisition renaissance that began in the 1990s created a skill-gap. Traditional skills of customer acquisition became less relevant. In the gap arose a new kind of MBA — a Digital Marketing Bad Ass — a dMBA. A generation later, business schools still haven’t stepped in to fill the void. Demand for digital marketing expertise continues to grow, while supply remains short. And that makes hiring a dMBA a unique challenge.

Consider the roles of various executives from CEOs, CFOs and CTOs. Most C-level managers are pursuing objectives based on well-established disciplines such as finance, managerial and financial accounting, sales or manufacturing technologies. Sure, every executive copes with change. But few facets of business have seen the ultra-rapid change of marketing channels.

This fast change has rewritten the rules of customer acquisition, yet customers remain the one single thing every business must have. The most traveled avenues to acquire customers today didn’t even exist 10 years ago. They weren’t even imagined. Digital channels have evolved from commercial side streets in the ’90s to becoming the main thoroughfares — the interstates of retail, and a growing percentage of wholesale business. In organizations that use both digital and traditional channels, digital is fast-growing while traditional is often receding. Television, radio and print are giving way to internet SEO, pay-per-click, Facebook, Yelp and a dozen other platforms. And more large firms are putting their central focus — sometimes all of their focus — on digital strategies.

Because digital marketing has become the main thoroughfare, managers can no longer simply staff-out digital tasks; they need to posses digital expertise themselves. They need digital expertise to plan, strategize and anticipate. C-level, VP and director-level managers must include dMBAs or give up market share to competitors who have seen the light.


The Essence of the Problem is Rapid ChangeIt’s tempting to call this problem — the difficulty of hiring a dMBA — a skill-gap, because there is indeed a skill-gap. But that’s really just a symptom of the problem. The essence of the problem is rapid change. Because of rapid changes in technology and telecommunications, marketing channels have shifted in the way floods sometimes shift the course of a river, cutting new, more efficient channels directly towards their destination.

Rapid change is the reason business schools have not adapted to fill this digital marketing need, the way they prepare people for finance or management tasks. Rapid change is the reason there is no obvious path to arrive at dMBA status. You will see that identifying rapid change as the source of the problem will be instrumental in overcoming the skill-gap, finding and retaining your dMBA — not just for today’s needs, but for tomorrow’s.

To understand how rapid change has helped define the nature of dMBAs, we can reason through the problem this way: If there are no schools to create dMBAs, and there is no single career path to dMBA-dom, and all this change happened quickly, it is logical to conclude that dMBAs must have learned this stuff largely on their own. They had to improvise their own education. They had to seek something that was not available in an easy-to-consume form.

That is the most important insight into the dMBA: Rapid change created chaos where relative predictability used to be. And the people who filled the gap — and continue to fill the gap — are stimulated by the excitement of a fast-changing environment.


The Essence of the Solution is “Leading the Ball”The first time we try to hit a baseball we quickly learn that the ball has moved between the time we decide to swing and the time our bat reaches the ball. That’s the nature of rapid change. So we learn to “lead the ball.” We learn to anticipate where the ball will be by considering its rate of change. And that’s what we need to do when we hire a dMBA.

The way to lead the ball when hiring a dMBA is by making sure your candidate is right for fast change — making sure your candidate isn’t just right for today, but will be right for the changed environment of next quarter, next year and the year after that.


Executive Summary All of the recruiting and hiring skills that apply to other executive roles also apply to hiring a Digital Marketing Bad Ass, but there are a couple of fundamental differences. We’re going to teach you why the fast change of digital marketing means you need to focus on the unteachable attributes of the dMBA. We’ll show you that distinguishing the traits of a bona fide dMBA from digital marketing window dressing is the most essential part of this hiring process. If a candidate is not made of the stuff true dMBAs are made of — while they may be very valuable — they probably won’t be the candidate who thrives, long-term, in rapid change.


A Step-by-Step SummaryADOPTING A PHILOSOPHY FOR RAPID CHANGE You’ll learn a philosophical secret about the dMBA’s mindset. And you’ll get some insight into why this mindset needs to be at the top of your hiring priorities.

KNOW THE dMBA ARCHETYPE The most important part of this process is knowing how to identify the true dMBA. This is the blueprint. You’ll learn the unusual combination of traits common to dMBAs.

KNOW THE dMBA’S BACKGROUND Because there is no clearly marked path to digital marketing executivehood, the academic and professional background of the dMBA is not necessarily what you would think. Here, you’ll learn the common paths dMBAs actually take to their dMBA status.

KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOUR dMBA You’ll learn an important secret about the world of dMBAs and five doors in which you can enter their network, including one for “pre-dMBAs” and one for the most advanced dMBAs.

AN ENVIRONMENT TO RETAIN dMBAS After showing you how to find and confirm dMBAs, we talk about creating the environment that will cause a dMBA to say “yes” to your offer.

SKILLS OF THE dMBA We cover the fundamental skills and the major platforms of the dMBA.

DEfiNING THE JOB AND WRITING THE AD We’ll show you how to use your knowledge of the dMBA archetype to cut the clutter and capture the attention of bona fide dMBAs.

BENEfiTS OF PERFECTING THE dMBA HIRE Getting it right produces a lot more than a happy place to work. It produces an innovative and profitable environment.

OUTSOURCING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING BAD ASSES The digital economy rewards firms who look to top digital agencies to lead their marketing initiatives. In fact, leading agencies are the actual source of the expertise you’re after.

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Adopting a Philosophy for Rapid Change “Philosophy” may not sound like a concrete step in a process — but — adjusting the way you think about hiring for this role is actually one of the most important steps. The premise of the philosophy is simple:

Not only has digital marketing changed rapidly in the past, you can expect it will continue to change rapidly in the future.

That doesn’t mean things will change in two or three years. It means they’re changing right now. And it’s observable change. It’s the second hand on the clock, not the minute hand. You can anticipate that today’s high-priority digital skills may be replaced with something else tomorrow. That is why the dMBA candidate is the candidate who stays out in front of the trend — not because it’s required — but because it is her nature to do so.

Enjoying fast change. Thriving in fast change. Being invigorated, inspired, stimulated and challenged by fast change.

Those are hallmarks of the dMBA.

The same fast change that produces anxiety in most people is experienced as excitement by the dMBA.

dMBA

Search

Social Media

Pictures

Forum

Social Bookmarking

Blogs

Tagging

ArticlesMicro

Blogging

Podcast

Communities

Wikis

Social Media

Video

MarketingSharing

Web 2.0

A HABIT OF LOOKING AT THE HORIZON

It just so happens that the trait of experiencing fast change as thrilling, rather than dangerous, is the same outlook as a racecar driver’s. Like any occupation, the racecar driver needs to develop a number of skills — steering, shifting, braking and so on. But those skills are not the essence of a great driver. The essence of a great driver is the ability to mentally slow things down. It’s the ability to be calm at 170mph — to manage chaos at high speed. The essence of the dMBA is the same.

And wouldn’t you know it, the way in which racecar drivers cope with high speed is conceptually the same as dMBAs. How do they do it? They look at the horizon. Or said another way, they look further into the future.

Here’s how it works. From a racecar driver’s point of view, if you’re going 170mph, the ground around you is a blur — it’s whizzing by very, very fast. But the horizon doesn’t move especially fast, even at triple-digit speeds. The racecar driver’s focus is habitually to the horizon. Most people can’t deal with that kind of speed because their focus is immediately in front of them where everything is a blur.

It’s an inborn trick — a mental habit — that all dMBAs have. And it works for the dMBA for the exact same reason it works for the racecar driver. By looking further out into the future, the dMBA sees events as they first begin to unfold. She watches them develop, which has the effect of making them appear slower. It becomes interesting and exciting instead of overwhelming, as if change sneaked up on her.

Your dMBA candidate may not tip you off by wearing racing gloves, but look for a long-term trend of being an early adopter. You want to know when the dMBA jumped into trends and why. Was it because the market forced a change? Or was it because he’d been watching change from its inception and curiosity pulled him in? You want to know what events your candidate sees on the horizon now. What developments interest her? What forces does he believe will cause change in the future? True dMBAs jumped in early because they were watching the horizon, and they can tell you what’s approaching in the distance because they continue to watch the horizon.



THE DOOGIE HOWSER EFFECT

The Doogie Howser Effect references the early ’90s TV show in which a child prodigy becomes the world’s youngest doctor at the age of 14. He’s got grown-up responsibilities, but he’s still 14. There are a lot of Doogie Howsers in the dMBA world. They’re not teenage doctors who still live with their parents. But they are often very young executives who achieved digital marketing expertise faster than it takes most people to develop the soft-skills of top managers. This is not to say your dMBA candidate isn’t a good manager. But it is to say, it’s more likely you will have to help develop a candidate’s soft-skills than to help a candidate develop digital marketing skills. They’ll do that on their own.

You may also need to manage a twenty-something executive a little differently than a forty-plus executive. Often, that means emotional management — a little more emotional support — and perhaps a peer group to function more as a family. Those things can make a big difference for a younger dMBA. Knowing they have a supportive environment can be extremely enticing, especially for candidates who are taking a step up in their responsibilities.


THE dMBA HIRING PRIORITIES

For other strategy-level positions, soft-skills such as the ability to give a speech or to motivate and manage a group of managers can be the most important skills. Because of the unique market dynamics shaping digital marketing, the priorities for hiring a dMBA are a little different. It is most important to identify the core traits of the true dMBA.

This is why you focus on traits, then hard skills and finally soft skills. The candidate with the essential traits of a Digital Marketing Bad Ass can serve you long into the future. The candidate without these traits is unlikely to adapt to change.

The candidate must thrive on change, because

things will continue to change quickly. You can’t teach this part. You have to find a candidate who is

wired this way.

By defining the specific objectives you want to

achieve, you’ll know the skills you need. But

remember: This skill-set is a moving target. It will be

different tomorrow.

You can find dMBAs who are great managers.

Although, you should understand that soft-skills

do not typically run as deep in this talent pool as

in older groups. Considering how to help the candidate develop in this area is beneficial to

you and to the candidate.

DMBA TRAITS 1 2 3

HARD-SKILLS SOFT-SKILLS


Know The dMBA Archetype True dMBAs are a specific breed. While the dMBA’s résumé varies, this archetype is very consistent. The bona fide dMBA will posses these traits in abundance. A candidate whose personality is clearly outside of this archetype may be a great talent, but she may not be the right fit to thrive in this role long-term.

AN INNOVATOR’S PASSION The dMBA’s passion is not just high energy and enthusiasm. It’s not just a good attitude. It’s an attraction to new ideas, new technologies and new ways of doing things. Rather than courting stable and predictable outcomes, the dMBA is drawn to a certain degree of chaos. The light that drives the dMBA is often described as an entrepreneurial spirit — the spirit of a seeker of sorts.

AVANT-GARDE We don’t mean avant-garde in the art sense, but in the intellectual sense. The French military coined this term to refer to the group that breaks through a forward line. The elite guard. Those who choose the battlefront over the safety of a strategy table. That is the spirit of the avant-garde: Going where the action is, not because it’s safe, but because it’s where the battle is being defined.

AUTODIDACTISM The autodidact is someone who knows how to teach herself how to do something, often with greater proficiency than others might learn in a classroom. Autodidacts tend to be both experiential learners and abstract thinkers. If you look for it, you will see this ability in just about every dMBA.


INQUISITIVENESS The dMBA is aggressively curious. He doesn’t just want to understand the forces that drive a phenomena, he wants to prove it. He wants to reveal those forces. This is the essence of science and it’s the reason why dMBAs often have exposure to scientific method, most often from social sciences. They love to experiment, observe and measure.

THE “FAILURE IS OPPORTUNITY” ATTITUDE Business is a very objective-oriented world. We want to succeed. But that often leads to the belief that failure has no value and should be avoided at all cost. Yet, observing failure can be the greatest resource we have. Failure can illuminate. Failure is the opportunity to understand, and understanding lights the way to success. Digital Marketing Bad Asses understand that failure is opportunity. They are like the NTSB. Show them a plane wreck, and they don’t fret; they figure out how to build a safer plane.

NEGATIVE CAPACITY Negative capacity describes the ability to simultaneously work with two or more competing ideas without clamping down on one or the other. It’s the ability to consider without accepting. It’s a commonality among high achievers in both art and science. Negative capacity is important to digital marketing because the marketer has to be willing to let information light the way. And information often tells us we have to look at things in a new light. Negative capacity lets the digital marketer listen to the story the data is trying to tell.

DMBAS ARE VERY SOCIAL DMBAs are not loners or “nerds,” although people sometimes think that they are. Consider a piece of philosophy from Steve Jobs: You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards. This philosophy is common to dMBAs. Sure, they have technical skills and quantitative backgrounds, but it’s their capacity to connect with people that helps them see the phenomenon behind the numbers.

FirstAttemp in Learning


Know the dMBA’s Background You’ll find common denominators in the paths dMBAs took to their current dMBA status. For most, college was part of their path, but their college curriculum is seldom an obvious link to digital marketing. The programs common to dMBAs might surprise you a little, because they’re not necessarily marketing programs or computer-related.

THE COMMON dMBA BACKGROUNDS:

SOCIAL SCIENCES Big picture social sciences are great backgrounds to help people conceptualize and problem solve in the digital marketing world. You’ll notice that these backgrounds share an essential commonality with the dMBA. They require the hard-skills of quantitative analysis, but those skills are applied to the organic, soft-skill world of human behavior.

The dMBA uses quantitative approaches to optimize human interactions. We’re not dealing with physics, chemistry or periodic tables. We’re dealing with people. Sociology and economics, in particular, have adapted quantitative techniques to help think about group behavior. And psychology provides marketing insight into individual behavior.

MATH Consider the reason quantitative analysis became highly relevant in digital marketing. Data is a natural byproduct of digital channels. Everything consumers do in digital channels leaves a residue of data — invisible binary clues. These clues may not mean much when taken at face value. But quantitative analysis can turn data into a road map that tells firms exactly what their customers want and don’t want — what their customers will respond to.

Social Sciences:

Psychology, Sociology, Economics

Math: Statistics,

Quantitative Analysis

Traditional Marketing Channels

Digital Marketing Experience


The dMBA doesn’t have to be a math prodigy; you don’t need to hire Blaise Pascal. But you do want to hire somebody who feels comfortable with quantitative reasoning — someone who is proficient at a variety of quantitative analytic skills, especially those common in statistics and applied in sociology and economics.

The dMBA isn’t just using “pure logic” of arithmetic or algebraic expressions; she is using abstract modeling. You want a candidate who can use the concepts of dependent and independent variables to understand a causal chain — someone who has worked with data to model real world phenomena. You want someone who can infer a narrative from a pile of numbers. That is a candidate who is acutely aware that there is a person on the other side of the data.

TRADITIONAL MARKETING CHANNELS Lots of dMBAs come from a traditional marketing background. However, it’s important to understand that not every traditional marketing background is an equal springboard to dMBA-dom. The more conceptual world of branding agencies doesn’t generally produce dMBAs.

Traditional direct response backgrounds are a very good path to becoming a dMBA — billboards, television, radio, print, direct mail. Those all have direct parallels to digital marketing channels. There are conceptual similarities, and in many cases skills carry over perfectly.

Anyone who thrived in these traditional channels has demonstrated many of the building blocks to be a dMBA. Just add the quantitative piece and a deep-seated love of future-trending and you may have a winner.

DIGITAL MARKETING EXPERIENCE To be a dMBA a candidate already has digital marketing experience. They were very often pursuing one career path when they were bitten by the digital marketing bug and made a horizontal shift in whatever organization they were working in. And because they loved it and it suited them, they rose.


Know Where to Find Your dMBA Finding dMBAs is not an exact science. But there are approaches you can take that will predictably bring you into contact with excellent dMBA candidates interested in your opportunity.

Intermediate and top-level dMBAs tend to walk the same corridors. They often form a community. And the surprising thing is, the community just isn’t all that big. In fact it’s pretty small, and you need to know that.

Here are five entry points into the dMBA community. We included an entry-level door, as some of you may want to grow your own dMBAs.

CAREER CENTERS WITHIN BUSINESS SCHOOLS Colleges and universities have been slow to begin teaching digital marketing, but they are starting. From the University of Georgia to NYU and online schools such as Full Sail University, we’re beginning to see certificate programs in digital marketing. But the existence of these programs doesn’t necessarily give employers an ideal opportunity to meet candidates. There are job fairs in which you might collect 500 résumés, but that’s a labor- and time-intensive way of meeting candidates. If you want to meet the digital marketing leaders, try looking directly to digital marketing organizations, often active within the schools career center. Career centers are a great place to identify the students who are most passionate about digital marketing.

Pre-dMBACareer Centers Within Business Schools

Entry-level door Intermediate dMBAProfessional Organizations

Intermediate dMBAEmployee Referrals

Advanced dMBALinkedIn

Advanced dMBAPersonal Network

dMBA


You’ll find that the most enthusiastic and passionate people will have sought out these marketing groups and the career center. And that’s why it is a worthwhile filter. These are the people you want to talk to. Occasionally, you might even find a nearly fully-fledged dMBA in their midst who went back to school to fill in some technical gaps.

Colleges are also an important resource for firms trying to anticipate their upcoming needs. The entire community moves fast, so meeting dMBAs on the rise is a great step.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONSProfessional organizations are the hub of the digital marketing network. In Atlanta we have AIMA: The Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (http://www.atlantaima.org). But every city we know of has its own version of AIMA. Many of these organizations are either part of a larger digital marketing association, or they are informally associated with national groups. Here are a few:

Each of these organizations serves as an entry point into the dMBA community. If you are located in or near a large city, you should start by contacting the most active local digital marketing association. Otherwise, you can start with these.

Direct Marketing Association

Advancing and protecting responsible data-driven marketing

Helping organizations overcome the challenges of data acquisition, exploration, deduction and application

thedma.orgDigital Analytics

Association

digitalanalyticsassociation.orgInternet Marketing

Association/IMA

The world’s fastest growing network of digital marketers and business professionals

imanetwork.org


EMPLOYEE REFERRALSThis approach can be a double-edged sword. When a firm actively promotes this kind of networking, sometimes it’s their employee who winds up finding a new opportunity. However, if you have cultivated the right environment, your company can be a magnet when people reevaluate their jobs.

LINKEDINIf you’ve ever asked yourself, “what exactly is LinkedIn for?” — this is it. LinkedIn is perfectly designed for this kind of specialty networking. So it’s no surprise that it is the most important resource to find top-level dMBAs.

LinkedIn is important for top-level dMBAs, in large part, because they are not as visible in marketing organizations such as AIMA as intermediate dMBAs. As dMBAs rise in their own organizations, their ability to be active within those groups often decreases, and their networks become a little more exclusive. This is where those exclusive networks live.

PERSONAL NETWORKNetworks tend to be achievement pyramids. Rising higher in achievement tends to put you in the company of fewer peers. So you know that where there is one dMBA, there is a doorway to a relatively exclusive network of other dMBAs. In other words, if you are not part of the dMBAs network yourself, you can reach out to a dMBA who will likely share your opportunity with her dMBA network. You’ll do best to find a dMBA of the same level you’re looking for.


An Environment to Retain dMBAsIf your effort to find the perfect dMBA is the “push” of your campaign, then creating the right environment is the “pull.” It’s important because, even if you do everything right to capture the attention of dMBA candidates, you won’t hear “yes” unless your candidate knows she’s stepping into a fertile environment. DMBAs don’t want to reach dMBA status only to become complacent. They want to continue being where the action is. That’s who they are.

Here are four keys to help you create an environment that will cause dMBAs to say “yes” to your job offer — and never regret it.

COMPENSATION/SALARYCompensation itself is technically not part of the “environment,” but whether or not people have a sense of opportunity is. That doesn’t mean compensation is the end-all/be-all for dMBAs. Lots of other things matter — and many matter more. But it does mean that to create an atmosphere of opportunity, you have to know the market. You have to know what the financial landscape looks like from the dMBA’s point of view. How much would they make at a big agency? In a marketing department of a big brand? In a boutique agency? And remember, if competing offers include more compensation, they may be making up for something dMBAs want but can’t quite find. That “something” is probably a rich, creative environment.

LABORATORY ATMOSPHERERecall our dMBA archetype. What do you think happens if you take an enterprising dMBA who loves to explore the frontier of the digital world, then you relegate her to a staid diet of unchanging email campaigns? Right. She gets bored. She moves on. So remember: The kind of person you went looking for has to have the right place to grow. The right place is a laboratory-like, creative environment where experimentation is the modus operandi. And if a candidate doesn’t like coming to work in a marketing laboratory, they probably shouldn’t be described as a dMBA.

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SOFT-SKILL RESOURCESAsk yourself: What’s the opposite of the Doogie Howser Effect? It’s somebody who has excellent rhetorical and managerial skills who didn’t teach themselves HTML just because they were curious. If that person enters an environment where he is a technological underdog, you would help him become more technologically savvy. And so the opposite is true of dMBAs. DMBAs may benefit from resources to help them enhance their soft-skills.

PLAYER COACHES There’s another element to the Doogie Howser Effect. Just as soft-skills can be harder to come by than hard-skills, managing our own emotional landscape is among the soft-skills that tend to come with age. So, if you hire younger dMBAs, it can help to have one or more player coaches on the team. That’s a fellow player, usually with a little more experience, who can help the younger teammates manage expectations, stress, excitement, disappointment or whatever ups and downs come their way.

How to Hire a dMBA


Skills of the dMBA DMBA skills cover a lot of ground. Different organizations require different mixes of skills. Here, we’re going to touch on the basic skill categories and the common digital marketing platforms for dMBAs. DMBAs will probably have one or more specialties, but all dMBAs should posses these skills to one degree or another, and at least a cursory understanding of each platform.

DIRECT RESPONSE KNOWLEDGEThis is a general understanding of concepts used in direct response marketing. Concepts are advertising-centric, and an understanding of copywriting is an excellent foundation.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSISMost of the quantitative tools come from statistics. They are used to infer marketing knowledge primarily from weblogs and email servers. While most dMBAs have some formal training in statistics, several schools and professional organizations are beginning to offer certificates in quantitative analysis tailored to server-data.

DATA-TO-NARATIVE INFERENCESPure quantitative techniques don’t necessarily help you make meaningful real world inferences. It’s especially important in digital marketing to be able to use quantitative methods as the basis for inferences about market phenomena. The dMBA has to step further than just seeing the phenomena in the data. The dMBA must use the data to theorize cause and subsequently ways to enhance performance.

MANAGERIAL SKILLSThe dMBA has to manage a variety of people performing the various tasks of digital marketing, from SEO analysis to video production. That requires a number of organizational tools to visualize large campaigns in all of their component parts, then quantify and track the progress for which each team member is responsible.

COMMUNICATION SKILLSAnything computer-related used to be cast as “nerdy,” which is to say, not especially social. That’s why this stereotype misses the dMBA mark. dMBAs are very social by nature. And they require verbal and rhetorical skills to communicate solutions to clients and colleagues. The dMBA must have the knack for boiling technical topics down into small pieces that are easy for non-dMBAs to understand. It’s these communication and managerial skills that separate the intermediate from the advanced dMBA.


The Major PlatformsSearch Engine Optimization or “organic SEO” is the oldest digital discipline, yet it remains fast changing, because it is really only as old as the most recent algorithm change. With a new itera-tion of search algorithm comes a whole new set of rules that essentially broker search engine demand with search engine supply. DMBAs are not experts in every platform, but every dMBA has a good grasp on SEO.

PPCPay-Per-Click or “paid search” is the second largest category after SEO. It blends a number of SEO concepts with direct response advertising concepts. The dMBA will have experience and success planning, evaluating and tuning PPC campaigns, primarily on Google’s ad network, and possibly on Facebook and other social media platforms.

SOCIAL MEDIASocial is really a whole set of strategies. A distinguishing factor in social media is that consumers offer an enormous amount of information about themselves. The Facebook whiz, for example, understands that all of the details users share in their own profile can be used to make ultra-targeted offers. This is among the fastest growing area of the dMBA.

LOCALLocal or “location based” digital marketing is also a set of strategies, many of which use location-dependent platforms like Yelp or Trip Advisor. Local digital marketing is closely related to “reputation management” on sites like Angie’s List.


MOBILEMobile is a fast-growing sector of digital marketing closely related to social and local. Just as it took businesses some time to realize their customers were all using the internet, businesses continue adjusting to the ubiquity of smart phones and their growing capacity as information devices.

VIDEOWhile Youtube has been around for a long time, video marketing has seen a fairly recent explosion due in part to the decreasing cost of producing video and the increasing bandwidth to distribute it. Video essentially gives companies a low-cost way of creating their own television show and conveying value in ways that would be difficult in any other medium.

CONTENTContent marketing is a natural outcropping of SEO. It is the concept of producing “content,” both text and video, to score high in a search for specific queries. You can think of content marketing in the same way a producer produces a TV show to attract a certain demographic, although content marketing is far more granular. Those are the primary categories of skills the dMBA posesses. Although SEO and PPC are far more developed disciplines, it’s fair to say they are all in their infancy. So a creative approach can produce very large performance breakthroughs. Imagine getting TV ad performance for the price of radio. That’s the kind of gain in marketing ROI the dMBA is always after.


Defining the Job and Writing the Ad Writing “help wanted” ads seldom gets the focus and effort it’s due. When you read a few ads, you see that it’s common for employers to look at other ads to serve as a template, then fill in their own particulars. Don’t do that. In fact, forget for a moment you’re writing a help wanted ad and follow these steps:

WRITE AN OBJECTIVE-BASED JOB DESCRIPTIONDefine the job in terms of the objectives you want to achieve. So, rather than defining the process you expect the dMBA to engage in, convey the final destination — the objectives — you want the dMBA to help you achieve. This is the foundational piece, so it should come first.

WRITE A LEAD-IN TO APPEAL TO THE dMBA ARCHETYPEThink direct response 101. You’re not writing a help wanted ad; you’re just writing a good ad. You’re trying to get noticed — to stand out in the crowd — and you can, because you just happen to know what floats the dMBA’s boat (see the dMBA archetype). So, appeal to it. Write a headline and a lead-in to your ad that will appeal to the avant-garde of digital marketing. Let them know yours is an opportunity to be on the forefront. Let them know that they will get to experiment, refine and shape change.

NOW, WRITE THE PARTICULARSMost employers start here, at the end. But these are really just the details. They’re not the attention getters. That doesn’t mean the details are not important. Detailed ads will get taken more seriously, and often serve as qualifiers to help you find the most appropriate candidates.

That’s the order in which you write the ad. But you assemble the ad in this order: 2, 1, 3. Start with an attention getting headline and interesting lead-in, then an objective-based job description and finally your job details.

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the Job and Writing the Ad


Benefits of Perfecting the dMBA Hire RMI and our clients have reaped many benefits from this approach to hiring Digital Marketing Bad Asses. Considering the supply curve of dMBAs and their importance in strategy-level roles, firms have to be a magnet for dMBAs. You have to be a desirable destination. Because the dMBA likes the forefront, she needs a platform to excel and a community in which to grow. If you provide that to the right candidates, you will be the beneficiary of the skill-gap. Instead of fighting competitors who are leading this race, your team will become the pace-setter.

Benefits of Perfecting the dMBA Hire Include:

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTIONWe know that employee satisfaction isn’t just about the wellness of your employees; it’s about the wellness of your organization. Satisfied employees are more productive. They are more creative. They are more enthusiastic.

EMPLOYEE GROWTHHand-in-hand with employee satisfaction is employee growth. When you have one, two, three dMBAs on your team, their enthusiasm for the frontlines catches on. Digital marketing is awash in new ideas. So getting this position right tends to create a growth atmosphere.

EMPLOYEE RETENTIONWhen employees feel like they have a rich environment in which to grow, there is little reason to leave. Even employers who don’t pay the highest salaries can attract and retain the best talent if they provide an optimal environment.

MARKETING ROIYou don’t just benefit in feel-good categories. When you score high on employer report cards, it translates to your bottom line. And with a dMBA in your ranks, it finds its way to your bottom line by increasing marketing ROI.

PROfiTIncrease the efficiency of channels, replace low-ROI channels with high-ROI channels, and you will become more profitable. And it’s a very holistic kind of profitability that often makes your entire organization leaner.


Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing Bad AssesWe’ve shared the strategies that have helped RMI acquire and cultivate a team of the country’s best and brightest digital talent. We think these same strategies will work for other firms trying to find their own dMBAs. However, there is no escaping these market realities:

1. Demand for dMBAs far exceeds supply.2. DMBA expertise is not being created in business schools.3. The real crucible of dMBA expertise is the leading digital agency.

RMI Is Digital Marketing’s R&D, Its Classroom and Its Grad School

Pass through the boardrooms of America’s best brands and you see that there are a handful of schools that turn out top executive talent. Harvard. The Wharton School of Finance. The Booth School at the University of Chicago and others. These institutions are the wellspring for elite financiers and executives. But universities are not — as of now — a wellspring of digital marketing bad assery. But the wellspring does exist.

Leading digital agencies are the crucible. RMI is one of just a handful of agencies that functions as the nation’s elite learning centers for digital marketing disciplines. And just as each business school has its own philosophy — its own methodology — RMI’s unique formula has produced unparalleled results. RMI is at the forefront, in large part, because we created an environment to host the talent that is best adapted to rapid change. Business schools and even independent marketing departments cannot move at high speed in one sector of their organization, but moderate speed in others. Organizationally, adaptability to fast change tends to be an all-or-nothing philosophy, and RMI’s philosophy has been all-in from the start.


OUTSOURCING DIGITAL EXPERTISE IS A GREAT SOLUTION

Even if you campaign to hire the best dMBAs you can get your hands on, it is very challenging to acquire enough expertise to truly capitalize on all the opportunities in digital channels. It is an economy of labor, knowledge and experience that favors hiring the leading experts to do the parts that experts do best. To illustrate, just consider this question from a managerial point of view:

Which team has a competitive advantage:

Which team is more likely to increase your Marketing ROI next quarter?

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH WILL AMPLIFY YOUR SUCCESS

You have your bad asses and we have ours. Yours can do special things — things they can do because of their unique point of view. RMI’s Digital Marketing Bad Asses have perspective and insight that can only come from field testing in all circumstances. That’s how we developed the RMI Methodology. We refined the best of what works across a wide variety of digital marketing terrain, and we discarded what didn’t. And it’s the variety — the seeing the same problems in dozens of variations from dozens of different angles — that is irreplaceable. That’s why RMI has insight our clients can’t simply hire in the marketplace.

Team “A” develops digital marketing initiatives for

one major brand

Team “B” analyzes digital campaigns, diagnoses and course-corrects for dozens of major brands,

one after the other vs


WHEN OUR BAD ASSES MEET YOUR BAD ASSES

Your bad asses have their uniquely valuable point of view. Our bad asses have ours. When they meet, it’s . . . it’s like the Guns of the Navarone . . . it’s like Charles Bronson in Death Wish . . . like Hang ’Em High. The kick-ass forces in the universe combine and nobody wants to be on the other side. Nobody wants to be the competitor of this team.

RMI WANTS TO MAKE YOU THIS OFFER

If your organization is in RMI’s demographic — if you have lots of pressure to grow and your strategies for breaking through performance barriers are running thin — pending our availability — we will give you a $7,500 marketing analysis, FREE.

That means our bad asses will meet with your bad asses. We’ll look at data you already have. And using field-proven RMI Methodology, we will show you where latent ROI growth is just sitting, waiting to be set free.

If we’re a match, the cost for this consultation is zero. And with this free assessment, you have nothing but upside potential. You have the confidence of knowing that every single time we’ve said to a client, “this is going to grow your Marketing ROI,” we’ve been right — 100% of the time. So the sum of your downside risk is the time it takes to pick up the phone, call 855-293-8677 and say, “RMI, can your bad asses come talk to our bad asses?” The upside is, you break through yesterday’s performance barriers and enter a new era of success.

THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO fiND OUT.

ASK US: 855-293-8677

855-293-8677

How to Hire a dMBA

RMI’S SECRETS TO HIRING A

DIGITAL MARKETING BAD ASS

Download - Dmba whitepaper oct14

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