Posted 05.01.2018 by Josh Krakauer

Getting the Gig: Digital Marketing Strategist

Obsessed with learning, ad tech, and the pursuit of tools that cut half the time off everything you do? You sound like a digital marketing strategist. Here's how to get the gig at Sculpt.

Jumping ahead? No shame in your game. Apply to the Digital Marketing Analyst/Strategist gig.

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The Digital Marketing Strategist at a small agency like Sculpt is a job for the Swiss Army knife of a marketer. While the role varies company to company, you’re undoubtedly expected to live and breathe data, communicate to stakeholders, and make decisions about media, money, and marketing. Exciting stuff, right?

Since every thing at Sculpt is a teaching moment, we’re going to lay out how we’re hiring our digital strategist. Whether you’re a brand looking for a digital strategist job template (go for it), or a candidate doing their homework (hopefully you!), this should help.

Here’s the process we follow in writing job descriptions:

  • Describe the human
  • Set the role expectations clearly
  • Give them a task to demonstrate their skills and instincts

With that said, here’s who we’re looking for and how they will help.

Describing the Human: Our Digital Strategist

At Sculpt, you are the data-hungry, growth junkie that has a spreadsheet for everything. You appreciate process, and take proactive steps to optimize everything you touch. Obsessed with learning, you geek out on algorithm updates, ad tech, and the pursuit of tools that cut half the time off everything you do. You’re a big thinker, but not afraid to get your hands dirty and practice what you preach. A real leader. One that sees potential, but isn’t afraid to start small.

You speak business as well as you speak marketing, and can articulate the whats, hows and whys in a form your audience can understand. You translate raw data into analysis and insights that’s confidently presented over calls, emails, and IRL. And like doing it.

You fit our core values to a T. We look for humans with Hustle & Heart:

  1. Spark – You ask “What if” and say “let’s try”
  2. Doers – You have a bias towards action and impact
  3. Growth Mindset – You’re forward-thinking, future-focused
  4. Collaborative – You believe in we over me
  5. Humans first – You critique ideas, not people
  6. Care about quality – You proudly create work that works

Setting expectations: Getting the Digital Strategist gig

At Sculpt, every human has at least 5 things they are accountable to in their seat. Our Digital Strategists own these areas:

  1. Establishing and hitting clients’ SMART goals
  2. Using data to make recommendations and performance improvements
  3. Managing the reporting strategy and (data) consistency for clients
  4. Building and optimizing performance-driven, paid campaigns
  5. Overseeing all performance-driven marketing by internal or partner resources (i.e. SEO, PPC, acquisition)

Note the emphasis on “performance.” Your last role in SEO, inbound marketing, paid search or social is less important than the overall desire to help our clients perform.

Let’s dig into the role a little further.

Digital Strategist role responsibilities

1) Lead the execution of our digital marketing programs

  1. Building, managing, and optimizing digital marketing programs for a variety of objectives. (see: subject matter that matters).
  2. Working in tandem with our Engagement Managers and Communication Designers to develop content strategies, amplify stories through paid promotion, and measure / report success.
  3. Project managing your own clients or assignments when applicable.
  4. Clearly communicating relevant questions, information, and updates to our clients.

2) Support team expansion and organizational growth

  1. Documenting activities to aid onboarding, training, and task optimization.
  2. Recommending resources and tools to improve efficiency and performance.
  3. Refining existing processes or designing systems from scratch.
  4. Supporting internal marketing efforts.

3) Educate our team and clients on the impact of digital marketing

  1. Representing Sculpt’s analytical capacities in new business meetings.
  2. Analyzing data to identify trends and develop action steps to improve growth.
  3. Relaying insights and ideas to both our clients and our results-driven team.
  4. Developing useful, interesting content for Sculpt’s audience.

The subject matter that matters

When brands speak about digital marketing expertise they have different interpretations. Here’s what it means at Sculpt.

1) Marketing infrastructure and measurement

  • Reporting: Building reporting programs with Data Studio/dashboarding tools, Sheets/Excel, and Slides/PPT to visualize data and evaluate success on a campaign or ongoing basis. If Google Data studio is your friend, you should be our friend.
  • Tracking: Proficient in Google Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, and other web analytics providers.
  • Social: Pulling data from Facebook, Twitter, and other native social platforms.
  • Ad Networks: Setting up paid campaigns in FB Business Manager, Google MCC, and other native / third-party ad tools.
  • Email: Familiar with HubSpot, Mailchimp, and/or other marketing automation and ESPs.
  • Web: Installing tracking scripts and making updates to WordPress and CMS-based websites.

2) Awareness, acquisition and retention programs

  • Articulating the roles and goals of marketing channels across the customer journey.
  • Using paid social and search in tandem to accomplish goals.
  • Setting up tests and KPIs to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches.
  • Developing recommendations for content, landing pages, and websites to drive conversions.

In our world, it’s as important to know what makes you a bad fit. You are not a good fit if:

  • You love analytics and strategy but want to leave the execution to others. That’s fine for the future, but we need a practitioner today.
  • You would not consider yourself a confident, competent communicator. We don’t need a salesman, but we need your voice at the table.
  • One or more of our core values feels off. This is one area we can’t train.

Are you qualified?

Demonstrated results trumps work history alone, but it’s important to share realistic expectations. We’re anticipating 4+ years digital marketing experience, including:

  • Building and managing paid awareness and acquisition campaigns across social and search
  • Using the data collected from campaigns to improve performance and drive future success
  • Communicating results and performance to internal and external stakeholders

Are we speaking your language? There are perks to becoming a Sculptron:

  • A “Hustle & Heart” culture
  • Uncapped PTO and vacation days
  • Freedom to work remotely when you need it
  • Sculpt-matched health insurance
  • All of the Audible books you’d ever want
  • Dedicated education budget that grows every 6 months
  • Dog-friendly, downtown Iowa City office close to everything
  • Personal career planning tailored to where you want to grow as we grow
  • Flexibility to try lots of things, and carve your own path
  • Opportunity to grow into a role on the leadership team and shape future hires
  • Opportunities to speak publicly and mentor both students and entrepreneurs
  • Involvement in projects that make our community a better place to work and live
  • Liberal use of the /giphy and emoji Slack integration

The Final Task: Demonstrating strategic marketing instincts

So you can talk the talk and walk the walk? We ask all of our candidates to answer prompts with their application:

  1. Tell us about one of the most successful digital marketing programs or campaigns you have managed. What were the KPIs and results? What would you do differently if you had the chance to do it again?
  2. Your client is a B2B brand looking to launch *software* to US-based Accountants. You need to form an effective go-to-market strategy for moving their audience to action. Help us understand your approach: What questions would you ask your client in order to get more context, and why? What are some of the steps you’d take to build the plan?
  3. What questions do you have for us? Consider it a private AMA (ask-me-anything).

What happens next?

  • You submit a complete application including attachments. We use a blind hiring process and decision makers won’t see your name, just answers.
  • Select candidates will be offered 45-minute introductory phone or in-person interviews with Sculpt’s CEO or Hiring Committee.
  • Top candidates will be offered 90-minute in-person interviews with a rotation of different Sculpt team members, followed by a 15-minute debrief with the CEO.
  • Candidates will be sent home with a small assignment to complete within 48 hours of interview.
  • Chosen candidate will be offered a full-time position. Celebration to follow.

One last mega important note: Sculpt is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Happy Applying!

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Josh Krakauer

Josh Krakauer is the CEO of Sculpt, that B2B social media agency you just discovered. Josh has launched social media campaigns for best-selling books, publicly-traded corporations, and early-stage startups. Josh works from Washington, DC, but still thinks Iowa City is the best city on earth.

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