Followable content is crucial to your marketing, for both reputation and sales, and for both growth and overall scale. If you’re keen on building an impressive distribution and sales network while you’re at it, you’ll need a solid content marketing strategy in place.

Besides being clear on what your company does and who your target audience is, you’ll also want to hire a content marketing manager to make sure that your posts are increasingly bound to your brand image and popular—and effective—as possible.

So, why hire a content marketing manager and how exactly do you go about finding one?

1. How to Hire a Content Marketing Manager

With content marketing increasingly important for most companies, there’s an ever-growing demand for some talent in this area. But getting a very specific piece of the content marketing ecosystem requires understanding what you’re looking for in a content marketing manager—who those other pieces are and how to efficiently present your requirements to qualified candidates.

2. Not Sure What You’re Looking For? Start with Recruiting for the Interviewing

Once you’ve identified the right fit for your specific needs, it’s time to look for the right people to fill that role. Going the hiring route first allows you to reduce the risk involved when recruiting: you can put potential employees through the entire vetting process and have evidence of their skills so you know how well their work will fit the role you’re looking for.

3. How do you go about interviewing?

Evaluating your posts and creating the perfect stream for a new hire is a lot of work. The result is a bunch of iterations for a single posting, which means more than a few episodes of “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Charlotte” and several days of back and forth conversations about emotions and concepts.

Pitching a job well enough to make it past the hiring process requires applying to as many people as possible: the company, job fairs, and major work events, like trade shows, which are known for being big time employers.

4. What to do once you’ve found your right person?

Once you’ve found the right person, it’s time to find the right fit for the company. With writing (via email and/or blog) on the job description, you’re likely working with someone who’s well-versed in these areas.

That said, there is no lack of resources available to qualified candidates, which means that the best of the best are out there, just like they are for you—they’re just not your target. So, you have the chance to attract your ideal candidate to you and give them the best chance at a long-term career.

Hiring for a content marketing manager, though, often results in a one-year contract without the opportunity to push that person to new heights, which is not always what you’re looking for. If you’re committed to lasting impact, a year of stability is more than worth a bump in salary.

Image: epSos.de

This article was written by Michael J. Scharfner for the Central Caribbean District of the Personal Financial Planning Association of Michigan. This information is intended for general purposes only, and is not intended to be used as sufficient assurance that the information contained in this article will result in the creation of a suitable investment, retirement or investment advisory strategy. Please consult with an advisor before implementing any strategy referenced. The article was originally published on The Financial Planning Chronicle.