So you’re about to start hiring a content marketing manager for your B2B Tech business, what interview questions should you ask them to understand if they’re the right fit for your job?
Content marketers need a diverse set of skills in order to be successful today. And it’s very rare to find a content marketer with a fully rounded background, because there’s so much to being a content marketer.
So hiring the right type of content marketer is no mean feat. Get it wrong as you might end up investing thousands in a content strategy that doesn’t move the needle, let alone the costs associated with hiring the wrong person.
However, hiring a great content marketer can help your B2B Tech company raise awareness with your target audience, create demand and move them further down the funnel until they become a customer.
So in this blog we’re going to outline the 7 best content marketing interview questions you can ask to ensure you hire the right content marketing manager for your job.
Let’s get started!
This blog is written for employers but also useful reading if you’re preparing for a content marketing interview.
Further Reading; B2B Marketing Interview Questions – The Comprehensive Guide
This is probably one of the most commonly asked content marketing interview questions, and for good reason.
It’s a very broad and open question, and purposely so. It’s not that you’re looking to trick someone, but you want to see how they communicate what they did, why they did it, how they did it and what the end result was.
A good answer to this interview question will cover the following;
One of the common mistakes when hiring someone into a content marketing role is hiring the wrong type of content marketer.
And the purpose of this question is to give you an opportunity to dig into someone’s experience to establish;
There are many right answers to this question, and of course the answer that you might look for may be very different for someone else. So always think about what’s most important to you, the content marketing job you’re hiring for and the stage of your business.
And it goes without saying, if you’re hiring a more junior content marketer, then it’s more likely the strategic part is done for them by someone else. So if this ends up being one of your interview questions to a more junior content marketing professional, don’t be put off if they can’t articulate the answer well.
But for those in content marketing who do plan what content to produce, you’re looking for interview answers that cover the following;
Content Marketing Job Descriptions
We all know that attribution in B2B is a holy grail, however, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be measuring the performance of your marketing. And the same is true for anyone in content marketing.
The best B2B content marketers will be able to answer interview questions about the performance of the content they’re producing.
If you really understand content marketing, you’ll be able to talk about;
There is a caveat though.
Lot’s of B2B Tech companies make it more difficult for people in content marketing to measure these things. It might be because analytics sits with another team, or they don’t feel analytics is important to focus on versus churning out content.
So if a content marketer doesn’t give a detailed answer to this question, then dig in and find out why and then propose interview questions like, ‘in a perfect world, what metrics would you measure to understand the performance of your content?’
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The best B2B content marketers spend a large portion of their time promoting their own content.
But not only that, once they’ve done the content creation they will also spend a lot of time repurposing it. Because as we know, content creation is super time consuming in the first place.
So what do they do to get more eyeballs on it?
And the best people in content marketing will talk about these sorts of things;
If you’re interviewing a junior content marketer, it might be the case that their role is primarily focussed on content creation and then it’s given to a more senior person who is responsible for marketing of the content, so it’s worth probing further if you don’t heard some of the answers above.
The Complete Hiring Guide for B2B Content Marketing Jobs
This next one is one of our favourite content marketing interview questions and will help you gauge how much research a content marketer has done for your interview, and also give you an insight into how they think about content.
However, it can be a real banana skin for candidates, so we’d recommend not placing too much emphasis on their answer here.
For a couple of reasons;
So we’re not saying don’t ask this interview question, but understand that it does have limitations.
Or, your other option is to use this type of question in a second interview. Something like this;
Critique our content with this in mind – we want our content to be but also drive people towards becoming a customer. Our audience are CIO’s and IT Managers at mid-market companies in the UK. What do you think we’re doing well and what 2 or 3 things would you suggest we do to improve things?
With this interview question, you’re really finding out how much of a content marketing nerd they are! Are they super passionate, what do they consume, who do they rate, what do they like about it?
Again, it’s not necessarily a predictor of ability, but it can give you an insight into their thoughts on content marketing.
In the B2B Tech space I’d be looking for examples like;
But the key follow up question is, ‘Why?’
What is it about the content marketing that these businesses do that excites them.
That’s where the gold is.
As we said right at the start of this blog, content marketing jobs vary widely from one business to the next.
Some jobs can be focussed on the strategy, some jobs on the creation, some on the promotion…it goes on!
And I know it goes without saying, but it’s super important you’re hiring someone who has the skills and who enjoys the types of content marketing activities you need them to do.
Because, as an example, there are plenty of people in content marketing that we speak to that hate writing, or don’t see it as a strength.
Obviously with these types of marketing interview questions there is no right or wrong answer, but just make sure that you dig into each answer to make sure it maps to your job.
So this is one of the most popular content marketing interview questions.
And as we know, nobody is perfect. We all have areas we need to work on.
And what’s critical from a candidate’s perspective is how aware they are of those things.
Because if we’re aware of the areas we need to improve on, it’s more likely that they can be worked on.
Plus, candidates want to learn. It’s unlikely that they’ll accept a content marketing job that’s doing exactly what they’ve done previously. They’ll want to learn new things, try new tactics and develop themselves further.
So this question is a good one to ask someone in content marketing to see how aware they are of what they need to work on, and also whether those areas are important to you.
SEO is a great example.
There are lots of people in B2B content marketing jobs who wouldn’t say they’re technically strong in SEO. Yet SEO, in many ways, is a solid foundation to have when you’re thinking about content marketing and building a content marketing strategy.
So if SEO is super important to you, make sure you ask this interview question as it’s not something that regularly comes up.
So hopefully you find this list of content marketing interview questions useful. Content marketing is such a varied discipline these days, that it’s important to hire the right kind of content marketer for your B2B business.
But, just remember that in order to hire the very best people, you also need to make sure you spend as much time answering their questions as you do asking yours. We advocate for a 50/50 balance.
And if you’re preparing for a content marketing interview, then use this as a base for what might come up.
Best of luck hiring!
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