Who Should I Hire? Marketing Generalists or Marketing Specialists

The structure of any marketing team is critical to creating and maintaining a great brand. Every marketing team will look slightly different, but what is important, is that every organisation has a carefully structured organisational team chart which is fit for the business now, and scalable for the future.

When hiring Marketing professionals, it’s imperative that employers and key decision makers really consider what they want out of their new hire. What are they really looking for at this stage of their journey? This will help to determine whether they need to hire a Marketing Generalist or a Marketing Specialist. Whilst a lot of people are quick to say specialists are better than generalists, I would argue that this just isn’t always the case. This isn’t a black and white argument. I believe there are roles, projects, business maturity stages, and marketing teams, where there are equal requirements for generalists and specialists. Effectively there are times, places, and spaces for generalists, and there are times, places, and spaces for specialists.

Below is some of the main benefits and cases for both generalists and specialists.

Why Should I Hire a Marketing Generalist?

Marketing generalists are marketing professionals who can do numerous marketing tasks proficiently. Because of their skill variety they are able to plan large projects that require knowledge across multiple disciplines such as website launches, product launches, major lead generation campaigns, and more.

Not every business is in the position to hire specialists for every skillset they need, and therefore a marketing generalist is often a cost-effective way to cover a wide range of disciples with fewer people. For companies looking to build smaller marketing functions, generalists are also more appropriate as they are likely to have to pitch in on different tasks and projects at any given time.

Marketing generalists are great first hires for businesses building a marketing team from scratch because they don’t limit what can be done in the first instance. Instead, a generalist might be able to look at multiple aspects of social media management, rebranding, website design, and SEO, rather than a specialist who focuses only on Paid Search (for example). They are also much easier to hire. A survey by The Creative Group revealed that 71% of marketing decision makers said it’s challenging to find candidates with specialist up-to-date skills in areas such as data science, web design, content creation, and SEO. Generalists on the other hand, are more abundant, making recruitment easier.

What is important to remember though, is that whilst a marketing generalist works across multiple disciplines, they are still only one person. It can be easy for marketing generalists who take on too many different jobs to burn out or spread themselves too thinly. To alleviate this, leaders should help these marketing generalists to prioritise tasks, and for anything that does require specialist knowledge, consider outsourcing specific projects. This introduces a great balance without spending too much on an additional marketer or specialist.

Why Should I Hire a Marketing Specialist?

A marketing specialist is a marketing professional who focuses day-to-day on one specific, niche discipline. This could be SEO, Paid Search, Social Media Management, Graphic Designer, Videographer, or Copywriter as examples.

To justify hiring a Specialist into a marketing team, the existing marketing professionals in that team need to identify a specific requirement or an in-demand skill gap that is significantly impacted progress and delivery. Once that gap is identified, a marketing specialist can use extensive knowledge to drive delivery of projects, hit targets, improve processes, and solve issues where generalist marketers cannot. With this in mind it’s imperative that there is a requirement and ample work for a specialist to do within a business, because they are less flexible with the work they are able to do. Therefore, hiring a specialist when there is little need for one, can lead to lots of time where they are unable to actually add any value.

Having a plan and strategy in place for clearly defined skill gaps when hiring specialists is important to ensure that there is enough work to justify hiring someone into a niche space. For example, if blogging is something really important to your business, hiring a specialist copywriter makes sense. If your website is ranking low but is the main way you need to attract revenue, hiring an SEO specialist is justified. As long as there is a reason for hiring, specialists can really add value to any marketing team and elevate a brand exponentially.

How to Build a Great Marketing Team

The specialist versus generalist argument creates a false dichotomy.

It’s clear to me that a mix of generalists and specialists within one team can work well together, and whilst a lot of articles I’ve read tries to pit one against the other, it seems like a lot of Marketing Directors agree with me. A Hays study reported that 78% of marketing directors said they seek a combination of both generalist and specialist skills when building a marketing team.

Specialist marketers are more likely to be focussed on perfection and high-quality delivery in certain areas, whilst generalist marketers can focus on keeping things running, making sure specialists are on track to meet deadlines by suggesting alterations that can save time, and so on. Essentially the two balance each other out well. Specialists will also challenge generalists – and vice versa, resulting in faster, more creative, diverse, and strategic decision making.

What are your 2022 plans for your Marketing Team?

Whether you’re looking to dive deep into specific marketing disciplines with marketing specialists, or if you’re looking to strengthen your team with a marketing generalist, manager, or lead, I’m working with a huge network of exclusive marketing candidates looking for their next career opportunity.

Get in touch today for a confidential chat on how I can help you hit your marketing targets for 2022.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for your next marketing role across any level, browse our current opportunities online.