Marketing Interview Questions

Marketing Interview Questions

The hiring and interview process should always be given a good amount of attention. It’s always nerve-racking to make sure you’re bringing on a new team member who can fit and work well with your current team. There is a position which requires your full attention during the interview process (maybe even a little more than other positions) – a Marketer. A Marketer has a major influence on your company’s success. This power should be placed in the right hands.
Whether you are hiring an internal Marketer or teaming up with a Marketing Agency, here are some of the top marketing interview questions to ask:

Factual Questions

It’s always nice to start off the interview with basic questions, based on their resume and personal background, to get to know

the interviewee. This creates a comfortable environment where they can lose their butterflies by answering no-brainer questions. This also allows you to confirm if they have the skills you’re seeking after and discuss any questions about their resume.

1. How long have you worked in this industry?
2. What kinds of clients have you worked for?
3. What did you do at your last job?
4. What marketing strategies do you prefer to use?
5. What was one of your most successful campaign in the past?
6. What’s the difference between marketing and selling?

Situational Questions

After the marketer has warmed up a little, it’s time to put them in the spotlight a little more. Factual questions can only get you so far. Situational questions give you the opportunity to see how this person will act in potential company situations that are challenging or uncomfortable because we all know life isn’t perfect in the business world.

1. You’ve been put in charge of marketing one of our products – how would you do it?
2. What do you do to stay up to date with marketing trends / techniques?
3. What recently-developed marketing strategy, technique or tool interests you the most right now?
4. If hired, what would you bring to our team? Why are you interested in working for our company?

Behavioral Questions

These questions help you learn more about the marketer’s past. You are looking for honest and sincere answers – you want to see that this person has worked hard and learned from the past. Interviews are the places for one to toot his/her horn a little, but it’s best practice to do so in a humble way.

1. Share with me a past situation where you had to work with colleagues or team members who were very different from you.
2. Tell me how you handle having multiple projects with competing deadlines.
3. Tell me about a project you’re most proud of from your past work.

Analytical/Strategic Questions

Make sure your marketer thinks about business development and not just sharing the next viral kitten gif. It is very easy for marketers to think about what gets the most exposure without thinking about if the exposure is relevant or leads to the real goal…customers. A few pointed questions will enable you to distinguish the duds from the unicorns.

1. What have you done in the past to track marketing results?
2. What metrics would you like to track at your company?
   1. Good answers: Life-Time Value of the Customer, Cost-Per-Acquisition, Conversion Rate, the number of leads, etc.
   2. Bad Answers: Number of impressions, CTR (exclusively), etc.
3. What is the most important metric to assess the success of a campaign?  (Number of qualified leads or customers are great answers. Unfortunately, customers can be hard to measure as it depends on your sales staff.)
4. Can you walk me through the different types of media: Paid, Earned & Owned Media
5.  What is your marketing philosophy? Outbound, Inbound, a combination of both?
6. Can you describe the Marketing lifecycle or Customer’s Journey?  

Assign Homework

Yes, you can assign homework. This will separate the real go-getters vs the job board hunters. Give the potential marketer a situation where they have to create a strategy and present it to you. Make sure to establish certain rules so it’s a fair competition for everyone (limit the amount of hours they can spend on it, what resources they can use, etc). Here at Nuanced Media, we assign out a homework piece after the phone interview where potential marketers have to complete a Hubspot certification test.

Remember that the ball is in your court during this marketing interview. You have the power to choose who will pave your company’s marketing path – take your time, do your research and don’t be shy about asking lots of questions.

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