When you are interviewing potential candidates for a marketing position in your company, you want people with in-depth knowledge of marketing for that position. It is better, of course, if they have more extensive knowledge than that, but marketing is a vast and continually changing field. People have busy lives and do not usually have enough time to keep tabs on every aspect or every new development than what immediately concerns them. Rather than have encyclopedic information on marketing, it will be more useful if they have a quick thinking and adaptive mindset.

Successful marketers know how to gauge situations and improvise as needed. They are not discouraged by setbacks but quickly work around them to mitigate any lasting negative consequences. They focus on strategies that work and discard those that don’t. They make long-term plans and implement them with persistence and persuasion.

To gauge if potential candidates have what it takes to thrive in the marketing industry, here are three interview questions for marketing position that you can ask them:

What made you decide to get into marketing?

This seemingly simple and innocuous question is a great conversation starter and helps to put the candidates at ease. It will also give you a good idea of their level of articulateness and their level of perception. You want people who have chosen to enter marketing with at least a modicum of understanding of what it entails and what kind of work they will have to do.

They must know what types of skills a marketing professional needs and what responsibilities they must shoulder to perform day-to-day tasks. They must be aware that marketing can be a tough field and getting ahead in such a competitive environment requires not just creativity and enthusiasm but also a certain amount of hard-headedness.

Why do you want to work with us?

You want to know if the candidate has researched your company and the marketing position before coming for the interview. If they have taken the trouble to do this, it means they are serious about wanting to work with you and will likely do an excellent job once you hire them.

Keep in mind though, that this question can elicit different answers from beginners and experienced candidates. In the case of entry-level candidates, while they may have a genuine desire to work with you, they are also motivated by the need to get a toehold in the industry and gain work experience. This is perfectly all right if they display a positive attitude and a willingness to work and learn the ropes.

Experienced candidates, on the other hand, may talk about what they will bring to the table as well as their expectations from you. The right attitude and work ethic are important considerations here as well. You want people who not only know how to get the work done but are also adaptable enough to fit in well with your established company culture.

Do you have any long-term career goals? Tell us about those.

What you want to know here is if they have long-term career goals in the marketing field. Your company will be investing in training the candidates you hire in various aspects so that they can adapt better to the company’s work environment, and, given this, you want candidates who will persevere and stick around for the long haul. There is little benefit to your company in hiring people who don’t intend to continue in marketing and who look at the offered job position only as a step to earn money until something better comes along.

If the candidates intend to make a career of marketing, you want to know if they are capable of strategic thinking, if they know how to implement their plans, and if they have the mindset to get things done. The bottom line is, in what way will they benefit your company?

You may want to rule out marketing candidates who cannot respond adequately to these three questions. If they are not resourceful enough to carry out the necessary research to improve their career prospects, they may not have the initiative needed to flourish in the marketing industry.

When you are interviewing candidates for marketing positions in your company, you want to know if they have the capability to do the work well, if they can fit in with your company’s work environment, and if they intend to work with you long-term. It can be tricky, however, to get an accurate estimation of the candidates through just the interview process.

Some people have excellent self-presentation skills that may not always translate to actual work skills of the same level. This means, you can’t depend only on a candidate’s personality and articulateness but must also check if their educational credentials and work experience add up to the total picture.

Try these four marketing job interview questions to make the right decision when hiring for a marketing position:

How did you hear this marketing job was available?

The most common answer to this is general job boards, which is fine. You advertise on such job boards for the very purpose of receiving job applications from potential candidates. That said, you also want to know if the marketing candidates found the job from your website, which would indicate a familiarity with your company. Alternatively, if they heard of the position through contacts within the industry, which indicates they have networking skills and people skills to create meaningful professional relationships. Past relationships that are on the look out for them and inform them of available jobs that can advance their career prospects is a good sign.

Why are you applying for this marketing position?

‘Because it was available’ is not really the right answer. You want people who have carefully considered the job requirements and matched these with their own skills. They should be able to explain why exactly they are suitable for the marketing position and what skills, talents, and experience they will bring to the table. You want people who can convey this with self-assurance, not arrogance. They must have confidence that they have what it takes to shoulder all necessary responsibilities and get the work done, without any extensive hand-holding on the part of their new employers.

What kind of marketing work experience do you have?

The answer to this will, of course, differ for entry-level and experienced marketing candidates. With entry-level candidates, consider their educational qualifications and any personal projects they might have completed. The latter indicates they have initiative and the capacity to plan and get the work done.

With experienced candidates, you want to know how creative and capable they are, if they have a strong work ethic if they work well in a team environment, and if they can accept feedback and criticism.

Ask them about their previous job and how they fared there. What made them leave that position and seek employment elsewhere? It is normal for people to change jobs to seek a better salary, to gain more experience, to move to another place, and so on, but any excessive criticism or negative talk about previous employers is not a good sign.

Frequent fulltime job changes, within a few months, may also be a red flag. It may indicate that the candidate is either indecisive about the type of work he or she wants to do or is incapable of committing to a position for a long duration. If you are looking to hire someone on a long-term fulltime basis, you may want to look for someone with a bit more staying power.

What do you enjoy the most about marketing?

You want to find out if the candidates view their marketing career with enthusiasm and interest, not just as something that they need to do to earn money. A good deal of creativity and intuitiveness is essential to make a marketing campaign successful, and you cannot have these if there is a complete lack of enjoyment in the work.

While interviewing candidates, it is important to have a two-way conversation. Along with getting to know the candidates, you also want them to know how rewarding it will be for them to work with your company. With that in mind, stay open and accessible and emphasize the various benefits, in addition to the monetary ones, that your company can offer them.

Ask any digital marketer how to increase the traffic for a website and they will definitely ask you to perform search engine optimization (SEO). Though it sounds technical, SEO is not all technical in nature. It just a bunch of optimization techniques that anybody can follow and abiding by a strict routine/hygiene in terms of content. SEO is organic and takes time. One can use paid ads to assist the optimization efforts, however, on a whole SEO is organic and purely depends on the efforts you put in.

If you have a website and looking to gain traffic for the website, you must definitely invest on search engine optimization. You can either do it yourself or hire the best SEO Houston to do it for you, with guaranteed results within a short duration. Here’s how to hire the right firm, step by step.

1. Where to search?

The first thing you must be doing is making a list of SEO firms so that you can approach each of them individually and know what they offer. The best place to search for SEO agencies is search itself. Go to Google and type something like ‘best SEO firm in Houston’. You will get a list of websites that offer SEO services and generally they are the good ones because they have managed to reach the top of the search results for such keywords. Apart from online search, you can also use the referrals from friends, family and colleagues about SEO companies they know or have previously worked with.

2. What to ask?

Once you narrow down your options, it is time to contact these firms and know the services they are offering. SEO services can include a wide range of services including website design/redesign, content creation, guest posting, classified ads, company descriptions etc. Contact SEO firms the range of services they are offering. Once you receive a sample quote from each of these firms, compare the services they are offering and the fees they are demanding in return. Weight the quotes and go with the one that offers the most and charges reasonable prices for the same.

3. What to believe?

As mentioned before, SEO takes time and those who are consistent, and patient win this game. However, not all companies can wait for months before their website starts jumping the ladder to reach higher positions in the search engine results page (SERP). Few SEO firms try to exploit this urgency and offer unrealistic SEO plans to website owners, guaranteeing to achieve higher rankings within a few weeks or a few months. However, don’t fall into the trap of those agencies that offer solutions that are too good to be true. SEO doesn’t work that way.

4. Is there a plan?

SEO is all about persistence and consistency. You need to have a steady plan that is executable and sustainable for months. One needs to plan for months ahead and start working on things like content and creatives even before the plan is launched. The SEO firms in Houston that you shortlisted must give you a sample action plan that will at least include a weekly plan, estimated turnaround time, realistic targets, review timetables etc. To have a clear idea of the turnaround time and believe the SEO firm, you need to demand a plan that is executable, sustainable and realistic.

5. How much to pay?

Lastly, you need to ask the SEO firm about the fees for the services they are offering. Ask the firm to give you a sample quote and compare this quote with quotes of other SEO firms. While a few firms are extremely price sensitive, you might not get the same quality of work in return. Based on the sample action plan and the quote they offer you, decide the SEO firm you want to go with.

There are literally thousands of ways to gain access to valuable, well-researched data about companies and people. These can range from small, dedicated studies to large, omnibus studies. And while every kind of research has its benefits and drawbacks, more and more companies are discovering the value in the omnibus studies that are being released by major research groups. These omnibus studies help companies get vital information. All it requires is buying in and the information can be accessed. It’s a progressive way to get your hands on interesting data that could help your business grow.

But first: what are omnibus studies and why are they so popular for many different kinds of businesses, including non-profits, private, startups, and more? An omnibus study is generally an ongoing study conducted by a research group. It usually consists of a number of generalized interviews in which participants are asked the questions that are generally asked in most research situations, including questions related to demographics. These are sometimes mixed in with questions that are submitted by the companies who are buying into the omnibus study. That way, the information is specific and general at the same time, making it higher quality for those who are buying in.

Research groups keep their omnibus studies ongoing so that more companies can buy in and more information can be gathered on an ongoing basis. This makes omnibus studies an excellent resource for many different kinds of businesses because of the cost-effectiveness of accessing omnibus studies and the information available. While the information may be more generalized, omnibus studies make for an excellent investment, especially for companies that are working with limited budgets.

The omnibus studies research company conducts a number of interviews with the target group on a regular basis: these interviews combine a number of the standard questions that are always asked—generally including demographic information (age, sex, occupation) or company classification information for a business survey.

1. Cost

Omnibus studies aggregate multiple clients together for surveys and polling data that overlap with multiple needs, spreading the cost of your market research across multiple clients, too. The result: high-quality data and research that is much, much more affordable than other, dedicated research methods and packages.

2. Time

Omnibus studies are quick. So quick, in fact, that they rarely take you any time at all. This is because omnibus studies are part of a research group’s ongoing data collection. So rather than setting up an independent study and executing a research strategy, buying into an omnibus study gives you access to important research almost immediately.

3. Timeliness

Given their usually-ongoing nature, the information that is revealed in omnibus studies tends to be very up-to-the-minute. So instead of getting research that is a few years, or even decades, old, you can buy into omnibus studies that have correlated and gathered data from whenever it started right up until today. With the latest data, you will have the most accurate information that remains relevant to your needs, and that can help your company look to the future with the confidence that you have the most recent information available.

4. Data Variation

Because omnibus studies are an ongoing, shared cost form of research, the data collected is often varied and, therefore, more comprehensive and accurate. Rather than relying on just one method of data collection, be it phone, email, or focus groups, omnibus studies often employ multiple kinds of data collection to reach more people.

Omnibus studies are just one of the many ways to gather important data and information for your business, non-profit, or startup. It comes with numerous advantages, including how quickly you can access the data, how recent that data is, and the overall affordability of the omnibus study (especially for how much information is included). Armed with the information you’ve gained from an omnibus study, you can start to make positive improvements to your business and get a better idea of the kind of information you require from more dedicated studies.

If you are looking for quality omnibus studies and dedicated research, be sure to contact a reputable, established company that has the omnibus studies that you want. Then, you can see if you would like to expand your research based on the information you gained from the omnibus study—and in turn help your company into the next phase of its success.