If you’re reading this, I assume you’re interested in learning about an online marketing associate (OMEA) role. You’re in the right place! In this post, we’ll cover some of the basics about what is an OMEA role as well as some of the responsibilities that come with the job.
Key Responsibilities
Depending on the specialty of the person filling the role, the responsibilities of an OMEA can vary. For example, an account manager for a marketing agency might have more responsibility than an online marketer working for a marketing department of a company. However, there are some general responsibilities that all online marketers need to adhere to.
Research
As the name suggests, an online marketer’s main responsibility is to conduct research. The more you know, the better your work will be perceived as being worthwhile. You’ll be conducting research to ensure that you’re providing the best possible service to your customers. One of the things that come with this responsibility is finding the best prices for the products and services your customers need. In addition to keeping track of discounts and sales, you’ll also be looking for the best possible prices through price comparison online platforms like Google Shopping or Shopify.’
The best prices will be determined by your knowledge of current market trends along with the competitive analysis you perform on a regular basis. This research will include studying customer behavior, competitors, and market trends. You’ll also be testing different approaches to see which ones work best for your company.
You’ll need to make sure that you’re always up-to-date on the latest industry trends and information. This means regularly reading industry magazines, participating in social media, and keeping track of relevant websites. In addition, you should set aside time each week to keep learning, by reading books or listening to podcasts. Keeping your skills fresh is important so that you can provide the best possible service to your customers. This will also mean that you can continually expand your knowledge and add new skills to your arsenal.
Writing
If you’re a marketer who manages a marketing agency’s digital marketing efforts, then you’ll be responsible for creating content for websites, social media, and email marketing campaigns. The content you create will largely depend on the type of business you’re promoting (product or service-based) as well as the target audience for each piece.
The more you know about content management systems like WordPress or Joomla! the better. Not only will you be able to create quality content that will boost sales, but you’ll also be able to effectively promote it on your various channels.
Depending on your expertise, you might end up creating website content, e-books, whitepapers, or even marketing plans. The most important thing to keep in mind is that everything you create needs to contain valuable and actionable information that will be helpful to your customers. You can also create fun content for social media, like memes or gifs to engage your audience.
Communication
If you’re a digital marketer who manages an inbound marketing agency’s social media accounts, you’ll be responsible for creating and maintaining social media content calendars. Your calendar will dictate what content you create and when you create it. It will also dictate how frequently you post on each channel.
As a digital marketer, you’ll be participating in Twitter chats, liking and commenting on customers’ blogs, and posting on LinkedIn. You’ll also be engaging with potential customers on social media to build credibility and provide useful information.
Your calendar needs to be fully organized so that you can post on the right days and at the right times. It should also be readily accessible to all the team members responsible for each social media platform.
If you ever watched the Netflix documentary, The Rise of Netflix, you’ll get an insight into how the entertainment giant operates. One of the things the documentary highlights is the fact that in order to thrive, Netflix had to become an effective communicator. This meant that they had to get their message out to the public in the right way, build an engaged audience, and consistently provide useful content.
Effective communication is vital in order to provide the best possible service to your customers, and the same goes for the team members working for your company. You can use many different platforms to effectively communicate with your customers including websites, social media, and email marketing. However, no one platform is better than the others, and it depends on the type of business you’re in.
Analysis
Analyst are often times found at the end of a research project in order to analyze the data and come up with meaningful and actionable insights. However, just because a particular role requires you to analyze data doesn’t mean that you have to sit still for hours and hours processing numbers. There are automated tools like Tableau or Hootsuite that can do the math for you and reveal interesting trends and comparisons that you might not have seen otherwise. In order to make the most of these tools, you need to be organized and know exactly what you’re looking for.
In addition to using tools like Tableau or Hootsuite, an analyst might need to pull data from various platforms like Google Analytics or Segment in order to get a single clear picture of performance across different channels and audiences.
Strategy
A strategist’s responsibility is to develop a strategy for the company. Depending on the size of the company, this might mean creating marketing strategies for different segments, establishing brand guidelines, or even designing marketing plans for the entire company. In order to do this, a strategist will have to gain a thorough understanding of the company’s goals and objectives as well as take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the brand.
When developing a strategy, you might come up with the following areas to cover:
- Product (including pricing)
- Place (Where will we sell our products/services)
- Channel (How will we get the word out there – Print/Radio/Online)
- Competitors
- Metrics (What will we use to measure our success)
- Next Steps
As a digital marketer, you’ll be working closely with the strategist when developing the strategy and following it through to implementation. You might be asked to update the strategy as new information comes in or to test different approaches and see which ones work best for the business.
When implementing the strategy, you’ll be responsible for making sure that everything plays its part. This means following up on any loose ends from the previous stage (e.g., making sure that SEO is fully implemented on the website), getting everything in place, and monitoring the results. You can’t be afraid to try new things and be flexible with the strategies you implement. As long as everything is followed through properly, you’ll be able to determine the success of the strategy in the end.
Production
If you’re a marketer who manages a marketing agency’s production department, then you’ll be responsible for getting all the content from the previous stage (writing and analysis) into a format that can be easily used by the public. This could include creating presentations for potential clients, curating videos for the YouTube channel, or putting together a marketing e-book.
The better you know your content management systems, the easier it will be to get your content in the right format. For example, if you’re working with Slides and want to insert a few graphs or figures, you can do so without needing a special professional to help you. With practice, it’s all achievable.
Pricing
Last but not least, we have pricing. As a marketer who manages a marketing agency’s profit center, you’ll be responsible for coming up with different pricing strategies for different products or services. This could include anything from negotiating discounts for large orders or certain types of customers to developing an in-house pricing strategy for certain products. In order to do this, you’ll need to make sure that you’re constantly comparing the costs of production for different products and that you’re not missing out on any discounts that might be available.
It’s important to note that coming up with a pricing strategy is not a simple task, and it requires a little bit of research. You could use tools like Google’s Productivity App to easily create a spreadsheet with all the relevant information about your products. You can then use the pricing strategies you develop to regularly update the spreadsheet with new information.
You might also want to take a look at your competitors’ prices in order to get a sense of what is a reasonable price for your product or service. While it might not be easy, it is something that all businesses need to be concerned with.