What is a Marketing Analyst? What does this professional do?

In a time totally transformed by the internet and technological advances, some professions are becoming obsolete and even unnecessary.

However, new professions are arising, to meet demands and deal with activities that, up to now, weren’t even considered by the market.

The profession of marketing analyst is one of these careers that has gained strength recently and started to be valued by companies in a variety of sectors.

As brands are increasingly focused on being present on social media, attracting traffic, and standing out from the competition, having a marketing analyst on your team may be crucial to achieve the best results.

In this post, we’ll teach you all about this professional, what they are responsible for, the necessary skills, and the importance of their work.

What is a marketing analyst?

A marketing analyst is responsible for creating, developing, analysing and measuring marketing strategies in the company they are working for.

Because this professional works in the marketing and advertising departments, having a bachelor’s degree in one of these areas is considered an indispensable requirement.

However, as important as the education background is, it’s the mastery of the tools that help in coming up with a successful marketing strategy.

What does a marketing analyst do?

Now, let’s talk a little bit about the responsibilities of a marketing analyst in a company.

We should consider, however, that the work carried out by this professional may vary according to the company. After all, we are talking about a profession in which there is a need to adapt and customize strategies taking into account the audience each company is trying to reach, its objectives, the available tools and the means of communication the consumers in question use.

Here, the focus will be on the digital marketing analyst, but this profession is also very important to companies that make use of traditional marketing strategies and need to cater to television, radio, promotion of free samples in public spaces, and others.

Therefore, for a digital marketing analyst, we can say these are the main responsibilities:

1. Defining a buyer persona

To come up with the best strategies and use the right tools to attract ideal customers who are interested in the products and services the company offers, the marketing analyst needs to know who these people are.

If the research is based merely on the target-audience in general, the professional runs the risk of investing in shallow campaigns, which are not very appealing and do not add value to the public that really represents the potential to make a purchase.

Defining a buyer persona is to thoroughly detail who the ideal customer for that brand is, their interests, pains, and objections. The more specific the profile is, the easier it will be for the professional to define the actions that must be taken.

2. Study the market and the competition

It is also the marketing analyst’s responsibility to keep an eye on the market to keep up with the latest trends, the demands from consumers and the gaps that must be filled.

Knowing the market involves understanding your competition:

• Who they are;
• What actions they are investing in;
• What is achieving good results;
• What needs to be improved.

Taking advantage of the missteps of the competition is fundamental for the marketing analyst, who can then get the attention of consumers who are not satisfied with demands that haven’t been met.

3. Come up with assertive strategies

After having the buyer persona and all the knowledge about the market and competition, the marketing analyst has to come up with the best strategies to draw in customers.

At this moment, the professional should consider which social media is most commonly used by the people they want to reach.

As we mentioned before, a good marketing analyst starts by defining the profile of the buyer persona. Then, it’s easy to learn where to find them and which kind of action generated the most engagement.

Then, appealing and high-quality content must be created, using SEO strategies to optimize this content, attracting organic traffic and boosting the company’s sales. Moreover, all means of communication with the public must be considered: blog, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, email marketing, and newsletters, for example.

Publishing awesome content on Facebook when your buyer persona has more affinity and engagement on Instagram is a waste of effort and time, isn’t it?

Another important detail the professional has to keep an eye on is the format of the content that will be promoted. There are audiences that respond better to videos, others have more affinity with images, or texts, or gifs. Paying attention to this aspect is also part of the marketing analyst’s job, who will have to carry out tests before reaching the ideal manner to communicate with the audience.

What about frequency? The marketing analyst has to launch campaigns on the best times and days of the week, besides maintaining a certain periodicity in the company’s action, always taking into consideration what brings the best results, engagement, and conversions.

4. Monitoring and measuring the results of actions

As important as defining and developing strategies is to constantly monitor and measure results.

The marketing analyst should pay close attention to every action taken, to be able to identify what brought the best results and what did not achieve what was expected.

To help the professional in this task, there are many tools to monitor and get the best insights from the metrics, such as Google Analytics. The marketing analyst should know how to use these services and adapt the strategies to achieve better results.

What are the main characteristics of a marketing analyst?

To be able to handle so many tasks, it is essential that the marketing analyst has (or develop) specific characteristics and skills.

Some of them are:

• Resourcefulness in written communication;
• Creativity;
• Knowledge of social media and marketing tools;
• Understanding metrics and statistics;
• Enthusiasm and diligence;
• Willingness to keep on studying;
• Knowledge of SEO techniques.

As this profession deals with an ever-changing market, having all these characteristics and getting the best out of them is essential.

Besides, the marketing analyst needs to be proactive to learn and put into practice something new every day, learning about new tools, the changes in social media algorithms and keep track of the constant changes the consumer market goes through.

How to hire a marketing analyst

A marketing analyst is indispensable for a company that needs to implement or improve promotion strategies.

If you are knowledgeable about the area, it will be much easier to find the right person for the job. However, for those who haven’t got any experience in the marketing sector and are hiring someone to implement these actions, it may be difficult to select candidates.

To find a marketing analyst, it’s important to pay attention to the experience in managing social media, creating content, using email marketing tools and SEO.

The ideal candidate must meet the criteria we mentioned above, and also be passionate about the digital world and willing to deal with metrics and numbers all the time. It’s no use  hiring an excellent content writer who cannot monitor and understand the results from the actions taken.

As much as people with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, journalism, and related areas are more prepared to act as marketing analyst, people with different educational backgrounds can also do really well.

Candidates who have or used to have a blog, who have social media profiles, know how to use content marketing tools and SEO strategies will probably stand out.

That’s why, when you open a marketing analyst position in one of the traditional job sites, it’s common to get a lot of resumés, especially now that there are more and more people interested in working in the digital market.

It’s important to go through these resumés very carefully, so that only people who can really add something to the company pass on to the next stage in the hiring process.

Conclusion

As an entrepreneur, you will certainly get to a point in which it will be necessary to invest in marketing to stand out in the market, increase your sales, and make your business soar.

With this article, you learnt who the ideal professional to fill in the position of marketing analyst is, and you are ready to start your search.

But maybe you have realized that the best thing to do is to prepare yourself to become a marketing analyst. By becoming a specialist, you will be able to apply all the knowledge in your business and improve, on your own, the results of your actions.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below!