How to Find the Right Content Strategist for Your Tech Company
If your tech startup is at the stage where you’re seriously considering hiring either a full-time content strategist or a contractor / freelance content strategist, you’ve reached an exciting and pivotal time in your company growth.
You’ve probably realized that:
You need to do a better job of explaining what you do
It’s time to create content so you can join the industry conversation
It’s time to start the content creation engine so you can be competitive in search rankings and/or increase organic traffic
Revving up content marketing can directly and positively affect your business goals
Your technical team cannot also create effective content
Especially if you’re tech focused, it can be hard to determine what makes a good content strategist, or even how to identify a good content marketing strategy. And what you don’t want—and what I don’t want for you—is to hire someone who is either mediocre, inexperienced, or not what you need.
Here’s how to hire the perfect technical content strategist for your business.
What’s a technical content strategist?
First, a content strategist is a marketer who looks at your business objectives, identifies opportunities where content can enhance those goals, and then make it all happen. They should be proficient enough with SEO to understand how to identify high-opportunity topics, then create an editorial calendar, write types of content like blog posts or ebooks, then publish and distribute that content.
Aside from that, they should provide insights into how you can use your content to generate leads and nurture them through email marketing. They should also be able to tie everything together into a cohesive content strategy.
But what separates technical content strategist from plain old content strategists?
If your business is technical—say, focused on compliance, data service solutions, or cloud security—you need a content strategist who understands the industry and/or the lingo, at least on a basic level. Like, they should know what IAM is, or the difference between hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.
Otherwise, you’ll spend a large portion of your time just educating them on the baics of your industry. And while you should expect some of that to an extent, you don’t want it to be a remedial course where you have to bring them up to speed before they can offer any insights at all.
While the principles of technical content marketing don’t differ from general content marketing, technical content marketing does require an additional level of technical understanding that many content strategists may not have.
How to identify a good content marketing strategist
There are some basic boxes to check when you look for in an everyday content strategist:
Native proficiency in your market’s language
Examples of clear, coherent marketing writing
Experience with content planning, not just creation
Strategic thinking: You want someone who asks you, “What’s the goal for this piece?” and then takes your idea and optimizes it for your audience, SEO, and strategy
Ability to discuss not just strategic creation, but also measurement and results
Things that don’t matter so much:
Their experience with content management systems
Companies named on their resume
How to identify a good technical content strategist
Here are the additional traits to identify in technical content strategists:
Is transparent with you about their level of technical knowledge (i.e. “I’m very familiar with the B2B SaaS industry but I haven’t worked much with data services specifically.” Or, “I was a software developer for 20 years, I viscerally understand the problems that go into software testing.”)
Is comfortable and/or experienced working with technical people
Has some experience in your general industry, even if it’s just B2B tech
Understands conceptually what you do, and is able to demonstrate that understanding
Remember, there is very likely to be a learning curve with any content strategist you hire–even if they were a software developer for 20 years. So find someone who has basic understanding and is willing to learn and do research to develop deeper knowledge.
Content strategist interview questions
You have to have at least one face-to-face or Zoom-to-Zoom discussion with the candidate. Here’s a more expanded list of my previous list of interview questions to ask of potential content strategist hires:
Have you worked with companies like ours, or in our industry, before?
What did you think of our website? (Red flag if they haven’t looked at it at all.)
What content opportunities do you see for us?
Have you seen anything our competitors are doing that we should be doing as well? (If it’s your first meeting, they may not yet be aware of your direct competitors.”
What results do you think we could expect? (Be prepared for “It depends” but they should be able to give a general insight)
How long do you think it would take for us to see results?
What do you think is the first thing we need to focus on?
What kinds of results have you seen with other clients/in your previous positions?
Here are the questions you want to hear from them:
What has been working for you?
What hasn’t been working and why?
What are your business objectives and goals this year?
Who are your top competitors?
How are you different from your competitors?
Which companies do you admire for their messaging and content?
Is anyone on your team dedicated to marketing full time?
Hiring outside of your area of expertise is always a bit of a challenge, but it’s not that different from hiring those for jobs you know intimately. Sure there’s no quantitative skills test for content marketers, but you still want to find a candidate or technical content agency that is sharp, strategic, and willing to ask questions.
Once you find that person or agency, have regular check-ins and keep up with their work so you know you’re getting value and results. Then pat yourself on the back; you’ve got a marketing team!
