1. Recruiting Marketing Analysts Shaun Williams BA(Hons) DipM DipIDM DipDigM MA Head of Marketing Services PDSA November 2010

2. Recruiting a Marketing Analyst – A Structured Approach Conduct a Marketing/Fundraising situational analysis Develop a clear understanding of the organisations needs Design the analytical team structure around defined business needs Build a skills/needs matrix to focus organisational requirements (Critical v Nice to have) Consider your selection process & evaluation criteria Develop your management framework Consider YOUR specific critical success factors

3. Marketing/Fundraising Situational Analysis External Questions? Are we under performing compared to the sector, if so where? How does our capability stack-up? (skills, tools, and database capability) What is happening at the leading edge of marketing? What are the trends in fundraising/marketing – implications on analytical needs? Internal Questions? What clues are contained in the corporate vision or mission statement? What are the plans of the wider fundraising organisation? What is recorded in departmental risk registers? Review available strategy documents & plans What are the unique differences/needs between teams? What are the growth areas? Where are the current pain points? What are the opportunities for in-sourcing or outsourcing? Where are we relative strong or weak – gap analysis? Potential Traps? Recruiting to solve today’s problems without a coherent analytical strategy Not being able to relate real business needs to analytical requirements

4. Develop a clear understanding of the organisations needs

5. Organisational Needs – Potential Traps? Pitching the role too high (or too low) for the organisation’s long term strategy Not recognising your organisations technical maturity – Can your database & technology support your analytical strategy? Recruiting an analyst that is too junior to establish the function sufficiently Being blinded by analysts with exceptional single skills e.g. an exceptional statistician or data mining expert Failing to recruit someone with a true grasp of the marketing concept Failing to recognise the specialist knowledge needed for good digital or web analytics Ignoring corporate culture & team dynamics (including the wider fundraising team) Getting the insourcing and outsourcing balance wrong

7. Ensure acceptable coverage of the organisations needs (within reason!)

8. Develop a career path where possible

10. Analytical Teams – Don’t ignore the impact of modern analytical tools! Consider your technology and tools carefully, they can have a big impact on the analytical skills you require PDSA uses a sophisticated Faststats system to represent almost all corporate data Lowers the skill base in certain areas (but creates a demand for higher process design skills) Creates more time for insight and idea development Helps shift focus from data manipulation & formatting to data interpretation Helps in the automation of reporting (Faststats Excelsior & Scheduling) Lowers the leaning curve for complex analytical tasks Experience of these sorts of specialist tools are becoming really marketable By integrating theses types of tools you can extend your pool of potential analysts to marketing specialists rather than technical/database specialists The technology that you have available can have a big impact on how you define a skills matrix – what is ‘nice to have’ v what is ‘critical’

11. Build a skills matrix - Critical v Nice to have?

12. Consider your selection process & evaluation criteria Always use some form of practical assessment of skills Use an existing task to create a fair test of analytical abilities (give them some data!) Build in common analytical issues into the test (outliers, incomplete data, coding issues) Look for logical thinking & analytical aptitude Do their skills match your ‘needs matrix’? Interviewing Analysts Do they understand the marketing concept (& DM response context) Draw out real life examples of problems they have encountered & their solutions Impact on team dynamics? Consider the use of psychological assessment for senior positions Are all the components in place? Detailed job description & person specification? Clear understanding of tasks and the organisations needs An appreciation of organisation culture (& a plan if changing status quo!) Do you know what’s important in the role offered? Develop you sourcing strategy Internet strategy (Job sites, charity website, agencies) Print adverts (Local, National, or specialist press) Networking (groups & forums) Head hunters

13. Develop your management framework

14. Consider YOUR specific critical success factors PDSA critical success factors? Must have a clear business case for the role in order to “sell it in” to SMT - linking role back to bottom line. Must be able to demonstrate a persuasive argument when challenged Need absolute clarity on skills mix (and relate to organisations needs) Need high level support/champion The candidate needs to demonstrate the right attitude and desire They need to understand the marketing concept and demonstrate technical skills in our context The candidate needs to be well rounded and demonstrate good communication & team working Don’t get blinded by a single exceptional skill Get them settled and integrated into the team quickly with real task responsibilities Hold regular informal review meetings and deal with any issues or concerns quickly Have a forum were new idea’s and techniques can be discussed and shared openly

15. Thank You Shaun Williams williams.shaun@pdsa.org.uk