Education Marketing Specialist Interview Questions And Answers

Marketing is changing constantly at a rapid pace -- so anyone in a marketing role needs to know how to stay on top of and adapt to these changes. Do they know where to look for industry news? Are they familiar with and subscribed to top marketing blogs? What do they do when they see a change has taken place, like when Google updates their algorithm?

This'll show you how well a candidate understands all the different tactics of inbound marketing and how to tie them together into a holistic plan. It'll also give you insight into how creative they are and whether they can come up with new and interesting ways to do marketing.

I was charged with introducing a new brand at a tech conference in Las Vegas. We created a strategy that involved physical signage and giveaways at the conference center, along with a Twitter account that posted about the next locations where customers could find our product. We integrated the campaign with general conference tweets through the use of hashtags. It was a lot of fun.

Similar to a public relations specialist, a communications specialist is responsible for building and maintaining relationships between the company or brand they represent and the outside world. Depending on their role, communications specialists may also be responsible for managing communications within the organization itself including crafting company-wide newsletters, creating brand awareness programs and getting feedback from employees about the company’s communications strategy.

The two most important metrics for social media are engagements and leads. Whether they’re using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or YouTube, a good social media specialist should be able to show quantifiable evidence that they’re reaching people who could become customers.

Explain what attracted you to this field, perhaps using an anecdote from your personal or professional life. Then tailor your answer using a thorough understanding of what the company is currently focusing on and where it wants to go. Deep interest in the mission only goes so far. From there, it’s on you to demonstrate how you can take the company’s work to the next level.

Perhaps it’s clear from the job posting or the interview that the team or company has a need for a specific skill, like grant writing or bookkeeping, that you are especially prepared to take on right away. Remind them you can solve that problem for them. And then, why not go for it? Say, “I have the skills and experience you’re looking for, and I’m a strong candidate for the position.”

This question will help you assess a candidate's ability to explain a concept they know intimately to someone who isn't as familiar with it. If their hobby is training for a marathon, ask them what advice they'd give you if you woke up one day deciding you wanted to train for a marathon. Are they able to communicate it clearly?

One candidate taught me how to make tagliatelle, which is hand-cut Italian pasta. She gave me the full run-down on how you make the noodles, how you form them and cut them, and which ingredients go into the sauce. She relayed the step-by-step process to me in a way that was very clear and understandable. I felt like I could've gone home and made tagliatelle myself. Not only did this tell me she knows how to convey information clearly, but it also gave me insight into her personality and interests.

There's no "right" answer to this question -- a digital marketing strategy thrives on more than three things -- but certain answers show the candidate is up to date on how businesses attract and delight their customers today.

"A Facebook page," for instance, isn't a wrong answer, but it doesn't give you context around how a business would use this page in their marketing strategy. Here are a few sample answers to this interview question that are on the right track:

☛ A blog with calls to action (CTAs), landing pages for website visitors to download more content, and a defined social media strategy.
☛ An SEO strategy, website chat, and an analytics tool to track campaign performance.
☛ Buyer personas, a Marketing and Sales Service Level Agreement, and a customer success strategy.

Our team tracked mentions of our product throughout the conference to see how many conference attendees were engaging with the product. We also tracked hits to our website, as well as attendance at the giveaways. Other metrics we computed were sales after the conference, mentions on social media and engagement through other channels like email.

This question should give you a sense of how thoughtful the professional is and how well they know major social media channels. The real answer is that it depends on what your business goals are and where your community is. The job of a social media specialist is to find and grow that community using strategies tailored to each platform, whether that’s promoting a blog article on Facebook, using Twitter to field customer service requests, or sharing relevant content on Tumblr.

While working as a project manager, I needed to submit a report by a certain deadline, otherwise we wouldn’t be eligible for new funding. However, some information from key stakeholders was delayed or missing completely, and the person who needed to sign off the report was off work. I created a shortlist, flagging areas which were missing information, and systematically went through my contacts for each department – flagging the urgency of the information and the implications of not receiving it in time. I also ran through the latest updates to the report over the phone with the person who needed to approve it to get sign-off. With my perseverance, I was just about able to submit the report on time, and not only did we receive the funding but the entire department was also thrilled.

It is important that you are able to recognise why a plan went wrong and to learn from theexperience. Campaigns often fail due to poor research and groundwork, poor planning and follow through of objectives and goals or ineffective communication. Be open about why thecampaign failed, take accountability and focus on what you learnt.

Not every marketing campaign you run generates the same type or quality of leads. This is what makes this question so interesting. It's a chance for you to see how a marketing candidate thinks about the buyer's journey and what that journey should look like in your company.

If you do pose this question to a candidate, don't expect him or her to know exactly how your business generates its leads. The ideal answer simply demonstrates an awareness of your customer and perhaps some on-the-spot brainstorming the candidate might be asked to participate in while on the job.

Expect follow-up questions from the interviewee, too, especially if you pose this question to a more experienced candidate. For example, they might ask how qualified the leads should be, or how leads are scored as a result of this hypothetical campaign. The specific parameters matter less than the follow-up question itself -- a positive sign of an analytical marketer.

A brand I marketed did not experience strong engagement online from customers. In research done after the campaign, we learned that our sense of who the customer was inaccurate, and the true customer should be targeted differently. We adjusted our marketing language and targeted differently via ads and outreach and experienced greater success the next time.

You want a professional who is deliberate and thoughtful. They should be able to articulate what they think is working well and what isn’t. If you have a strategy in place, they should be able to offer ways to build on it. If you don’t have one, they should be able to offer ideas that align with your business goals.

Every should learn from his mistake. I always try to consult my mistakes with my kith and kin especially with elderly and experienced person.
I enrolled myself into a course useful for the next version of our current project. I attended seminars on personal development and managerial skills improvement.

I worked on a team with several people who came from very different backgrounds and disagreed on many things. The way I worked to bridge this gap was by defining what our product was together and focusing on the product rather than on our personal differences. By focusing that way, we were able to work together.

There is no single solution when it comes to social media. Trends change, communities evolve. A good social media specialist is constantly looking for new ways to engage with their audience. They should also know how to use the results of their experiments to inform future campaigns.

I was working the reception desk in my current role when an irate client came in. He was frustrated that my boss couldn’t make an important meeting at the last minute. I listened to his concerns, got him a seat and a drink and set about trying to put some kind of resolution in place. Away from the reception desk, I found out that the managing director had been called away on an urgent personal matter. By speaking to colleagues, I was able to source a head of department who had been partially involved in the project to take the meeting in his place. The client was relieved, and personally thanked me after the meeting, as well as apologising for his heated words when he first arrived. The client is still with us today.

This is another casual but useful question, as it can tell you both about a candidate's personal interests and how they perceive marketing content on social media. The best answers go further than which companies a candidate likes buying from -- they indicate why he or she trusts certain companies, what about their content strategy appeals to the candidate, and what specifically about those companies the candidate looks up to (and maybe wants to emulate in their own work).

If you need a candidate to elaborate, follow up by asking them to describe a post from a brand they like or follow, and what made that post so memorable to them.

I'm really excited about the prospect of creating an experiential marketing campaign, where we can activate the brand in the wild, where our customers are. I've researched a variety of marketing activations, such as one where a vegetable company brought branded trucks to a festival and served vegetable snacks to health-conscious consumers.

Think about your true strengths and weaknesses, and prepare one in advance for each. Employers across industries will value strengths that relate to your communication skills or your ability to solve problems. Choose one that’s specific, like “I’m comfortable in front of a crowd,” “I manage stress well,” or “I build rapport with others quickly,”.

Your weakness might be that you’re impatient, you’re not a strong number cruncher or you don’t ask for help well. But steer clear of weaknesses that cast doubt on whether you’re a team

☛ What strategies would you suggest to increase our market share?
☛ Between emails, social media and radio ads, which would you choose to attract our target audience, and how?
☛ What methods would you use to gather customer feedback?
☛ What digital channels would you choose to promote a new product we’re launching?

☛ Describe your most successful marketing campaign so far. What was your role and how did you work together with other teams to achieve your goals?
☛ Have you ever participated in an advertising project that failed? If so, what went wrong and what did you do differently next time?
☛ Which do you prefer: creating a report or giving a presentation to explain marketing results? Why?
☛ How do you explain to a manager or client that a campaign didn’t bring the results they wanted?