Let’s start off with who, exactly, a digital marketing consultant is, and what they do. Digital marketing consultants are skilled professionals with a wide range of expertise in various fields. These include business, communications, psychology, and most importantly, setting marketing strategy. Usually, companies seek out these experienced professionals when they wish to outsource their marketing efforts. Marketing consultants work alongside existing teams or businesses to develop, expand, and implement successful marketing strategies and endeavors.
Even though these professionals are highly sought after by a wide range of business-related industries. Some argue that they are unnecessary to complete a successful marketing campaign. Opponents of marketing consultants may post the following arguments against their implementation within a company.
First let’s clear up a few misconceptions!
A Digital Marketing Consultant Does Not Work Miracles
Marketing consultants cannot act as a band-aid for a company with little steady revenue, or an unsustainable business plan. For a digital marketing consultant to have a chance at successfully implementing marketing strategies and addressing issues at hand, a business must be able to hold their own in the first place. For instance if your website is not functional and doesn’t attract the right clients an effective marketing plan maybe a web design strategy that takes time and resources.
Efficient Consultants Are Costly
For a digital marketing consultant to be a cost-effective addition to a marketing team, whether for a long-term contract or a brief period of time, a business must have the budget to pay for the desired results. Digital marketing consultant usually base their costs on their years of professional experience. They can charge either per hour or require a retainer for work completed.
Before making the decision to hire a marketing consultant for your company, ensure that your existing marketing strategies are efficient. The value comes when they just require some fine-tuning to maximize traffic and leads.
A Successful Businesses Doesn’t Need Marketing Assistance
Sure, a business may be making enough in revenue to pay employees handsomely and improve their products or services over time. But chances are that eventually, any business will hit a plateau. That’s where marketing and psychological experts like marketing consultants come in. They can work with an already successful business to break through that plateau by implementing new marketing techniques and improving the existing ones.
Marketing Consultants Shouldn’t be Trusted
Some opponents of the hiring of a digital marketing consultant may argue that these professionals are only in it for themselves. Since they are not directly employed by the business they are assisting, they have no reason to truly dedicate themselves to any project. In truth, marketing consultants are directly affected by their input, and the results, of their work. To be a successful marketing consultant, you must have years of direct professional experience under your belt, and the initiative to be a self-starter to stay ahead in the industry.
Although some parts of these arguments hold true, a digital marketing consultant, can increase inbound traffic and turn leads into sales.
Here are six reasons why any business should consider hiring a marketing consultant:
1. There is a Need for Improved Marketing Strategies
Marketing simply will not work without a set strategy, geared specifically towards your business or industry. Your business may already have a solid marketing team. But they run into problems when attempting to narrow down exactly what tactics are working.
A digital marketing consultant will sit down with the marketing team, analyze the business in its entirety. They will make observations from an outside perspective, and work to develop a clear, well-informed marketing strategy. Whether it’s boosting SEO, creating a niche email campaign or bringing all marketing to the digital world, a developed, intensive online marketing strategy will increase traffic, and generate high-quality leads for a sales department to close.
2. Consultants Focus Marketing Efforts
Along with strategic marketing developments, an expert and experienced marketing consultant will know which strategies will or will not work for any specific business or industry. By researching and reviewing analytics, and observing existing marketing tactics, a marketing consultant will find holes in strategies and eliminate unnecessary processes. This helps businesses to streamline their efforts into functional marketing practices.
3. You Don’t Have the Time or Expertise to Focus on Marketing
As an established company or entrepreneur, your efforts are focused on a variety of business aspects, including growth. A successful marketing campaign or strategy is an essential piece in the growth of a brand or business.
A marketing consultant’s number one job is to implement successful marketing tactics and strategies using their existing knowledge and expertise. Since they do consulting work for a living, they will optimally schedule time to deliver desired results. They are focused on generating high-quality, organic traffic and leads. When you’re seeking a marketing consultant as an addition to your marketing team, find an individual with a wide and up-to-date range of profitable skills. One of the most problematic areas for companies is developing and sting to a well developed communication plan. A marketing consultant can effectively develop a communication calendar including content marketing.
4. You Have Leads, but They Aren’t Converting
Lead generation is a crucial part of any marketing plan. Professional marketing consultants realize the techniques and triggers to transform traffic into leads, and eventual sales and clients. Depending on your business, marketing consultants will review your target audience and generate or recommend the content that best fits the social bracket that you want to share your message with.
In marketing, human psychology is everything. An expert and experienced marketing consultant will know what drives people to act, and the correct techniques to grab their attention. If you have a website with high traffic, but trouble generating that traffic into successful leads, consider hiring a digital marketing consultant. They will find the flaw in your marketing tactics and create a better plan of action.
5. Help Your Business Stay on Task and Focused
Low revenue causes symptoms within a business that can spread like a disease. Working conditions coupled with stress and anxiety can cause a lack of trust, respect, and accountability from all individuals. Over time, this accountability from CEOs and business owners can get off track. The lack of accountability may dissipate through the workspace and company. This can cause clouded thinking and a tough time making well-judged decisions.
A marketing consultant works to establish a plan, and to reinstate productive order and peace within a company. With proper meetings, a clear marketing action plan, content calendar and established goals, these experienced professionals can alleviate stress in the workplace. This can help you get individuals refocused on the areas that they excel in, to keep the company thriving. Developing and executing good marketing campaigns requires effective planning, discipline and methodology that will help your organization stay on track.
6. Digital Marketing Consultants Test, Fine-Tune, and Measure ROI
Thanks in part to their experience and expertise, proper and professional marketing consultants can utilize analytics to fine-tune marketing strategies and activities. With the ability to test out these strategies, marketing consultants can find tactics that work to generate traffic from any desired audience or clientele. They also will fine-tune these tactics to maximize the potential leads in any strategy.
By measuring ROI (return on investment), marketing consultants deliver measurable results to business owners. They will be transparent with the why, and how their newly developed strategies and tactics work.
A digital marketing consultant is not a permanent addition to a business or company. But they are able to assist these organizations in reaching new business goals for sustainable and profitable companies. At the end of the day, finding the right fit for your company is the most important part of hiring a digital marketing consultant. There are countless marketing consultants with expertise in almost any industry or business, but without the correct fit, your expectations or desired results may not be met.
Key Takeaways
There are several key takeaways and considerations for finding a digital marketing consultant that will grow your company:
- Be realistic on how much you can afford to pay a professional and qualified marketing consultant.
- Thoroughly consider what area of expertise is important to you and your business. Account for any potential marketing consultants’ area of expertise, and compare their knowledge to your direct marketing needs.
- Be clear on your end goals and desired outcomes. If all you need is a digital marketing consultant to fine-tune your existing marketing plan, then ensure that you are clear from the start. To avoid any confusion setting clear expectations for marketing consultants will avoid any confusion in their deliverables.
- Before you make a final decision and hire a marketing consultant for your business or organization, try and calculate an approximate time frame that you’ll require their services for. This helps them figure out how much they’re going to charge for their services, or whether they would prefer to work off of a retainer. To calculate this time frame, base your estimates off your business’s budget, existing marketing programs, and your desired goals at the completion of work.
Whether you are planning to completely revamp your company’s or organization’s marketing strategies, have a project that needs to be executed quickly and efficiently, or have an end goal somewhere in-between, consider hiring a digital marketing consultant. These professionals work diligently to assist you in achieving what all businesses desire – growth and prosperity.
The professionals at FireRock Marketing an online marketing agency, want to help you gain confidence in your marketing strategies. As a leading digital marketing consultant, we help businesses achieve their marketing goals with professionalism and expert advice. For more information, visit FireRock Marketing online.