What to expect when working with a marketing consultant

An experienced independent marketing consultant ensures your marketing isn’t overlooked, under-resourced or misguided, enabling your company to enjoy real growth and improved return on marketing investment. Key is helping you to plan, deliver and most importantly measure your sales and marketing initiatives from start to finish. 

A marketing consultant is a specialist in their field. Typically, they have a high level of knowledge and experience in digital and traditional marketing strategy across all media channels, and are able to create an integrated marketing plan that best suits the needs of your business. No area of your business is left exposed, from establishing your brand credentials to creating customer acquisition campaigns that engage your perfect target audience in order to exceed sales objectives.

Take me as an example, I spent twenty years managing a thriving integrated advertising and digital marketing agency, followed by nearly ten years working within and for private clients. I’ve helped plan and execute revenue generating sales and marketing campaigns, refined strategic capabilities, improved marketing ROI and delivered real growth to companies across a range of sectors that include airlines, national attractions, financial services, food and beverage, and healthcare.

Essentially, a marketing consultant is a conductor with a clear focus on the required outcome and the knowledge of how to get there. Just like a piece of music being created by many instruments within an orchestra, a sales journey requires numerous interactions – from discovering a brand to converting into a customer. Auditing those potential touch points is crucial to marketing; planning how a customer first discovers your products or services, building a sales pipeline and customer relationship programme, managing the delegation of specialist marketing services and reviewing their effectiveness is all in a day’s work. Often hours a busy business manager simply doesn’t have. We’ll go over what to expect when working with a marketing consultant and the advantages it can provide.

Who would benefit from hiring a marketing consultant?

Marketing consultants are beneficial for all sizes of business at any stage. But in particular, if you are a business owner or commercial director with ambitious growth plans, feeling limited by your current marketing activity, whether that be because you don’t have the time or perhaps the expertise to understand what is and isn’t working and why, a consultant can really add value.

Why? Because it’s likely that with any growth you and your team need more time to focus on dealing with the increased demand for your products and services so keeping the sales pipeline flowing slips down your priorities. Sales then falter. Working with a trusted expert will take the strain of marketing off your hands and ensure marketing investment continually delivers what you need during this high-growth stage.

A marketing consultant will understand your business 

A marketing consultant will get to know your business as well as you do and become familiar with key stakeholders, partners, supplier relationships, and senior management. Expect a specialist to ask many questions and really get under the skin of your business. They may also explore ways to work more effectively and re-energise your existing team.

A marketing consultant will provide a return on investment 

The number one outcome business owners want to understand when working with a specialist, is what will be gained versus the cost invested. Expect a consultant to share how they work and who they work with, you’ll agree a retained number of hours per month and they’ll introduce you to a trusted network of suppliers who won’t rip you off.

There are financial benefits to be gained by working in this way. There are no agency mark-ups on supplier costs, no management charges, and no commission to pay. Even better; you are not relying on agency executives to manage your business – this can come with its own stresses as you might find you are still having to make the big decisions. Instead, you have an expert consultant directing your staff and suppliers and getting the very best performance out of them. 

Additionally, hiring a partner to be in charge of your marketing activities drives efficiency, because they are accountable for what takes place. Meanwhile, you should see increased sales revenue from the marketing strategy itself. It pays to invest in good advice.

A marketing consultant will save you time

It’s no secret that marketing is a business function that can often get left behind when a company is struggling through growth or transformation. Sometimes there are simply not enough hours in the day. 

A specialist takes care of all the time-consuming tasks that are required for an effective marketing strategy. You can anticipate that a marketing consultant will project manage all marketing communication initiatives, create business generation forecasts, stay on top of media schedules, outsource suppliers, and generate reports, so you can continue to run your business.

A marketing consultant will change your mindset

One of the biggest changes I see when working with clients is a shift in their mindset when it comes to marketing. When you work with a consultant, expect overwhelm to be replaced with inspiration, a lack of drive to become motivation, and inefficiency to turn into productivity. 

A specialist marketing partner can also advise on future proofing your business so that it lasts business generations. They will be your sounding board to guide you through costly decisions, challenging plans, and the ever-evolving marketing landscape. 

In conclusion

Working with a marketing consultant can be a worthwhile investment; optimising your marketing budget, saving you time, and improving your mindset. Expect your marketing efforts to start working through the development of tactical ideas and marketing campaigns brought to life – driving results in a pain-free way.

Some great tips on what to expect when working with a marketing consultant. Do you understand what working with a specialist would be like, what can be achieved, and the value added to your business?

If you crave support and clarity from a highly experienced, independent marketing consultant who can advise on what you should and should not be doing, help you establish and grow your business and attract the customers you deserve, please GET IN TOUCH.