Having a marketing consultant that gives you numerous pieces of advice for companies on creating and implementing marketing strategies will help leverage the company by defining and reaching their respective goals.
In fact, by providing guidance for client companies on directing their outlays, marketing consultants have a poll average of 4.5% in terms of their industry growth from 2014 until 2019.
While most marketing consultants are making sure that they give responsive and data-driven advice, there are several things to know about marketing consultants before hiring one.
What Is a Marketing Consultant?
Marketing consultants collaborate with company brands to analyze their present marketing strategy and then modify the existing marketing strategy in accordance with the different changes that are emerging.
The way marketing consultants modify a certain marketing strategy is through the way they analyze the current target audience of the client, the message of a brand, the creativity, and innovation skills, the execution of the company’s marketing strategy, the different areas in marketing that worked and didn’t work, and the results of the company’s most recent marketing strategy.
An average marketing consultant’s salary has an entry income of at least $39,145 according to research.
What Does a Marketing Consultant Do?
In making sure that you need to know about marketing consultants before hiring one in your company, the first key question that you need to answer is to determine what a marketing consultant does. Especially in the area of marketing, it goes in different facets.
There are several areas in which you need to determine what specialty a marketing consultant has. In exploring the different areas of marketing, you get to identify what specialization the marketing consultant is great at.
Social Media Marketing
With the influx of social media marketing, consultants specialized in this area are concerned with different strategies made by companies in running social media campaigns, posts that improve engagement and loyalty, and the drive of sales from the different social media platforms.
Marketing consultants in this area are examining things that drive brand awareness, traffic to the website, and social media boost that will enhance the reputation of the company. They simply become the voice and witness of the company from an online perspective.
Digital Marketing
With the use of digital technologies that advertise the different products and services of the company, consultants who concentrate on the area of digital marketing devise improvements that will give suggestions on the crafting of new content, methodologies, and strategies for reaching customers and increasing the engagement between customers.
Having an average hourly rate of at least $140 per hour, the digital marketing consultant has a great solid experience in their respective industry and makes sure that a certain company has built a strong online presence.
Copywriting
Among all forms of marketing consultation, copywriting is considered the most crucial. Pitching the company’s brand to a larger audience, the marketing consultant specialized in this area makes sure that the written and spoken words boost the brand awareness and persuasion of the brand towards the large audience who’s going to listen or read.
They are highly specialized in slogans and catchy forms of advertising that promote and sell the goods and services of a company.
Public Relations
In marketing consultation, public relations is considered a key function of communicating messages to the public. This function of a marketing consultant makes use of messages that target different audiences and forms of publicity that will advertise the product and service of a company.
Aside from communicating messages to the public, the function of a marketing consultant in public relations is crucial in terms of maintaining the brand reputation in every marketing campaign done.
Direct Response Marketing
A marketing consultant who specialized in direct response marketing and encourages the prospects to take any form of a specific action. The marketing consultant introduces tracking strategies for all marketing activities, recommends adjustments to current marketing strategies to improve certain results, and generates more leads on specific marketing strategies.
What Skills Should Marketing Consultants Have?
To make sure that you effectively know about the marketing consultant in your company prior to hiring one, the necessary skills of being a good listener and giver of advice to the company is a great quality that should be looked upon.
Marketing consultants will know the to and fro of the company’s marketing strategies, and there are skills that they must possess in the entire marketing consultation process.
Good Listening and Empathy Skills
A marketing consultant should know when to listen and speak. They should be authoritative rather than authoritarian. As marketing consultants seek marketing strategies that boost the profitability of the company, they must be good listeners and should understand the different facets of the company including the company’s culture, goals, vision, and mission.
In embodying this skill, the marketing consultants should do frequent consultations among different employees and top management teams on what worked on certain marketing strategies and what should work better.
Goals-Focused
Marketing consultants should make sure that they are well-oriented with the goals of the company in terms of a certain marketing campaign that the company is going to undertake. Identifying the different checkpoints and green light points of a marketing strategy should be looked upon and in accordance to the overall goals.
Creative
With great marketing strategies, marketing consultants must be creative in any way. A good marketing strategy positions good retention among people. Making use of the different marketing trends that respond to the needs of people will make sure that it becomes innovative and unique to the people when watching a certain marketing strategy.
Marketing consultants, when being creative, should also establish appealing and catchy details in a certain campaign.
Good Communication Skills
The marketing consultants should have good communication skills. Before hiring one, it doesn’t mean that they are well adept with the English language means that they have good communication skills. A marketing consultant who has good communication skills is well-adept to the things that they are talking about.
If marketing consultants talk about leveraging the marketing campaign into the social media platform, they must be proficient in the different technicalities of social media marketing. They walk their talk.
Adaptable
The changes emerging in the marketing industry have been inevitable. A marketing consultant should be able to adapt to the different changes that are happening. They must be innovative in terms of marketing strategies that could be able to address the different changes in the situation in the market and the needs of the people.
Great Collaboration Skills
Lastly, the skill a marketing consultant should have is that they must be a good team player. Aside from being a good listener, the marketing consultant should make sure that they have great collaboration skills in letting the company realize what worked and didn’t work on the modified marketing strategy.
In terms of the changes happening, both the company and marketing consultant team share the process and accountability of achieving the different goals of a certain marketing campaign.
Independent vs Freelance Marketing Consultant
When working in companies as a consultant in the marketing aspect, they must not have a direct affiliation with the company regardless if they are an independent or a freelance marketing consultant. This will give multiple clients an opportunity to be offered your services.
An independent consultant works for a specific company that contracts out to multiple clients while freelance marketing consultants work for the offers wanted by a certain company.
These types of marketing consultants differ in pay structure. Freelancer can set their own salaries while independent ones do not have the right to decide on their own because the company sets the fee.
In the work setting, freelancers can work out of home and do occasional onsite visits, while independent marketing consultants work either at the headquarters or the client’s office.
Lastly, for education requirements, independent consultants should have a professional background in a certain industry, while freelance ones do not require any specific education in a certain field.
Tips for Finding A Reliable Marketing Consultant
Before hiring marketing consultants in your company, finding a reliable one is a challenging thing to do; however, it plays a crucial role because it contributes to the overall growth of the business company when making successful marketing campaigns.
Determine the Needs
When finding a reliable marketing consultant, make sure that your company needs to determine its marketing needs. This will avoid any sort of confusion on the part of a marketing consultant.
Identify the Strengths
The company should be able to examine first the strengths of the marketing consultant. Looking at the consultant’s experience and strengths are among the things the company should look into.
Effective and Comprehensive Research
Effective and comprehensive research of the marketing consultant that will be picked into the company is that the marketing consultant is able to determine the different facets of the marketing and its intricacies that could contribute to the success of the company.
Consider The Price
The last tip that should be looked into by the marketing consultant is the price that they offer. It should be affordable and fit to the company’s marketing needs.
