Hiring a marketing consultant might just be what your company needs to reach and convert more customers. But how exactly will a marketing consultant help you achieve this? Whilst the ultimate aim of a marketing consultant is easy enough to understand, the strategies and techniques they use are complex and require expertise and vision. Knowing exactly what to expect from a marketing consultant can reveal just how valuable to your business they can be. We’re therefore going to break down exactly what a marketing consultant does, what services they provide, and how they compare to the alternatives. 

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What is a marketing consultant? 

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Like all consultants, marketing consultants are experts in a certain field. They are also external to your organization and hired on a temporary basis. Generally speaking, a consultant is brought in to identify weaknesses in a company’s processes so that they can improve them or create new ones. So you might introduce a marketing-specific consultant to your company if your marketing team is struggling to implement effective strategies, or if you’re a SME business without a dedicated marketing team. 

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What does a marketing consultant do?

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Implementing marketing strategies sounds simple, but once we dive in to what this really involves it becomes clear why marketing consultants are so sought after. 

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Developing new strategies

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If a marketing consultant is introducing new strategies, you should expect them to tailor these to your business. If they’re designing a multi-channel approach, they would ensure that it targets the market you're looking to tap into. 

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Let’s see how this works if a marketing consultant is helping you enter a new market. They would first start by employing a variety of market-entry tactics that work cohesively together. For instance, a marketing consultant could develop localized advertising campaigns and combine them with influencer partnerships. Another cohesive strategy would be to attract leads through informative blogs, professionals through LinkedIn or Twitter campaigns, and prospects through email marketing. 

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Improving preexisting strategies

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If you’re looking to improve your marketing strategies, a marketing consultant will start by using data-driven analyses to assess the effectiveness of your pre-existing strategies before providing actionable insights.

Let’s say you’ve noticed declining engagement on your social media platforms, a marketing consultant might investigate interaction trends to assess the relationship between engagement and your content or posting schedules. They might then discover that your content is not resonating with your target audience. As a result, they might recommend you shift towards more interactive posts, such as polls or live videos. In another scenario, the marketing consultant might study the conversion rates of your different marketing channels, and might suggest you reallocate budget to higher-performing channels.

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What services should you expect from a marketing consultant? 

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Now that we’ve given an outline of what a marketing consultant does, it’s time to get specific about the types of services you might expect from them along the way. We’ll go through these item by item. 

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Market research

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We’ve already seen how important a customer base analysis can be. Market research is a crucial aspect of this process. There are a few tools a marketing consultant can use to do this such as customer base surveys, competition analyses, and video calls with customers which help uncover their pain points. Market research can then be used for audience segmentation and to fine-tune your targeting. 

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Brand Strategies

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Marketing consultants work with business leaders and marketing teams to develop a brand identity that stands out amongst competition. This involves polishing your company’s tone and voice so that it appeals to the right demographic, and crystallizing a gripping visual style. A marketing consultant should be able to ensure that tone is not only unique but consistent across media-types and platforms. 

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Content Creation

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A marketing consultant will either develop their own marketing output or will work with other creators, such as freelancers or in-house designers. There’s a range of output they’ll help your company produce to boost its reach, such as SEO articles, ad copy, or graphic design for social media.

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Campaign Management

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A very common form of end-to-end marketing that a marketing consultant can set up is pay-per-click marketing. They will be able to set up ad campaigns on social media platforms, analyze their effectiveness, and tweak them accordingly. 

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Performance Tracking and Optimization

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An essential service provided by marketing consultants is the iterative monitoring of marketing efforts. Tools such as Google Analytics and social media insights enable in-depth understanding of campaigns and their successfulness, from which marketing consultants can adapt their strategies or design new ones.

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How can you hire a marketing consultant?

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Now that we’ve seen what a consultant can do for your business, you might be at the stage of hiring one. Since hiring a consultant might differ depending on the nature of your business and the project you need them to work on, we’ll help you navigate the different options. 

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Referrals

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This might be the least obvious way of hiring a consultant, but it is also the most reliable method of finding a perfect fit for your business and project. If a business operating in the same field as you vouches for a particular consultant they’ve had success with, it’s likely they’ll create success for your business too. 

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Consultancy Agencies

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Agencies are probably the best known way of hiring marketing consultants. The trick is finding an agency that fits your business, since even the big agencies have their own distinct approaches and strengths. McKinsey for instance, uses data-driven and analytical approaches to implement high-level, long-term, strategies. Accenture on the other hand, emphasizes digital transformation and technology-driven marketing solutions. If you want an even better fit, smaller consultancies might be better for your company since these tend to excel within small niches. An example is Propeller, which is known for offering a holistic approach to marketing that’s tailored to meet the specific needs of SME business and startups. They work very closely with their clients to ensure that their strategies are not only well-designed but also effectively implemented.

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Freelance Consultants

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There are a variety of sites where marketing consultants will advertise their areas of expertise. LinkedIn is a good way of checking if consultants fit your requirements before you reach out to them. There are also freelance specific sites you can use such as Upwork and Fiverr. 

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How are marketing consultants paid? 

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Marketing Consultants are typically paid hourly or on a project basis. The payment structure will largely depend on the scope of work and the services you require. 

A consultant often charges by the hour if their work involves ongoing advice, strategy sessions or smaller, undefined tasks. Here, the payment structure offers flexibility and is more suitable for long-term collaboration where the consultant’s workload varies over time. 

 A flat fee for the completion of a specific project is more appropriate for other specific scenarios. It is ideal when the project’s scope and deliverables are defined upfront, such as launching a marketing campaign or redesigning brand strategy. However, paying per project may sometimes lead to additional needs down the road. For example, once a project is completed, you may find that you need the consultant's expertise for follow-up work or related projects, which could lead to further collaboration and cost.

Irrespective of the payment method, it’s important to clearly outline expectations and deliverables to avoid surprises, and to determine which payment structure aligns best with your needs and budget.

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Should you hire a marketing consultant?

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So now that you know everything about marketing consultants, the final thing to ask is should you hire one? We’re going to break down the pros and cons of doing so. 

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Benefits

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Marketing consultants are experts at fixing problems and crafting tailored solutions. If your team is struggling to foster new ideas, consultants are a great way of shaking things up. If you’re lacking a dedicated marketing team, consultants can get you started with a marketing approach which you can build a team around at a later date. In short, hiring a consultant is a great way to quickly implement new projects and see results. 

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Limitations

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Consultants are great at getting the ball rolling or shaking things up but the main downside is their price point. For this reason, it’s unlikely you will be hiring a consultant for the long run. This might result in some further issues once the consultant has stopped working with your company. If your marketing team hasn’t been properly trained to respond to the strategies implemented by the marketing consultant, these might become increasingly ineffective as time goes on. It’s also possible that issues embedded in a consultant’s implementations might become difficult to fix once they’re no longer involved with your business. 

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What are the alternatives to marketing consultants? 

The two main alternatives to marketing consultants are in-house teams and AI tools. 

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In-house marketing

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Hiring an in-house team carries some advantages over using an external consultant. Since they are immersed in your company’s culture and have an intimate knowledge of your goals, long-term strategies and audience, they are likely able to achieve better brand alignment and can also collaborate more effectively across departments. The most significant benefit of an in-house team, however, is that they allow for greater management control over marketing activities, since they continuously focus on your company’s needs rather than juggling multiple clients, as is often the case with consultants. 

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There are some downsides to consider, however. Whilst a consultant is more expensive per project or per hour, hiring a fully fledged marketing team involves a significant investment. Furthermore, an in-house team can be restricted by its internal facing perspective and might miss new trends, innovative strategies or broader industry insights which consultants excel in providing. 

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AI marketing

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AI tools such as Kular.ai can rapidly identify leads and build up customer bases. They are cost effective and can be effectively employed by just one individual in your company. The downside of AI, however, is that each tool tends to focus on one marketing tactic, so you might find yourself using a variety of tools to cover the various disciplines a marketing specialist is capable of employing. We’ve written an article here on how to maximize results with AI, by combining AI’s scalability with the creativity and high-level strategy of business leaders. 

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Conclusion 

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As we’ve seen, hiring a marketing consultant is ideal when a business is looking for specialized expertise for short-term projects or very specific challenges, since consultants can bring fresh perspectives, revitalize established processes, and challenge entrenched ways of working. All of which can make a significant impact. However, a business that requires ongoing, long-term marketing output might find that an in-house team can better provide marketing solutions which closely align with their strategies and values. Hiring a marketing consultant or an in-house team are not, however, mutually exclusive. A hybrid approach will often yield the best results, with marketing consultants launching new initiatives whilst being supported by the long-term marketing efforts of a dedicated in-house team. 

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It’s also seriously worth considering the capabilities of AI tools to automate specific marketing needs. For instance, if you’re looking to generate leads quickly and effectively, Kular can help you do it at scale without needing to hire a consultant or an in-house team. Or, even better, leverage the combined power of consulting expertise, in-house strategic alignment and AI-driven automation to create a seamless, fully optimized marketing approach that leaves no gaps in execution. 

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