5 Key Things To Look For In A Marketing Consultant

Employing a marketing consultant can be the best leap forward your business takes. In a digitally driven world where new rivals seem to be popping out of cyberspace to steal your market share, businesses need improved marketing efforts to elevate their brand. But what should a company look for when selecting a marketing expert? Here are some key attributes to ask for when assessing your choices:

Experience

Gaining the support of a knowledgeable marketer can really boost your marketing results.  Rather than wasting resources trialling new campaigns with a tenderfoot newbie, gain solid support from a qualified and seasoned professional.  Having years of experience means that your top-notch marketer already knows what campaigns may work and what doesn’t. What’s more, they’ll know the tools and techniques that are required to improve your communications and customer experience. This valuable knowledge means that a business won’t waste time and resources on airy fairy campaigns or weak strategies that simply don’t get results.

Analytical and Creative Skill Set

Let’s take a quick look at the types of tasks marketing consultants do to create and implement effective marketing strategies for a business:

• Create a detailed marketing plan
• Determine marketing messages
• Identify appropriate marketing channels to get the messages out
• Execute and implement the marketing strategy
• Monitor results and tweak campaigns where necessary

From the above, you’ll realise that a marketing consultant needs to have the right blend of analytical and creative skills. It’s fair to say that there’s little point creating a stunningly designed email campaign if you don’t measure its results. Equally, there’s not much point setting clear and measurable objectives and goals if you don’t have the creative flair to design social media posts that will evoke a response.

End to End Approach

Not only should a marketing consultant assist you develop and build marketing objectives and strategies that provide meaningful ROI. Your marketing consultant should help you implement the strategy or campaign. Great strategies are brilliant to start with, but you still need the time, resource and capabilities to put them into action and succeed at achieving your goals!

That’s why having an end-to-end Marketing Consultant is crucial to help you reach the next level of growth and success. Find a consultant who can not only suggest ideas but put them into action and report on the results.

Honesty

Having honesty, trust and open communication with your marketing consultant is so important. But it can be difficult to ascertain whether someone is an honest person at the initial meeting. Will this marketing consultant go along with your idea of purchasing an email marketing list that they know would be a waste of your marketing budget? Or will they be honest with you and tell you that ROI is generally low, and you’d be better off building your own list of potential clients that actually want to hear from you? Give them some scenarios or ask questions to find out if they can tell you examples of how they are honest with their current clients.  Being comfortable with your marketing consultant will ensure a fruitful and long-lasting partnership that brings value to your business.

Diverse Knowledge

Another important factor is ensuring your marketing guru has the capability to plan and implement various types of marketing strategies including:

• Digital marketing
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Print marketing
• Branding

A marketing consultant who is well versed in the above strategies will be able to deliver a complete and integrated marketing service. This will ensure that your marketing communications are able to reach the varied touch points that the audience finds important for customer conversion.

In essence, what you need to find is a ‘unicorn’ – a marketing consultant armed with the creative and analytical skills and experience in all main facets of marketing. Not just a digital marketing consultant. Not just a branding specialist. But an expert in an array of both online and offline marketing communications and strategies.

 

You may have other traits you’re looking for in a marketing consultant, so write these down for your own essential checklist. Finding the best marketing consultant to fit your business needs should now be a little easier. All the best!

Chat to Helen Carbone today if you’re seeking the support or guidance of a skilled marketing consultant. Schedule a complimentary 1 hour consultation to talk about your requirements.