Is It Worthwhile for My Small Business to Hire a Marketing Consultant?

Some small business owners think that  only a large business would hire a marketing consultant. These business owners are busy with the day to day of their businesses, and don’t feel they have either the time or the money to bring on this kind of high-powered help. But the fact is that every business needs strategic analysis that paves the way for marketing to support business goals. That’s an important part of what a good marketing consultant can provide.

What Is a Marketing Consultant?

Marketing consultants help business owners tie their marketing strategies to their overall business objectives. If you just implement marketing tactics without a solid strategy, you will just be wasting your money. Before you start your advertising, sending email campaigns or publishing social media posts, you need to set a clear course.

Setting a clear course takes researching the market, the competition and your own company. A good marketing consultant can analyze your marketing, pinpoint your challenges from branding to lead generation, and develop solutions that will propel your business forward. They are strategic thinkers but also understand exactly what needs to be done on a tactical level – whether they do it themselves or show you how to do it.

Of course, some marketing consultants have specialties. Unless your marketing is completely on track and you just need help with one specific area, it is better to look for a marketing consultant who can look at the entirety of your marketing needs and develop a strategy where each part of your marketing works well with the rest.

Is a Marketing Agency the Same as a Marketing Consulting Firm?

Don’t think that every marketing agency out there is made up of marketing consultants. Marketing agencies tend to be focused on tactical implementation. Though marketing consultants sometimes also do tactical implementation, their real value is developing your long and short term goals and strategies. They build the base on which you launch your marketing programs.

But Can I Afford to Hire a Marketing Consultant?

The better question is, “Can I afford NOT to do so?”

Times have been tough for a lot of businesses due to the pandemic. When money gets tight, often the first thing a business will do is cut back on their marketing.

This is a mistake that can adversely impact a business for years to come.

According to a Harvard study, companies that recover the best from recessions are those that did not cut their marketing or increased it during the down times. Often, businesses that cut back on their marketing during hard times never recover. They find themselves behind their competition that kept marketing.

But here’s the thing. Businesses that keep marketing during a recession or hard economic times don’t necessarily spend their marketing budget in the same way as they did before the downturn. A good marketing consultant who thinks strategically can help you to determine the best way to direct your marketing dollars in a changing world.

Sure, money may be tight, and you may feel you just don’t have any additional budget to put toward hiring a marketing consultant. This is exactly why you need to be spending every marketing dollar as effectively as possible. That’s where a marketing consultant can lead the way.

If you are ever going to improve your marketing ROI, you won’t do it by just throwing a new ad campaign out there. Your success depends on detailed market research and a solid strategic plan.

The entire point of hiring a marketing consultant is to get your marketing strategies on track so you build better brand awareness, generate more leads, close more sales and increase your revenues.

The Benefits of Working with a Marketing Consultant

We have already established that the primary job of a marketing consultant is to create strategies and plans that help businesses reach their overall goals. That means they are not just focused on a few campaigns as some marketing agencies are. They concern themselves with getting optimum ROI for all marketing programs.

Good marketing consultants also come to you with a world of experience. They are not guessing at the strategies they put in place. They have seen it before. This saves you time, money and mistakes with your customers.

Expect much faster results when you hire a marketing consultant. Of course, there is no magic wand. You still must be aware that marketing is a process. If you are 10^th in your market, you won’t shoot to number 1 overnight.

Marketing consultants can help you to

• Reduce unnecessary or ineffective marketing costs, better target your audience
• Develop messaging that resonates with that audience
• Develop a consistent brand
• Devise plans to increase lead generation
• Plan your customers’ journeys so they end in more conversions and repeat business
• Determine the best methods and channels to reach your customers and increase your sales
• Gain new insights. Marketing consultants typically work in a variety of industries. They can bring a fresh perspective you may be unable to see working in your business each day.

On top of all this, hiring a marketing consultant costs a lot less than hiring a full-time employee with this kind of top level expertise. There are no onboarding costs, no benefits to pay, and best of all, once they have done the job, you only need to see them now and then if at all. That beats continuing to pay a top salary all year long.

The reality is, if you bring an employee onboard, it’s unlikely you will be able to hire someone with anywhere near the expertise of a good marketing consultant. There is just no comparison between the benefits a successful marketing consultant will bring you versus a mid-level employee.

So, Who Implements the Marketing Consultant’s Strategies?

Who implements your marketing consultant’s strategies depends on the needs of your business, the preferences of the chosen marketing consultant, the resources you have at hand and your own desires. There are basically four scenarios.

1. Some marketing consultants also provide implementation. Before hiring a consultant, be sure you understand what services they do and do not provide.
2. A marketing consultant could set up strategies and processes, and train your staff to implement the programs. Of course, this is assuming you have capable marketing staff. In this scenario, the marketing consultant may stick around to launch the programs and will likely check in on a regular basis.
3. You could hire a marketing agency to implement the plan if the marketing consultant and their firm does not do that themselves.
4. The marketing consultant could help you to hire remote or local freelancers or even employees to implement the strategies.

Ask Umbrella About Marketing Consulting

If you think your business would benefit if you hire a marketing consultant (and almost all businesses could), call Umbrella Xact. We can set you up with a free consultation with a marketing consultant to discuss your business. Call us now for a free consultation.