5 Reasons to Hire a Marketing Consultant

Sometimes businesses need help with their marketing. That’s where a marketing consultant comes into play. Marketing consultants offer a broad range of services and have the flexibility and know-how to improve your business helping you reach your full potential. Marketing consultants can be a better value for businesses than other options. An experienced consultant can bring a holistic approach for businesses large and small helping you identify road blocks and workarounds. Here are 5 reasons when it makes the most sense to hire a marketing consultant.

1. Your marketing isn’t working

The writing is on the wall. Maybe you are not getting enough qualified leads? Or maybe you are generating leads, but you can’t close? A good marketing consultant will be able to identify break downs in your marketing systems and create workarounds and solutions that can enhance your marketing so that it works. When you bring in a marketing consultant, you are bringing in some one that wants to first fully understand what is not working before ever attempting to fix anything. Marketing consultants are not miracle workers though. They can’t wave their magical wand and fix something that might be innately wrong with the core of your business. If your product or service does not make sense for the market, it is outdated or overpriced then a good marketing consultant will be very honest about this and tell you this upfront. The best marketing consultants will even explain how to fix the core of your business.

2. You have yet to commit to full-time marketing staff

Some companies may not ready to commit to hiring full-time in-house marketing staff. Maybe you have looked at the market rates of a marketing manager in your area and it is does not fit your budget? Maybe you are just inexperienced to the world of marketing and you don’t even know where to start? Testing the waters with a marketing consultant may make the most sense for your business. An experienced marketing consultant will bring to you a marketing plan that can set business goals to improve your marketing and sales. Marketing consultants offer hourly rates or can charge on a per project basis.

3. You need an outsider perspective

Great companies are constantly assessing themselves through honest feedback. They do this to improve. You have to know where your weaknesses lie before you can up your marketing game. An experienced marketing consultant can give you much needed outsider perspective helping you identify areas of your business where you need improvement most. They can help with identify who your customers are and how to better target your customers with effective marketing campaigns. They can help you identify breakdowns in your customer service and communications. They can identify ineffective marketing campaigns. A good marketing consultant always brings much needed outsider perspective to a company in which they consult for.

4. You need a specialized marketing skill

Your company may already have a marketing department and may be doing well in certain areas, while lacking in others. You may have identified a weakness that you need improving upon, but don’t have the resources or time internally to tackle. This is when it makes most since to bring in a marketing specialist who is an expert in a marketing discipline. A marketing consultant can specialize in number specialties such as branding, search engine optimization, website design, marketing research and marketing strategy. They can also bring to the table industry specific experience such as food marketing, health care marketing, real estate marketing, international marketing, etc. Bringing in a marketing consultant specialist can help you turn a weakness into a strength.

5. You can’t afford an ad agency

Ad agencies with a track record of success charge a premium, as they should. Agencies have overhead that they pass on to clients in the form of staff salaries, rent for their offices as well as tools, technology and training. Another drawback is time dedicated to your project. With agencies you are competing with many other accounts for time and resources dedicated to your marketing cause. At an agency getting turnaround time on projects can take longer than you can imagine. Many businesses looking at improving their marketing simply don’t have the budget to afford an agency. Or they don’t have long time cycles to wait for projects to complete. Some companies have turned to marketing consultants to improve their marketing, sales and bottom line. Marketing consultants offer hourly rates and project oriented marketing. On cost alone a marketing consultant may make more sense over an agency for your business. Marketing consultants tend to also be more dedicated to your business not serving an agency number of accounts. This means more time dedicated to your marketing.

Hiring an experienced marketing consultant can make your marketing sing. Learn more about working with the Holy Grail of Marketing.

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Levon Guiragossian is an experienced marketing consultant specializing in branding, advertising, strategic marketing, digital strategy and PR.

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