Surveying the World of Marketing Consulting Firms

Table of contents

• Introduction
• What is a marketing consulting firm?
• How do I market myself as a marketing consultant?
• How do I get clients for my consulting business?
• Why do your business need a marketing consulting firm?
• What do marketing consulting firms do?
• Is it worth it to hire a marketing consulting firm?
• Conclusion

Introduction

Marketing is all about providing value to a society. It helps to bring the best products and services to enrich people’s lives. Consequently, great marketing helps in building demand. Functions of business like production, accounting and branding are inconsequential without enough demand for products and services.

Many of them work to increase their sales and marketing technique, which may include to highlight a particular product or service. To do this, some want to better improve social media marketing, while others will decide to create a wider digital marketing plan.

Right now, you may be thinking that the marketing costs should be the first to go during a difficult financial times. At first, this may be true for your business, but have in mind that once your marketing plan is technically dialed toward your target customer. You’ll likely enjoy improved lead generation and an increase in sales.

Now is not the best time to drop marketing altogether, but it’s certainly the best time to make sure that any money you spend will likely have a strong return. To be sure with this, you may need to hire an expert.

Well, let’s consider this figure:

Research has shown that 550,000 new businesses are launched each year in America alone.

With the above statement, there’s conviction that there is a dire need for marketing expertise.

And that’s where marketing consulting firms come into the picture.

What is a marketing consulting firm?

A marketing consulting firm is a team of marketing experts that handles companies and businesses marketing activities. Usually they comprise of seasoned marketing specialists who has the experience of working in different industries.

These specialists are supported by different departments within the firm such as advertising, design, research and, marketing technology. They give a total analysis of the market and help clients to increase their business. They will equally assist clients in selecting and effectively utilizing the latest marketing tools.

Then, who is a marketing consultant?

A marketing consultant is a very skilled edpert who is knowledegable in analysis, what motivates customers and how to put techniques in place to increase business.

Some people often confuse advertising agencies and marketing consultants, just assume that marketing consultants do the same thing but independent from an agency. However, the two are different though they perform the complementary functions.

When you know the exact message to advertise, you would hire an advertising agency to create the ads for you. They have amazing and creative teams comprised of art directors, copywriters and graphic designers. With these people your message will deliver in a fresh and engaging way through a commercial or other ad campaign.

In contrast, a marketing consultant, is an expert that helps a business decide how to best engage existing clients. In addition, the marketing consultant will also help to determine who else may get enticed to try the product or service. They will equally know how to expand the client base.

Next, they will study the existing business model and then, use the analytical tools, considers the market potential and develops a technique to achieve larger goals. During the process they will make sure to adhere to the company’s mission and measures success, testing response and tracking results.

How do I market myself as a marketing consultant?

How do I market myself as a marketing consultant? When you’re considering becoming an independent marketing consultant. Or when you’re already self-employed, you will likely ask yourself this question.

Well, branding is a difficult process in a competitive environment. But things are even more challenging when your whole business is YOU.

So, let’s consider these tips that will help you market yourself as a marketing consultant. And with a bit of hard work, you’ll certainly be on your way to cultivate a distinctive and respectable brand.

Understand personal branding

When you begin as a marketing consultant, it’s very important to remember you are now your brand. Nowadays, there are many new, emerging ways to market yourself to ensure your service is visible not only on the Internet. But equally in your community and among your colleagues. Make sure that everything you do, say, or publish online reflects on your business.

Create an effective sales pitch

When you do any research on starting a business, you will likely be familiar with the elevator pitch: a concise, compelling statement that describes your business. You need to be able to give a potential customer your elevator speech in no more than 30 seconds. Though this strategy may be more common in traditional business, it will still help to highlight what’s important about your personal brand and share information speedily with others.

Create a personal website

A credible site is the backbone of a good brand. The first place potential clients look when they’re researching your credentials is your site. So, be sure that your website is well written, up-to-date, and professional. The quality of your website will always speaks to the quality of your work, so make sure to employ professional design help if needed.

Establish thought leadership

To establish yourself as a thought leader is one of the most effective marketing tools for marketing consultants. Blogging via your own website is an innovative outlet that will allow you to share your expertise and reach an audience you can not connect with through traditional marketing methods. Speaking opportunities are another way used to promote your name and voice.

Grow your social media

Nowadays, social media has become a marketing force to be reckoned with. What better way to speak directly to people with all most the same interests through your contents? To brand yourself as a marketing consultant online, create your profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Your profiles should contain relevant information clients may need. However, to maintain professionalism, don’t spam your social media contacts at every opportunity. Try and find a balance between sharing what interests you and what relate to your business.

Bookmark your content

Social networking is not only to link up with friends and colleagues. To be active fully online, bookmark the content you create on your website or blog. By bookmarking, you will bring exposure to your work through different avenues. Creating backlinks to your website from different sites will also raise your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To begin your bookmarks, use any these three sites: Delicious, Dig, and Stumble Upon.

Embrace video

Another powerful way to share your expertise is to create a podcast or video blog. This makes your listeners and viewers a sense to see you as an expert and as a professional. Through this, you will build a circle of trust and drive new clients to your marketing consulting business. For great results, get a professional to help set lighting and edit for introductions and titles.

Network offline

Networking is one of the biggest secrets of consulting success. Remember, you are the best representative of your brand, so become much involved in your industry by publicly attending important conferences, local meet-ups, or promotional events. Make sure you go armed with your elevator pitch, business cards, and a fearless attitude.

How do I get clients for my consulting business?

Identify your ideal client

Before seting out to get clients, first you need to understand who your ideal client is. Then, list out the qualities and attributes your ideal client has. This will help build your client outreach technique to ensure you get in front of the right clients. Some few questions to consider:

Based on your area of expertise, will you likely support individual clients or organizations?
When you plan to help businesses, what is the size of the companies can afford your rates?
When you plan to work with individuals, what is the job title of your ideal client?
How do you know your ideal project?

Know your unique value proposition

By now, you should have figured out an area of expertise. But what do you offer that will make you stand out from the others in your niche?

Consider areas you will naturally excel in. Are you organized? Then perhaps your value proposition is that you will help your clients implement scalable business systems.

Your unique value proposition will be your key selling point that will lead your discovery conversations with new prospects. When you clearly understand what you want to offer. You be able to convey this to the right prospect, and be able to sign the clients who need your services most.

Share helpful content related to your niche

When you must have identified your ideal client, you should have an idea of the kind of problems your services will help them overcome. Build yourself to be an authority in your niche by sharing content that speaks to the problems your ideal client likely has.

Now, when I state a helpful content I don’t mean to give away keys to the mansion. There should be aspects of your knowledge that will be available to your paying clients. However, when you share information that helps your ideal client solve a little problem you have started building trust with an engaged audience.

This will give you an opportunity to promote yourself in an honest way to an audience that will be ready to start working with you.

Ask for referrals

Don’t be afraid to ask for a referral from a satisfied clients from a previous project. For a former client who had a positive experience working with you, will be willing to refer services to another contact. However, the client may not think to do it voluntarily. It doesn’t kill to ask. You are not sure how to ask? Use one of these prompts:

• “Do you know of any other person or company that could benefit from my services?”
• “I’m glad you’re so happy with the work we did on your project. I would appreciate it if you would share my name with any contacts you know who may be interested.”

Invest in paid advertising

Paid ad is a powerful approach to get the word out about your consulting business speedily. With Facebook ads, you can create hyper-targeted campaigns to reach potential clients who may be interested in working with you.

Attend meetups and events related to your ideal client’s industry

Networking is still alive and well. So, keep an eye on events that relates to your ideal client’s niche happening in your area. Attend events where your ideal client is, right there you can connect with them and this can lead to clients and referrals.

Partner with other consultants or firms

When you have a very specific niche or set of services, then partner with another consultant or firm that offers a different set of services. By teaming up and working with another consultant this can “bundle” your services. With this, you may be introduced to a broader client base, which can lead to more contracts in the future and a larger referral network.

Why do your business need a marketing consulting firm?

Like Philip Kotler says, good marketing is no accident. It is a culmination of carefully formulated strategies and flawless execution.

Cost

Building a marketing team from the scratch is the believe of traditional businesses.

Does it still work?

Yes!

But building an in-house team of marketers has its own inefficiencies. You business will have to go through an expensive hiring procedure. Employing an experienced marketing experts at high salaries will put a huge dent in the moderate budget of a your growing business.

Thus bringing in the right marketing consulting firm at the appropriate time will help reduce expenses. They won’t be kept on payroll indefinitely. The marketing consulting firm will be brought in to set up processes and frameworks that can be used by your in-house teams.

Changing landscape

With the emergence of new technology, the market(ing) landscape has changed with marketing behavior, and opportunities. With the impact of digital marketing, there is consistent change across the best marketing practices. A marketing process in your business must leverage the latest strategies and be on top of the current trends to be able to take the right decisions.

Fresh perspective

In businesses with established marketing teams, continuous exposure to the same kind of work allows for a few biases to creep in. These biases will lead to major decisions and can leave you wondering why there is a plateau in marketing performance.

In such situation, looking for fresh views of marketing consulting firms may provide a much-needed breakthrough!

Time

Time, they say is money. Marketing consulting firms don’t need long onboarding processes. They will be brought in to deal with specific time-sensitive issues in your business. There is no room to waste resources and there is time for action.

Accountability

You need to justify your spending in terms of profitability. Methods must be followed and implemented correctly till the end. But there is possibility of losing track along the way. When this happens, all the previous work that you had invested in becomes worthless. On the other hand, the marketing consulting firm that you hire will be given clear objectives and goals. With this, they will be held accountable using regular checkpoints and monitoring.

What do marketing consulting firms do?

Help create an inbound marketing strategy

One of the first things a marketing consulting firm will do is come in, understand everything about your business. Then aid in building a personalized strategy, this includes measurable goals that is tie to the overall business objectives, timetables to follow, buyer personas to target, types of content to prepare, keywords to use, and metrics to analyze.

Help implement tools and tech

The marketing consulting firm will review the tools that you’re using currently and recommend new programs and tools that will help to improve your efficiency, effectiveness, and results. This will include marketing automation software, email tracking tools, content generation tools, and many more.

Help to drive traffic, generating leads, and nurturing leads

Your marketing consulting firm will equally review your procedure and determine how you will improve lead generation and strategies. A consultant will help you develop effective techniques, like SEO and blogging, to increase traffic, and guide you in the creation of landing pages and CTAs.

You’ll equally get the assistance you need in developing and implementing lead nurturing campaigns that will aid you move leads through the sales funnel.

Help with social media marketing

Many business owners use social media ineffectively as a marketing technique. A marketing consultant will be able to understand and determine the ideal platforms to use, what content you wil post, and how to engage your target customers on social media.

Help with content marketing

A marketing consulting firm will be able to help you create a content technique, determine the kind of content you will be using, determine which customers and which stages of the sales funnel you will be focusing on. Then, help you identify the best platforms for distribution.

Help with SEO strategy

An effective SEO strategy will go a long way to improve your inbound marketing results. Your marketing consulting firm will help you research your competitors and keywords and develop an SEO strategy that will generate results.

Is it worth it to hire a marketing consulting firm?

Before you choose the right marketing, it is important you analyze the need for one. List down what you and your business wish to accomplish through the help of a marketing consulting firm. In addition, list down the budget available, a time scale of the project will also help complete the process.

If you are targeting a specific procedure in your overall marketing cycle. It will allow you to hire a firm with an appropriate area of expertise.

Experience

Choose marketing consulting firms that have previous experience in your industry.

Problem solving capacity

Before you contact check testimonials of previous clients and see how the firm has been able to solve challenges and addressed them.

Communication

Clarity in communication between you and a marketing consulting firm is necessary. An open conversation between you and them will ensure a constant loop of minor improvements and adjustments during the period of engagement.

Cost

Knowing the price is important as an exorbitant fee will actually be counterproductive towards the final profit gained.

Conclusion

It is established that creating an entire marketing process from scratch is not a simple process. On the other hand, seeking out professional assistance is not elusive anymore. With a range of marketing consulting firms that cater to clients across different industries and price points makes availing marketing expertise relatively easier than it has ever been. 

Marketing consulting firms are teams of marketing professionals that handles companies and businesses marketing activities. Usually they comprise of seasoned marketing specialists.