3 Ways A Marketing Consultant Can Improve Your Results

You know the importance of marketing to grow your business. Whether it’s word of mouth, digital, social, or broadcast, you need to get the word out about what you offer. Marketing is especially difficult because there’s always more to learn, try, and do. How do you know what’s working or isn’t? Is your money well spent with strong ROI, or are you wasting time and energy on unsuccessful campaigns? Answers to these questions are complex, but working with a professional marketing consultant can help. This may seem like a luxury spend, especially if you have a tight budget, but consider the return and potential for your business through marketing more strategically.

Be Strategic with Branding

Your brand sells your business. It’s how customers view you, the experience of working with you, and sentiment (positive or negative) toward your offering. Therefore, your brand must be carefully crafted with your audience in mind. Before creating your brand guidelines, logo design, or written copy, take a step back to think bigger picture. What do you hope to accomplish? How will you build a brand strategy and marketing strategy that supports your goals? Without answering these questions, it’s tough to know your brand direction. A professional marketing consultant brings a strategic perspective to the branding process. Find someone with experience developing personas, target audiences, differentiators, and brand positioning. Without a marketing background, certain elements can be missed. This often results in confusing or fragmented messaging. Professional feedback can help your brand excite your customers and appeal to the right audience.

Spend with Purpose & Track Results

Once your brand is established, it’s time to consider marketing and communications. You’ll need to get your (well thought-out!) brand into the world. Work with someone who can help you outline a marketing plan to spend intentionally and track your results. He or she can interpret said results by establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as impressions, clicks, and conversions. In addition to tracking KPIs, a consultant should inform your marketing based on audience data. Then, you can optimize for your target audience. You’ll also want guidance on certain channels, messaging, and timing. It’s risky to spend on fragmented marketing. Today’s marketing communication shows up to the same consumer in a variety of ways. Your website should match your social media, digital ads, contests, etc. Allocating a few thousand dollars to social media ads, with no strategy in place, sells your opportunity short. All marketing requires testing and learning. You cannot know what will be successful until you try. A consultant can help you build a cohesive plan, understand your results, and optimize your campaigns.

Build Tools & Processes for Added Efficiency

Marketing is always changing, and if you don’t stay on top of it, you could get left behind. Professional marketers have tools and processes to help you streamline your marketing. For example, if you produce content across different channels (a blog, your social media, an email campaign) the consultant can put a content calendar in place. Avoid getting stuck making in-the-moment decisions such as “what should I post on Instagram today?” If you’re asking yourself on a regular basis what to post and when, you’re doing your marketing a disservice. Working with a professional will help you get it on paper and follow through.

You may be marketing your business with varying results. While an improvised strategy works for some, it’s always a good idea to consult with an expert. It could save you a lot of time, money, and heartache. If you don’t have a large marketing budget for an ongoing marketer, that’s okay! Do some research and speak with different people to determine a good fit for you — even for a quick conversation or feedback. Then, get started making your brand and marketing stronger as a result.

Tags: digital marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing