Marketing Consultants Help Businesses to See through the Forest
Marketing consultants are a great resource for Startups to enterprise-level companies, since they can provide an expertise that is lacking within a company, but most importantly, will offer a fresh new perspective to business leaders that have been myopic in their marketing and communication's strategy.
For most companies that have been around for more than a decade, marketers will use the same strategies repeatedly because of a marketing programs' initial success. By repeating the same marketing programs year over year will eventually cause a reduced marketing impact for your business and less likely to explore new modern programs to deliver campaign ROI. How many of you have worked at a company and found that the marketing team will suggest the same events yearly to attend, but change nothing about how they attend the event? For example, recommending the same size booth, sending the same amount of staff, etc. If you said"yes", then maybe consider questioning, how well did those events produce a positive impact for your company's business? Did it drive more revenue, less revenue, or the same as the last few years.
All marketing programs will eventually run its course, including events, which is why there has to be a constant flow of new marketing ideas and tools utilized. To keep the flow of creativity and to stay on top of the evolution of marketing, as it becomes more complex with the constant introduction of new MarTech tools, businesses should look for an outside point of view by an external marketing consultant every few years.
Choosing the Right Marketing Consultant for Your Business
Many marketing consultants have different expertise, based on their work backgrounds, so it's important to find the right consultant to solve your company's business needs. Here are three tips on how to choose and measure the consultant that you hire.
Tip 1 - Focus on High-Level Business Goals to Solve
What business issue does your organization have that needs to be solved that your internal marketing team lacks in expertise? For example, is your company an enterprise software company that has a large global field marketing or product marketing organization, but are not effective building digital lead generation into the sales pipeline? Or, can't convert leads into qualified opportunities? Consider a marketing consultant that has extensive experience in demand generation.
Is your company a small Startup that focuses strictly on digital and social media marketing, due to a lack of resources and budget, but has no experience with company brand or product marketing? Consider a marketing consultant that specializes in brand building and how to garner share of voice. To find a marketing consultant that is a generalist like myself, look for a consultant that has global marketing, as well as company leadership experience, since these consultants will understand what it's like to build, not just optimize a team and deliver on a ROI from marketing campaigns.
Tip 2 - Marketing Measurement
Make sure to have defined marketing program KPIs to measure your consultant's impact to solving your business marketing goal. Depending on the marketing expertise, consultants will have different baseline metrics to measure their campaigns based on their previous performance and should share that with you, prior to their engagement.
Tip 3 - Create Consultant Program KPIs that are Separate from Internal Marketing KPIs
Develop at least 3 specific key performance indicators, such as lead generation, revenue growth, and client retention for the marketing consultant to deliver for your company's business. The more specific the KPI, the better the consultant will be able to create a strategy and marketing plan that is customized to your business and to allow your internal team to focus on their marketing programs without rivalry. Clear KPIs will build better cross-collaboration between the consultant and internal marketing team.
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