4 Questions To Ask Before You Hire a Digital Marketing Consultant

As a digital business owner, you know that it can be difficult to keep up with all the changes in technology. But one thing that has remained constant is the need for digital marketing. With so many advancements in the field, you might feel overwhelmed by all of your options. If so, consider hiring a digital marketing consultant: someone who can help you navigate the digital world and reach your target audience in a way that makes sense for your business.
What Does a Digital Marketing Consultant Do?
A digital marketing consultant will help you with a wide range of tasks. Some of these include:
- Marketing strategy: A digital marketing consultant is able to create a plan for your company that will help you achieve your goals. Your plan should outline what channels to use, how much time and money to spend on each channel, and the type of content that’s needed.
- Branding: A strong brand is essential for any business. Your marketing consultant will work with you to develop an identity that reflects who you are as an organisation. This includes design stuff, such as logo, slogan, web design, graphic design, but also work on your tone of voice, storytelling and copywriting. Basically, we’re talking about how we want our audience to feel when they’re interacting with our business.
- Content planning & strategy: Creating engaging content is crucial if you want people to visit your website or share it with friends. A marketing consultant is able to develop an editorial calendar based on findings from market research so it’s always up-to-date with trends, seasonal topics, promotions or anything else that may make sense for your type of business.
- Project management: Managing projects takes careful planning—and someone who knows how! The marketing specialist will manage everything from project budgets down through delivery timelines so there’s no confusion about how long things might take when there are multiple moving parts involved (like video production).
When to Hire a Digital Marketing Consultant
As your business grows, you may find yourself looking for ways to enhance your digital marketing strategy. You might be already doing everything right, but aren’t seeing the results that you want. You could also be stuck in a rut and need help getting out of it or refining the existing strategy. Whatever stage you’re at in building your online presence, it can be helpful to have an expert on hand who can provide guidance and advice on how to improve current efforts or implement new ones.
The following scenarios are some common scenarios when someone should consider hiring a digital marketing consultant:
- When you’re not seeing a positive change in lead generation or sales after you have implemented several marketing ideas.
- When you’ve been working with a small team that’s already close to its limit in terms of time and resources.
- If your organisation lacks the knowledge and expertise to develop and execute online strategies.
- If everything’s working, but you want to take your business to the next level by strategising and making important decisions.
What to Expect When Hiring a Digital Marketer
When you hire a digital marketing consultant, you should expect them to:
- Deliver calculated estimates and projections based on your goals and audience. The marketing consultant will assess how much time it will take to reach these goals and provide an estimate of the cost associated with that effort.
- Form a partnership with you in order to set up a growth plan for your business. Your digital marketing consultant should be able to help you see what’s missing in your marketing plan and where there are opportunities for improvement. He or she can also provide guidance on how best to invest those funds so they have maximum impact on reaching those goals—or at least, find out if that’s even possible given the budget constraints at hand.
- Work collaboratively with other team members like sales, customer support or product management (if applicable). The success of any project depends largely upon all members working together as one cohesive unit rather than individuals going off in their own direction.
Things to Consider
- Your business needs and goals: When searching for a digital marketing consultant, it’s important to consider your business needs and objectives. This will help you determine whether you need someone to come in and take care of the basics or if you need an expert who can handle advanced tasks.
- Don’t forget about the tools: As far as tools go, you should confirm that the consultant you’re hiring has the experience with the tools that you currently use – even if you’re open to change. If you are using well known tools such as wordpress or webflow for your website, trello or jira for project management; pipedrive or salesforce for CRM and lead generation, etc, then your consultant will probably already have experience with most of them.
- Expertise in your industry: While most experienced marketing consultants are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of marketing in several industries and marketing frameworks, it might not always be the case. Always choose someone who has experience working within similar industries/businesses before deciding whether or not their services are right for you!
Conclusion
With so many marketing services available and the ever-increasing competition in the digital marketing world, it can be hard to know what options are right for your business. With that in mind, we hope this article has given you a better understanding of what goes into hiring a digital marketing consultant and how they can benefit your business. If you would like to have a chat about working with me (or just a regular chat to discuss your business or brainstorm about an idea), get in touch.