If your business isn’t online, does it even exist? Companies around the world are rushing to put their business on the map by hiring digital marketing consultants. But how do you know who to hire to get the job done? Here’s our guide to hiring a digital marketing consultant.
Quick Links:
What is a Digital Marketing Consultant?
Before we jump ahead, you need to know the basics. What are digital marketing consultants?
A digital marketing consultant is an individual or agency that creates and delivers a marketing strategy for your business. They create the foundation and lay out the roadmap so your business can achieve its long-term goals. Marketing networks like etribal build the base for your business’s success by using a team of marketing specialists to remove the guesswork and target what works.
Some of the daily duties digital marketing consultants undertake are:
- Understanding your business and developing a strategy that fits your brand message and business goals.
- Audit the client’s online presence, including social media accounts.
- Develops strategic marketing campaigns.
- Conducts routine A/B testing for maximum results.
- Reviews analytics and interprets data to make any adjustments to increase campaign performance.
By performing the tasks above, digital marketing consultants make the most out of your marketing campaigns.
What Does a Marketing Consultant Do?
Digital marketing consultants can perform a variety of services to make the most out of your marketing strategy. Some services include:
SEO (search engine optimization): Digital marketing consultants need to be on top of the latest SEO trends as SEO is crucial for driving organic, high-quality traffic to your website.
Marketing strategy: This roadmap helps guide your company to its goals. The roadmap contains research, analytics, and strategies to connect with your audience and nurture existing relationships.
Social media marketing: Create meaningful and engaging relationships with your target audience using social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
Email marketing: The best customers are returning customers. Through email marketing, clients stay connected to your business via daily content, promotions, and discounts.
Branding: Your business’s success relies on multiple factors, including branding. Understanding your brand’s identity will help streamline the marketing strategy and focus on goals aligned with your brand and target audience.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: PPC ad programs via Google and social media platforms can help promote your products or services to your target audience. PPC advertising will help generate traffic to your website quickly and effectively.
Content marketing: Your content needs to connect to your audience; knowing what to say and how to say it will help guide prospective clients through the buyer’s journey.
Analytics and evaluation: Analyzing and interpreting your data analytics is essential in understanding who your audience is and what their needs are. Marketing networks at etribal are highly specialized in reading analytics and using the information to create meaningful and effective campaigns.
Since digital marketing consultants like etribal offer a wide range of services, they’re able to focus on various areas of your business, making sure your marketing strategy is well-rounded and effective in all areas.
Is a Marketing Consultant Best for Your Business?
While this all sounds good, you may be wondering if your business needs digital marketing consultants. That’s a good question to ask yourself.
Your online presence should be a priority for your business as you have massive opportunities to not only sell your products or services online, but also learn more about your target audience. Turning to digital marketing consultants can help you create the strategy you need to succeed online and gain the results you’re looking for with ease.
While you may have some knowledge about online marketing, digital consultants are experts and can save you the time, money, and guesswork of trying to figure out your company’s goals and roadmap to reach them.
How to Find a Digital Marketing Consultant?
So, you want to hire digital marketing consultants but don’t know where to start. Here’s how to get started on your search.
1. Research What Services You Need
Before anything, do some light research to give yourself an idea of the services available and what you may need for your business.
2. Review the Services they Offer
After establishing your marketing budget, now it’s time to find digital marketing consultants or agencies that will work for you. Depending on your needs, independent marketing consultants may not be able to handle larger projects. In this case, we recommend opting for a reputable marketing agency. For a full-service marketing company, like etribal, you’ll have access to:
- SEO
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- PPC advertising
- Content marketing
- Branding
- Web design services
- Social media marketing
3. Understand the Prices
Price is a significant factor when it comes to choosing digital marketing consultants. Look for a company that can match your budget or provide you with reasonable rates. Get a second opinion as well.
4. Check their Tech
Technology is a crucial part of a digital marketing company, and if they’re using in-house software, they offer you a competitive edge. When a company uses the proper software, you’re going to see results.
5. Review their Portfolios & Case Studies
Before choosing a consultant, make sure they have a portfolio on their website to explore. Focus on their results and what areas they specialize in to see their capabilities and success rate.
6. Check their Reviews & Testimonials
Gain a client’s perspective by reading reviews and testimonials. Look for comments regarding their pricing, quality of service, turnaround times, and overall customer service.
7. Look of Awards & Experience
What’s their experience within the industry? Do they have any credentials to show you, such as awards or certifications? How many years of experience do they have?
8. Understand their Values
Do their values match your company’s values? How do they value customer service and quality of work? Look into their team, ask how they approach challenges and how they communicate with each other.
9. Check their Retention of Clients
Rule of thumb: the higher the retention rate, the better the service a digital marketing consultant provides its clients.
10. Talk to them
After creating a list of potential digital consultants you wish to work with, contact them. Ask them the following questions:
- How are the clients involved during the project?
- How much experience do you have as a consultant?
- What strategies do you think will work for my business?
- What happens when a campaign isn’t working?
- How will you help increase my business’s visibility?
- What’s your experience with my industry?
What to Expect from Digital Marketing Consultants?
While you’re narrowing down your options for hiring digital marketing consultants, you may have some ideas of what an agency or consultant should provide you. However, it’s crucial you, and your consultant are on the same page with your expectations.
Here are some things you can expect from a trusted digital marketing consultant or agency:
- Gain insight into your target audience: a marketing consultant will provide you with data-based information on your target audience and marketing persona to help create better content.
- Develop a tailored marketing strategy: whether it’s an agency or consultant, they should create a personalized strategy to meet your business’s needs.
- Streamline your marketing and business strategy: your marketing strategy should align with your company’s overall goals.
- Become an add-on to your existing marketing team: while marketing networks like etribal can act as your marketing team, they can also be an extension of your existing marketing team to help achieve better results.
- Deliver measurable results: creating a strategy is one thing, but it needs to achieve your marketing and business goals.
Digital Marketing Consultant vs Small Business Marketing Consultant
So which one is better for you: digital marketing consultants or small business marketing consultants? A digital marketing consultant is ideal for helping you understand your target audience, gaining the right resources for your marketing campaigns, and interpreting customer behavior to adjust the campaigns to receive maximum results.
On the other hand, a small business marketing consultant focuses on creating and implementing marketing strategies solely for small and medium businesses. They also focus on offline marketing campaigns to increase community engagement.
How to Measure the ROI of Digital Marketing Consultants?
To understand the profit gained from your investment, you need to calculate your ROI. Here’s the formula to follow:
[((number of leads x lead-to-customer rate x average sales price) – cost or ad spend) + cost or ad spend] x 100.
What do these terms mean?
- Number of leads: how many leads did the campaign produce?
- Lead-to-customer rate: how many of those leads are converted to customers?
- Average sales price: what is the average price of your product/service?
- Cost or ad spend: what were your costs? This includes the cost of the digital marketing consultants.
Wrap Up
While it may look like a daunting task, finding the right digital marketing consultants for your business is crucial. A marketing agency like etribal, will help you save time and money to get the results you want with their best practice expertise. So your business will get the foundation and expertise needed to get the best results.
