Here’s how a marketing consultant brings value to a marketing effort. The secret about marketing is that its all about organization of processes, the organization of steps, and the organization of objectives. A consultant is there to organize . That’s it, so take that and run with it. This article is over… but if you want more read below.
The difficulty is that it takes time, and it’s a job in and of itself, if the goal is to do it right. This is something that sometimes business managers decide to take on themselves, in addition to the operation of their business, and most times the results are subpar. There’s a wide gap between what is desired, and the knowledge to implement the steps and processes towards reaching the desired outcome.
This is generally where the decision has to be made, either spend the time to become educated on the subject matter, or engage a consultant that can help in understanding what is required, and implementing it. A consultant knows what processes to organize, what steps to put in place, and how to tie those steps and processes to business objectives that accomplish the intended outcome.
Some key questions with any marketing campaign are: What exactly are the business goals? Who is the audience we want to reach? And how would we measure and track results? Whether it is television, radio, social media marketing, pay-per-click marketing, search engine optimization, etc, these questions are fundamental to any marketing effort. A marketing consultant brings value by responding to each of these questions. Let’s elaborate on this further.
A marketing consultant brings value by matching business goals to objectives.
This is where it becomes important in having the knowledge in the various tools and platforms we are engaging for marketing purposes. When matching business goals to objectives, we are tying the goals of the business, to the objectives that result in the intended outcome. However those objectives change depending on the different marketing strategies and tactics that we are using.
Every single marketing tactic and strategy that we employ has it’s own unique approach to objectives.
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For instance if one of our business goals is to get new customers then we will be utilizing generally a lead generation objective within the various marketing strategies that we are engaging. Let’s say we are employing content marketing in order to get new customers in the door, the approach to the objective in relation to that particular marketing strategy is going to be different than for instance if we were using social media strategy to acquire new clients.
Every single marketing tactic and strategy that we employ has it’s own unique approach to objectives. In certain cases we can combine multiple objectives from different marketing campaigns in order to optimize reach and effectiveness, though this is where it pays to understand the various objectives. It can become relatively complicated, and this is where a marketing consultant brings value.
Targeting current customers, new prospects, or prospects similar to my customers.
There is always an audience for things that we do, and determining how a marketing strategy will target any subsection of that audience requires a good bit of organization. Organization that segments an audience into those who are current clientele, those likely to buy, those not likely to buy, and the list can go on and on. It is important to ensure that a marketing effort engages the right group.
And this is something that we have to consider when we are matching business goals to objectives, notwithstanding, a good bit of organization is in play here. With the tools that we have available today, the internet, and the various ways in which we can reach people, marketing has become less expensive, though we now have an increase in complexity, but a reduced potential for error whereby we are communicating to an audience that is indifferent to what we have to offer.
A marketing consultant brings value by orchestrating a marketing campaign that resonates with the various audience that are likely to engage, helping to define the different audience available.
How to measure what’s important for business.
What gets measured gets done and what gets measured can be improved. Without identifying key performance indicators within a marketing campaign it becomes impossible to assess a return on investment. We certainly don’t want to use emotions at this particular juncture, because empirical evidence here helps us best when want to understand the performance of a marketing effort.
As a business owner expending resources, the quicker you’re able to understand what’s working, and what’s not working the better the decision within the business can be. For instance let’s imagine you’re choosing to assess how many people are engaging with your product or service as a result of a particular marketing campaign. The ability to see the numbers and the metrics gives immediate feedback as to whether the marketing campaign is a failure.
By identifying key performance indicators, we can utilize those metrics to quickly stop or allocate more resources into the particular marketing effort that is performing better. A consultant brings value by compiling the data, and working with a business manager / owner to understand what is happening, discuss the results, and optimize further for performance.
