How marketing consulting works

Some entrepreneurs are hesitant about hiring a firm that specializes in marketing consulting, often because it will mean outsourcing an important part of their businesses.

However, when you work on your own or are just entering the market, you may not yet know all the digital marketing strategies that can help you stand out in your area.

If this is your case and you have questions about whether or not to hire a marketing consulting firm, keep reading this text to see how this type of service works and if that is, in fact, the best option for your business.

What is marketing consultancy?

Marketing consulting is a service that aims to help entrepreneurs when choosing marketing strategies to promote their businesses.

Generally, this type of service is hired when a company doesn’t have a marketing area yet.

This happens mostly when the business is starting and its sectors are more restricted employee-wise, or because the entrepreneur thinks that it’s better to hire an expert company than to train and hire specialists to work at your company.

But, unlike what some may think, marketing consulting is a type of service that will only guide a company in what path to take in order for its advertising strategies to be effective.
If your goal is to have a specialist to follow up the whole process, from planning to implementing and measuring the results of the marketing actions, you would then, need to hire a marketing advisor, which goes beyond consulting.

What does a marketing consulting firm actually do?

When you hire a marketing consulting firm, the consultant’s first action is to have a meeting with everyone involved in your business.

This is extremely important because these meetings will enable you to understand what has already been done, how these actions have been implemented, what needs to be improved and, of course, which strategies are still going to be used.

Basically, this is the time when the consultant will have a diagnosis of the reasons that have made you hire their services and they’ll begin to understand how they can really help your company.

Once you get to know your company and understand how your niche works, the next step for the expert is to suggest some actions you should take to get your brand stand out and reach more people.

Remember we said marketing consulting is a bit different from marketing advisory services? Here, you’ll be better able to understand this difference.

One of the consultant’s main objectives is to understand your business well, to be able to suggest strategies that can be executed by the people who work with you.

The company you hire will then evaluate whether the actions suggested are efficient and will make improvements whenever necessary. But who will carry out all these strategies pointed out by them will be you and the people working with you.

Is it worth hiring another company?

We know that many entrepreneurs question whether to hire a marketing consulting service or not.

This questioning arises mostly because the area responsible for the strategic decisions of promoting a company is extremely fundamental. After all, if you don’t know how to position your brand in the market and make it stand out, odds are your business won’t grow.

Also, the internet gives you several options to specialize in areas that you haven’t mastered yet. There are lots of online digital marketing courses and some that you can even do for free.

In spite of that, there are still people who would rather have a third-party marketing company to help promote their business.

If you were hoping that we would bring you the ideal, correct answer to this question, we may disappoint you: we’re not going to tell you which one is the best option for you.

This is a decision that depends a lot on the stage your business is in, so it’s up to you to understand where your company stands.

But, not to make you even more anxious and to actually help you, let’s talk about the main reasons that lead an entrepreneur to seek a marketing consulting firm:

1. The lack of specialized professionals

If you are starting now, you may not be a marketing expert yet or you might not have someone with a marketing background working with you.

There is also the possibility that you may have even wanted to hire someone like that to work with you, but you weren’t able to find a professional with the characteristics you wanted, and therefore, you end up resorting to a company that provides marketing consulting services.

2. Work overload

In a company with only a few employees or especially for those who are business owners, you may have many tasks to do at the same time.

That way, it might be difficult to find any time to think about marketing strategies because of the amount of work that needs to be done on a daily basis.

3. The economic factor

Employing a marketing professional to work every day in your company may end up being more expensive than just hiring a consultant that will make a strategic plan, and you’ll put the actions in place to improve the business yourself.

If your goal is to make a one-time investment, you need to make a market research to find out how much companies charge on average for marketing consulting services, so you can choose what is the best financial option for you at that time.

4. A temporary option

You might have thought about having a complete marketing area in your company. But, since you’re in the process of expanding, you may not be able to hire the people you’d need to achieve what you’ve planned.

As you need to stand out in your market and start promoting your business as soon as possible, the marketing consulting service may be a good temporary option for that specific moment your business is at.

5. Pressing results

The marketing consulting service can be a great solution for those who need urgency in putting a specific strategy into action.

You may even have a whole team working with other marketing actions to promote your business, but even then, you might still need a certain strategy to be formulated and applied quickly, so opting to hire a marketing consulting firm would again, be the best option.

6. A new vision

As the consultant’s main task is to talk to all areas of a business to get to know it thoroughly, some entrepreneurs end up hiring this service to also have a new vision within their teams.

Looking at the business from an outsider’s perspective, the marketing consultant points out ideas that may not have been thought of yet by those who already work with you.

7. Team training

Believe it or not, having a marketing consultant for a while in your company can also be a way to train your team.

The person hired will come up with strategies that you can apply to get the name of your business out there. Moreover, it’s possible that some of the actions may never have been used by your company before or they may be completely new to those who work with you.

This means that it will be necessary to develop some of the employees’ skills, so that would be a great way to train and learn new techniques.

Do you really need a marketing consultant?

After reading this post, the remaining question is: Do I really need to hire a marketing consulting service for my business?

As we’ve told you before, the only person who can accurately answer this question is you. After all, no one better than the owner to understand the stage the business is.

But if you still have doubts, even after seeing what are the key features that make some entrepreneurs hire this type of service, our tip is that you talk to the other people who work with you.

That way you’ll be able to understand some of the challenges they are facing, especially regarding marketing strategies for your business, and then, you can decide together, which is the best option.

What about you? Have you ever hired a marketing consultant? Tell us in the comments section below about your experience.