Digital marketing moves at lightning speed. New trends, technologies, and strategies emerge every year – it’s hard to keep up when you’re focused on running your business day-to-day.
This is where partnering with a digital marketing consultant can be a game-changing impact for your company’s growth. An experienced consultant becomes an invaluable asset to help you stay ahead of the curve and drive results online.
But what role exactly does a digital marketing consultant play? How can they help your business specifically? What results can you expect and how do you choose the right consultant for your needs?
In this all-inclusive guide, we will provide you with all the necessary information leveraging digital marketing consulting services to accelerate your success online. Let’s get started.
What Does a Digital Marketing Consultant Do?
A digital marketing consultant is an expert you bring onto your team to advise and guide your overall online marketing strategy and activities.
They become an extension of your marketing team, using their outside perspective, experience working with many other companies, and technical expertise to take your efforts to the next level.
The responsibilities of a consultant typically include:
- Developing data-backed digital marketing strategies based on your specific business goals and target audience
- Creating high-converting sales funnels, landing pages, and ad campaigns to boost leads and revenue
- Recommending the right KPIs to track and tools to measure marketing performance
- Bringing innovative new marketing tactics and channels to the table, beyond what you may be using currently
- Optimizing and executing campaigns across multiple digital channels – SEO, PPC, email, social and more
In short, a digital marketing consultant provides immense strategic value to help you grow your business faster than trying to figure everything out yourself. Their outside perspective and specialized skills accelerate your success online.
Let’s explore the core areas a consultant can provide strategy, planning and execution help with in more detail:
Craft Targeted Digital Marketing Strategies
The starting point of any consulting engagement is in-depth strategy planning. An experienced consultant will typically conduct thorough research into your:
- Business goals, target KPIs and past marketing performance
- Brand positioning and key audiences
- Competitor landscape and differentiation opportunities
- Current digital presence and activities
Using these business insights, buyer persona research, SWOT analysis and more, a consultant will craft a tailored digital marketing strategy.
This strategic plan will outline your positioning, the right platforms and channels to focus on, tactical campaigns to execute, and specific action items for your team.
With a solid strategy in place built on research, your marketing efforts gain focus, direction and purpose. You’re no longer guessing at one-off activities but have a plan mapped to your goals.
Design High-Converting Campaigns to Boost Sales
Driving sales and converting interested visitors into leads and customers is often a crucial goal for digital marketing.
This is another area where a consultant’s experience can prove invaluable. They can advise and optimize your entire sales process and all associated touchpoints.
For example, consultants can plan and execute tactics like:
- Highly targeted PPC/social media ads tailored to different buyer personas
- Landing pages optimized for conversions with persuasive copy and layouts
- Email sequences for lead nurturing and promotions to turn subscribers into customers
- Retargeting campaigns for abandoned carts and cold leads
The result – your campaigns and touchpoints convert more prospects to buyers. You generate higher ROI from your marketing spend.
Track Performance with Digital Marketing KPIs
How do you know if your digital marketing efforts are moving the needle on your goals? This comes down to tracking the right key performance indicators (KPIs).
A consultant will recommend relevant KPIs to measure marketing performance based on your specific business objectives. Examples include:
- Increased website traffic and lower bounce rates
- More leads captured and newsletter subscribers
- Higher sales revenue and conversion rates
- Improved brand awareness and engagement
They will also guide you on the best analytics platforms to track these KPIs. With proper reporting dashboards set up, you gain data-driven insight into the impact of your marketing.
You can identify successes to double down on and failing tactics to fix or drop. This leads to better allocation of marketing resources.
Innovate with Cutting-Edge Marketing Ideas
Digital marketing evolves at a rapid pace. There are exciting new technologies, platforms, and strategies emerging every single year.
Bringing in a consultant ensures your marketing strategy stays up-to-date. They actively stay on top of the latest trends and innovations.
A consultant can bring fresh, outside-the-box thinking and tactical ideas to the table, such as:
- Adopting new technologies like AI for website personalization
- Experimenting with digital out-of-home ads
- Launching shoppable social media posts and live video
- Leveraging influencer marketing on TikTok
Implementing new approaches like these before competitors do gives your marketing an edge. It also keeps you from sticking to outdated tactics purely out of habit.
Manage Multi-Channel Campaigns For Omnichannel Success
Today’s buyers engage with brands across many different online and offline touchpoints during their journey.
To match this omnichannel reality, marketers must coordinate campaigns across multiple channels to deliver relevant messaging wherever prospects are.
With extensive experience managing cross-channel marketing, consultants can help develop and fine-tune your omnichannel approach for consistent messaging and impact across key channels like:
- Organic and paid search
- Website experience optimization
- Email, SMS and messaging apps
- Social media platforms
- Mobile apps and ads
- Offline ads and events
This unified approach allows you to engage audiences across the channels they prefer and convert more touchpoints into sales.
In summary, an experienced digital marketing consultant supercharges your online marketing efforts on multiple fronts through informed strategy, expert implementation and constant optimization.
Next, let’s explore some of the biggest benefits you gain by making the investment to bring a consultant onto your team.
4 Benefits of Hiring a Digital Marketing Consultant
What tangible benefits can you expect from hiring a digital marketing consultant? Here are some of the biggest ways an experienced consultant can impact your business:
Speed Up Growth and Success Online
A seasoned digital marketing consultant brings immense strategic and hands-on experience from working with many other companies across diverse industries.
Leveraging their expertise allows you to grow your online presence and marketing success faster than trying to learn and figure everything out through internal trial and error.
You get the benefit of their knowledge and skills while staying focused on your core business operations and strengths. The consultant fills vital gaps in your team’s digital marketing capabilities.
This results in accelerated progress towards your KPIs and business goals through well-designed strategies and tactical execution.
Gain an Objective Outside Perspective
When you are deep in the day-to-day running of your own business, it can be challenging to take a step back and look at things objectively.
An external digital marketing consultant offers an impartial, third-party perspective on your current marketing strategy and activities.
Their outside vantage point allows them to identify gaps, inefficiencies, issues and untapped opportunities you may have overlooked or lack visibility into internally.
These unbiased insights help prioritize high-impact changes to streamline your efforts and use marketing budget and resources more effectively.
Keep Your Marketing Strategy Up-to-Date
Digital marketing evolves at lightning speed. Exciting new platforms, technologies, trends and strategies emerge every single year.
Hiring a consultant ensures your marketing strategy stays current, modern and optimized for today’s digital landscape.
They actively stay on top of the latest tactics and innovations through ongoing training, research and working with many clients.
The consultant brings this knowledge of cutting-edge approaches to help future-proof your strategy. Rather thansticking to outdated tactics purely out of habit and inertia.
Get Strategies Tailored to Your Goals
Digital marketing covers a vast landscape of platforms, channels and activities. There are many directions you could take things.
But off-the-shelf marketing advice rarely fits specific businesses perfectly. Too generic.
An experienced consultant will thoroughly analyze your business – including your target audience, industry, competitive landscape, budget and other factors unique to you.
They use these business insights to develop digital marketing strategies tailored to your goals and needs.
You get a strategic plan custom-built for your situation, not just generic recommendations. The days of one-size-fits-all marketing are over.
In summary, a digital marketing consultant turbocharges your online success through their specialized expertise, outside perspective, and custom-tailored strategies.
Next let’s cover the step-by-step process for finding and hiring the right consultant for your specific business needs.
6 Steps to Hiring the Right Digital Marketing Consultant
There is a difference in quality among digital marketing consultants. Finding the right fit for your business is crucial to realize the full benefits.
Follow these steps when researching and selecting a consultant:
Step 1: Define Your Goals
First, have clarity on your goals and objectives for bringing on a digital marketing consultant.
Do you need help with:
- Increasing overall website visitors and traffic?
- Growing social media reach and followers?
- Capturing more leads and newsletter subscribers?
- Boosting ecommerce sales and revenue?
Define your targets upfront so you can look for consultants experienced in those particular areas. Avoid vague goals.
Step 2: Look for Relevant Experience
Find consultants who have successfully executed strategies for other businesses similar to yours in the past.
Relevant industry and niche experience is a must to understand your target audience, market landscape and business model nuances.
For example, if you run an ecommerce store, look for consultants with proven results specifically for online retail stores vs. unrelated industries.
Check client lists, case studies and reviews to verify the right background.
Step 3: Ask for Examples and Case Studies
Shortlist a few potential consultants to interview further. Ask each firm or freelancer to share examples and case studies from clients they’ve worked with having goals similar to yours.
Dig into these case studies to understand:
- Their approach to strategy and campaign execution
- Examples of tactics used
- Hard results delivered for clients
Verify through real examples that the consultant can actually deliver tangible results matching your objectives. Don’t just take their word for it.
Step 4: Assess Technical Expertise
Review prospective consultants’ credentials, certifications and online profiles to assess technical expertise critical for your goals:
- For SEO growth, look for consultants with strong technical SEO skills
- For email marketing, see A/B testing experience and deliverability best practices knowledge
- For pay-per-click (PPC), Google Ads certifications are a must
Choose a consultant well-versed in tactics key to your strategy vs. generalists lacking the right specialized skills.
Step 5: Check Reviews and Testimonials
Validating credentials is important but so is the opinion of past clients.
Search online for in-depth client reviews and testimonials for each prospective consultant to ensure a consistent track record of positive experiences.
This helps confirm capabilities beyond just talking the talk but actually delivering results. Client satisfaction matters.
Step 6: Interview and Check Communication Fit
Cultural fit and work style compatibility are make-or-break for any partnership to thrive.
Have exploratory calls with two to three top prospects. Gauge their knowledge, communication style and responsiveness.
Do they ask insightful questions? Clearly explain approach and ideas? Understand your needs and objectives?
Choose the consultant you feel most comfortable and aligned with for a long-term relationship. Mutual trust is key.
Following this process sets you up to find the ideal digital marketing consultant for your specific goals and business needs.
Once you start working together, how long should you expect to wait before seeing tangible results from the consultant’s efforts?
How Long Does it Take to See Results?
Once you start working with your chosen digital marketing consultant, how long until you see concrete results from their efforts?
The timeline depends on your specific goals:
For traffic-focused objectives like growing organic search traffic through SEO, expect to wait 3-6+ months to see significant improvements. SEO takes time.
For lead generation like capturing more email subscribers, you can expect incremental improvements within the first 1-2 months already.
For brand awareness objectives like increased social media reach, the impact of better content production and community engagement is usually visible within 2-4 months.
The key is setting realistic expectations. Digital marketing results compound over time – the longer you work with an expert consultant, the more your efforts will pay off.
Have patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day. But with a sound long-term approach, achieving your KPIs becomes a matter of when rather than if.
Now let’s discuss how to measure the ROI and overall business value you receive from investing in a digital marketing consultant.
Measuring the ROI of Digital Marketing Consulting
To measure the return on investment (ROI) from hiring a digital marketing consultant, start by tracking metrics like:
- Increase in website traffic
- Growth in leads and newsletter subscribers
- Higher percentage of conversions and sales
- Improved audience engagement across digital channels
Compare these tangible gains to your costs like consultant fees and marketing spend.
But remember – the full value provided by a consultant often goes beyond direct revenue ROI. Their long-term strategic impact on your capabilities, systems and future success is harder to quantify but just as important.
Some additional qualitative benefits include:
- Getting your entire marketing team up-to-speed on the latest best practices through knowledge sharing and training
- Building more effective processes, tracking systems and technologies for more automated marketing
- Rising capability of your team to run high-level digital marketing themselves in the future
So weigh the holistic benefits before narrowly focusing on short-term sales ROI alone. The indirect organizational improvements often pay dividends for years.
Okay, we’ve covered a lot of ground by this point. Let’s wrap up with some key takeaways to remember.
Final Takeaways on Digital Marketing Consulting
Here are some key points to remember when considering working with a digital marketing consultant:
- A qualified consultant becomes an invaluable asset to grow your business online through expert strategy, execution and optimization. Their experience can fast-track your success.
- Clearly define your goals and ideal consultant profile upfront. Then thoroughly vet prospects’ relevant expertise, case studies and client reviews.
- Choose a consultant with technical excellence in areas critical for your goals like SEO, paid ads, email marketing etc. A generalist may not cut it.
- Validate cultural fit with exploratory calls. Ensure your work styles align for smooth collaboration.
- Be patient – sustainable marketing results take time. Focus on long-term gains vs. short-term wins.
- Consider both quantitative ROI and qualitative benefits like staff training and operational improvements.
In today’s digitally-driven business landscape, partnering with the right digital marketing consultant provides immense strategic value.
They will help future-proof your marketing efforts with the latest innovations and expertise tailored exactly for your business needs and goals.
The result? You gain an invaluable asset to outmaneuver competitors and catapult your success online.
So don’t leave your digital marketing purely to internal trial and error. Bring Vanquish Media Group‘s expertise and guidance on board for the win.
