Marketing Consultancy: Where to Get It and How to Evaluate Its Success

Consumers today rely almost entirely on the internet in shopping for their needs and studying their options, so every company must set a solid digital marketing plan across the various internet channels. But the world of digital marketing is a constantly changing world, and it may be hard for many companies to spread their efforts across everything new in this field while preserving the quality of their products and services.

For this reason, companies turn to marketing consultancy experts. These experts set complete marketing strategies and help companies grow their business and online presence and attract customers to them.

In this article we’ll cover the concept of marketing consultancy, the reasons that drive companies to hire a marketing consultant, and the services they can provide.

What Is Marketing Consultancy?

Marketing consultancy — also known as digital marketing consultancy — is a service provided by experts specialized in online marketing strategies and methods. This service consists of studying the current status of the client company’s marketing efforts and helping prepare and apply a complete marketing strategy and choose the marketing channels suitable for attracting customers and increasing sales and profits.

These consultants work side by side with companies to understand their needs and the nature of their target audience, and work toward achieving their investment goals and strengthening their digital presence across channels.

What sets these experts apart is their deep understanding of the digital marketing world and their awareness of everything new in marketing methods and changes in search-engine and social-media algorithms, and their use of the latest marketing tools. All of that enables them to adapt to shifts in the digital market and make adjustments to the strategy to preserve its quality and effectiveness.

Reasons to Hire a Marketing Consultant

Even if the company has an internal marketing team that does many tasks, using a digital marketing consultant brings the company many benefits. Among the reasons to hire a marketing consultant:

1: Getting an Outside Perspective 

Companies relying on themselves in marketing using traditional methods that used to serve the purpose in the past makes them liable to fall behind the evolution in digital marketing. So hiring a marketing consultant brings to the table a fresh, clearer, more objective point of view to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the current strategy and find solutions to the problems the company faces.

2: Keeping Up With Development

Digital marketing is a constantly changing and evolving field — including search algorithms, social media platforms, marketing tools, and trending practices and methods. It’s hard for companies and entrepreneurs to keep pace with all of that. This is where the benefit of hiring a marketing consultant stands out: these specialists constantly work on developing their skills and staying up to date with every development so they can offer the best possible service to their clients.

3: Benefiting From the Best Digital Marketing Tools

Digital marketing consultants have access to modern tools that enable them to analyze data and monitor KPIs. These tools help them track the marketing campaign’s performance and make data-backed decisions.

Subscribing to these tools may be somewhat costly, and they also require experience to handle. So using a digital marketing consultant saves companies the tool subscription fees and the trouble of training staff to use them.

4: Experience

The marketing consultant is experienced in this field and has expertise from working with different types of companies across every field. They have a good understanding of the types of target audiences and the methods for attracting them and the practices that work and don’t work in service of that. That way they’re the most competent person to give advice on developing the company’s business and performance in digital marketing.

5: Saving Time and Money

Every company has products or services it offers, which is the core of its business and investment — and it’s the aspect it focuses on. So it can rely on a marketing consultant who organizes and executes the marketing campaign, and who also directs and oversees the internal marketing team.

On top of that, the marketing consultant is an expert who doesn’t need training, is able to detect errors and problems and fix them quickly. That way the company guarantees the best use of time and spending the marketing budget in the right places.

6: Setting a Strategy Specific to the Company and Reducing Risk

Every company has a specific field and marketing methods and channels that are more effective. The marketing consultant, by virtue of their industry experience, is capable of setting a marketing strategy specific to and suitable for each company. That way they protect the company from committing common mistakes that may cost it time and money and hurt its reputation in the market.

The Services the Marketing Consultant Provides

The marketing consultant has a set of skills and expertise that enables them to raise the efficiency and effectiveness of companies’ marketing campaigns. The services they provide to these companies include all or some of the following:

First: Search Engine Optimization

The marketing consultant knows how search-engine algorithms like Google and others work, evaluating the website’s content and the site’s overall structure, then giving notes and guidance on what should be done to optimize this site for search engines. That way the website’s pages get higher rankings and appear more within the top results in users’ searches.

The consultant uses tools like Semrush and Google Search Console to help them in this process, while staying up to date with every development in how search algorithms work, to deliver the best service to client companies.

Second: Content Marketing

The marketing consultant evaluates the content pieces the company publishes — blog articles, social media posts, and explainer videos — then directs content creators and writers toward the types of content that should be prepared. The purpose of this content is to attract the target audience segment by properly applying SEO practices and introducing consumers to the services and products the company offers them.

Content marketing is one of the most prominent forms of inbound marketing — which in the internet era has become one of the most widespread and effective forms of marketing. It’s a way to spread value and knowledge to audiences and answer their inquiries and correct misconceptions — which gains these audiences’ trust and makes the company a thought leader in their industry.

Third: Social Media Marketing

The marketing consultant identifies the best social media platforms and the most suitable for the company’s industry and where its target audience is present. These platforms are used to build a community with followers and answer their inquiries and grow awareness of the company’s brand by publishing knowledge content and videos, and promoting the company using paid ads.

Fourth: Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are used for Lead Nurturing by announcing events and offering deals on products and services. The marketing consultant directs the email campaign’s flow and the types of messages that should be used to get the best results from this form of marketing.

Fifth: Website Development

The consultant oversees optimizing the website for search engines, and ensures the site’s design delivers the best possible customer experience and represents the company’s brand — and thus is more attractive to visitors and raises the conversion rate.

Sixth: Paid Ads

Paid ads campaigns (Pay Per Click) are used to grow the brand’s reach and access a wider audience and target the required segment. The marketing consultant evaluates the paid ads campaign the company is running and its performance metrics, and provides advice and guidance on the ad formats and channels suited to it.

Seventh: Market Study

The consultant does in-depth research into the client company’s field and identifies the strongest competing companies in the market, and puts together a model for the required customer persona — to discover the best opportunities and methods for targeting this customer segment.

Eighth: Setting a Complete Marketing Strategy

After studying the company’s current situation and taking every matter into account, the consultant sets a complete marketing strategy for the company, identifies the points that can be improved, sets clear goals for the company and milestones, identifies the suitable marketing channels, and splits the budget accordingly.

Ninth: Data Analysis and Monitoring Performance Metrics

There’s no complete marketing campaign without periodic monitoring of its performance level. The marketing consultant uses several tools to monitor the performance metrics of marketing campaigns across channels — including website visits, conversion rate, click-through rate, heatmaps, and many other metrics. This data helps identify strengths and weaknesses in the marketing strategy and make data-backed adjustments wherever needed.

Tenth: Training and Organizing the Internal Team

The consultant puts in place a shared work plan between the internal marketing team and web developers and other company staff. They also help train marketers on the best marketing practices and methods, and give them guidance on the process going forward.

How to Choose a Marketing Consultant for Your Company?

Choosing a marketing consultant suitable for your company is an important step, and there are many factors that must be taken into account when making this decision, including:

1: The Required Experience

Some consultants offer many services and others specialize in a specific service, so the aspect the company wants to improve must be identified — such as social media marketing, for example — or to develop the company’s marketing efforts as a whole. Clarity on this goal is essential to choose a specialized marketing consultant.

The company’s field also plays an important role in the selection. Whether the company runs an online store or offers services to other companies (B2B), this point is important for choosing a consultant with experience in this field. Finally, the size of companies the consultant usually works with should match the size of the company and its available budget.

2: Evaluating the Portfolio and Previous Work Experience

Evaluating the marketing consultant’s past successes and experience with other companies is essential for choosing a suitable consultant — to ensure the consultant is capable of achieving the set goals and is competent in working with companies in the same industry. That way the consultant has the right understanding of the required audience, the market competition, and the marketing methods suitable for achieving success.

Among the most important indicators is the consultant’s ability to market themselves. If the consultant has a strong digital presence and previous experience with well-known companies, that’s the greatest evidence of their ability to achieve positive results for the company.

3: Previous Client Ratings and Certificates of Expertise

Taking a look at ratings and comments from previous clients gives an idea of the marketing consultant’s competence and credibility, their knowledge of the marketing world, their professionalism at work, their skills in communicating with clients and employees and the team, and their ability to achieve goals on the set deadlines.

Certificates of expertise are also an important indicator of the consultant’s experience and standing in the field — such as awards, university certificates, and years of experience. Examples include the Google Partner certificate and more.

4: Clarity in Dealing

When conducting interviews to choose the marketing consultant, it’s essential that everything about the agreement between the two parties be clear and understood. What services will be provided? To what extent does the consultant know the company’s industry? What is the consultant’s initial view of the company? Answering these questions and many others frames the working relationship clearly and shows whether this consultant is the most suitable choice.

5: Studying the Budget

The cost of the service the marketing consultant provides depends on many factors, such as: the consultant’s experience level, the number of services they’ll provide, the country, and many others. Some consultancy engagements may require somewhat high fees, so the company must study its available budget so it covers the consultant’s fees and the campaign’s marketing costs. So this point is essential to discuss before signing the contract with the consultant to avoid problems and disputes at payment.

The Sequence of Stages in a Marketing Consultation

After contracting with a marketing consultant, the stages of the consultation they’ll provide are as follows:

1: Initial Evaluation Stage

At this stage, the consultant sits with the client — the company owners — and they talk so the consultant understands their needs, goals, challenges, and available resources, and identifies strengths and weaknesses to draw a clear picture of the company’s current situation. An initial evaluation is also made of the company’s digital presence on the internet, including the website and social media platforms.

After studying the company’s current situation and setting a benchmark starting point, the aspects that need adjustments and improvements are identified, then goals and progress milestones to be reached are set, and the sales funnel to be followed is designed.

2: Data Analysis and Market Study

The consultant analyzes the data they’ve gathered and evaluates the company’s marketing performance metrics so far. They also study the market and the top competitors in the field and the type of target audience. All these matters put in place a clear working framework for what should be done and a path for the strategy the company should follow.

3: Providing a List of Actionable Items

Here the value of the marketing consultation shows: the consultant provides a list of all the approaches and practices that should be followed, the motivation behind each of them, the employee departments responsible for executing them, and the expected benefit — and can also provide an estimated cost for them.

4: Starting to Apply the Marketing Plan

This step is the responsibility of the client company’s manager, who oversees the company’s internal team as they follow the marketing consultant’s recommendations and carry out the tasks assigned to each of them.

5: Evaluating the Campaign and Continuous Development

After the company follows the working strategy the consultant put in place, if the client wants to check the campaign’s effectiveness and whether it’s achieving the set goals, they can request a second consultation — an evaluation of the campaign and the progress made during this period, and a discussion of potential adjustments that can be applied to increase the campaign’s effectiveness, such as: preparing other forms of content or following new, up-to-date methods in the world of marketing.