As a small business entrepreneur you know you need some marketing help to grow your business, but you are not sure where to start. Someone recommends that you get in touch with a marketing consultant. But you are not sure what they do? or How might they be able to help you? Will they help you to drive sales or as one client noted with me “marketing is just pretty pictures, isn’t it?”
No, there is a huge logic and thought which gets applied to marketing and the pretty pictures or end creative is the icing on the cake. One of my favourite quotes of all time is from Keith Weed, CEO of Unilever, who said “Marketing is a fusion of logic and magic.” As a marketing consultant I think I have one of the best jobs around, I get to work on some awesome marketing projects with some amazing, passionate and inspirational clients across a diverse range of sectors all on a daily basis. In my mind it does not get much better that that!
So what do we do?
The short answer is lots. And it is really varied too, each of my days are different and the delivery for each client is different. There is a lot of client liaison, project management and ensuring that we are all heading in the right direction but there is also a lot of creative stuff to. Yesterday for example I spent some time drafting copy for a landing page for a client to launch a new product. It was interesting considering their tone of voice and how to clearly and easily communicate what we were trying to say.
Tomorrow, I have a brainstorm session with a new client. I love these sessions, they have been likened to ‘therapy’ because it gives the client the opportunity to do a brain dump and work out where they have come from, where they are now and how they move forward. I love that “lightbulb” moment of realisation. It is important for us to take the business owner on a journey with us, to ensure they know what we are doing and the logic behind it, but most importantly that they agree with the decision.
Next week I am running a social media workshop for a local small business, helping them to work out what their digital footprint says about them, understand if it is what they want it to say about them and then agree how we go about changing it.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the kinds of things I might do for a client, we have not even touched on the website build and design process, creative development for campaigns, customer retention activity, data analysis, digital marketing, partnerships or the general business admin.
How could a marketing consultant help you?
The short answer is we can help with anything marketing related. Whether that is writing a marketing plan, building a website, conducting market research, getting your business in front of the right audience (PR), copy writing, partnerships, ad campaigns, the list goes on. Because we are team of associates, all experts in our field think marketing and we pretty much have it all covered.
Be careful though, our proposition is to become your “virtual marketing” team, not all marketing consultants work in this way. So depending upon what you are looking for, make sure you find the right person to support your business.
What questions to ask?
This is key. Depending upon what it is you wish to achieve will depend upon if you need a marketing consultant, a designer, a website builder or PR person to name a few. Having good chemistry between you and the client you work with is essential, if you are going to work with someone, you need to ensure that you trust them and be confident they will add value to your business. Some questions to consider:
- What area of marketing do they specialise in?
- How to they work? What processes, tools or platforms do they use?
- Can they share some client testimonials and examples of their work?
- What costs are involved?
- Who else do they work with?
What happens next?
If you have a small business marketing challenge, would like some help to grow your business or would like to understand more about how it all works – please get in touch to arrange an initial no obligation 1:1 consultation.
