Even the best marketing teams can hit a roadblock at some point. If you ever experience this, you can always turn to a marketing consultant for expert guidance to get things back on track.
These professionals have vast marketing experience and can offer an unbiased perspective. While your in-house marketers are likely juggling various tasks, a consultant will commit to fine-tuning your marketing efforts to drive growth.
If you want to hire a marketing consultant to refresh your strategies and boost performance, use this guide to prepare for the process and make informed hiring decisions. We’ll explain what marketing consultants do, when to hire them, and how to choose the best one for your business. You’ll also learn about MarketerHire, a recruiting platform that can match you with a marketing consultant and other expert marketers in days.
What Is a Marketing Consultant?
Marketing consultants advise you on the best next steps for your marketing strategies and initiatives. These professionals use their experience in marketing and consultancy and knowledge of relevant tactics and channels to increase your reach and conversions.
Some marketing consultants are independent freelancers, while others work for consulting or marketing agencies. They often specialize in specific areas, such as:
- Digital marketing
- Branding
- Communications and PR
- Market research
You can engage a marketing consultant on a project basis or get continuous, in-house support. There are also fractional marketing consultants who you can hire for specific projects or a set number of hours. You can also adjust their hours to your needs, project timelines, and budget.
What Does a Marketing Consultant Do?
A marketing consultant can have many responsibilities, including:
- Conducting analysis: Marketing consultants first meet with you to identify your company’s needs, goals, and bottlenecks and assess your marketing performance and operations. Then, they’ll use this data to craft a proposal for you and your stakeholders
- Developing a strategy: The consultant often conducts market research to identify trends and profitable opportunities. Once they have all the necessary information about your business and audience, they’ll develop a marketing strategy to help you achieve your goals. These may include improving your brand, reach, or engagement
- Advising: The consultant is there to advise you as you execute the strategy and may even participate in its implementation. They usually oversee the operations, but they might also create certain marketing materials or manage channels
- Measuring results: To evaluate the effectiveness of their strategy, the consultant analyzes relevant campaign metrics and makes the appropriate changes to the strategy to yield even better results. They also use the data to write reports that demonstrate the value of their initiatives
- Coaching: The consultant may also train and mentor your in-house marketing team to help them improve performance and develop skills
When and Why Should You Hire a Marketing Consultant?
Here are some common scenarios in which a marketing consultant’s guidance is valuable:
If the need for a marketing consultant arises, make sure to hire them as soon as possible to quickly resolve problems, avoid costly mistakes, and ensure uninterrupted growth for your business.
Benefits of Hiring a Marketing Consultant
A marketing consultant can bring your business the following benefits:
- High-level but affordable expertise with a high ROI
- Flexible and scalable solution that can adapt to your company’s ongoing needs
- External perspective, which allows consultants to provide objective and practical advice
- Ability to get specific expertise without hiring a dedicated expert
- Efficient problem resolution and time-saving
- Training to make your marketing team more skilled and productive
- Informed decisions that help achieve your goals and drive business growth
What To Look For in a Marketing Consultant
When searching for a marketing consultant, make sure to screen for the following traits:
- Practical experience: An excellent marketing consultant must have a long, data-backed track record of helping companies with their marketing efforts. They should have battle-tested methods and strategies to assist your business quickly
- Tool proficiency: Since your consultant will use or advise on the use of marketing and analytics tools, they must know them inside out
- Analytical thinking: They must be meticulous and methodical in analyzing your marketing efforts and challenges, considering all angles to identify the most logical solutions
- Communication skills: The consultant should be able to convey their ideas clearly so marketers of all levels can understand. They must also be transparent and an excellent listener
- Decision-making: A consultant has to make many important decisions and do so fast. The most crucial decisions usually pertain to strategy development, resource allocation, and responding to market shifts
- Organization skills: To manage their limited time, your budget, and the team effectively, the consultant must be organized and disciplined
How To Hire a Marketing Consultant
The table below breaks down the typical process of hiring a marketing consultant:
Challenges of the Traditional Approach to Hiring a Marketing Consultant
Recruiting a marketing consultant on your own has a few downsides to consider:
- It’s slow: You’ll need to spend weeks or even months to find the optimal marketing consultant for your business, which could lead to project delays and financial losses
- It’s laborious: Sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates requires a lot of effort and preparation, especially if you’re not a marketing expert yourself
- It’s unreliable: While you may have an idea of which traits to look for, you can’t be sure you’re assessing them properly without proven methods. If you end up making the wrong hiring decision, your marketing and business could suffer. You’d also need to look for another consultant, spending even more resources
For spot-on and efficient hiring, your best bet is to partner with MarketerHire—a recruiting platform that offers personalized matching with experts in only days. You also get free trials and rematching, which reduce the risk of making a bad hire.
Why Is MarketerHire the Best Choice for Hiring a Marketing Consultant?
When you need expert guidance fast, MarketerHire is the place to go. It's a marketing-focused matchmaking platform that can help you hire a marketing consultant and other experts within only days.
MarketerHire has a stellar track record and boasts over 30,000 successful matches. It's served thousands of companies, including well-known names like:
- Forbes
- HelloFresh
- Lyft
To ensure efficient hiring, MarketerHire's experts pre-vet all marketers using a complex multi-step process. The network comprises the top 1% of applicants who've passed the screening and worked with household brands like Yelp and Netflix. Identifying the top candidate from the network is easy with MarketerHire’s proprietary MarketerMatch system that combines AI and human insight.
You can enjoy effortless hiring thanks to MarketerHire's white-glove service, which guarantees support from a dedicated marketing manager during and after recruitment. Your involvement in the process is minimal, but the final decision is yours to make.
MarketerHire offers a two-week trial so you can assess fit. If you’re not happy with your match, the platform will find a replacement for free.
Besides marketing consultants, you can use MarketerHire to recruit for various other roles, including fractional CMOs, programmatic marketers, and SEO specialists. You can also connect with pre-vetted Expert Assistants—experienced, fast-learning professionals who can support your marketing, design, or sales teams.
How MarketerHire Works
Learn about the process of recruiting a marketing consultant with MarketerHire:
- Intro call: Meet with your dedicated marketing manager to describe your company, project, and vacancy
- Matching: The platform will find a consultant to meet your needs within 48 hours
- Hiring: The consultant can start working for you in as little as three days
Get the right expertise at the right time—reach out to MarketerHire and recruit an A-list marketing consultant!
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