Life as a marketing consultant is not always straightforward but it can also be incredibly rewarding when done correctly. Over the years we’ve worked with a number of independent marketing consultants and we’ve noticed a few common challenges that they all tend to run into – here’s how to avoid them.
Pick the right team for the right task
it should go without saying that you need to pick the best teams to do the work since they are a reflection on your own brand – however, it can be far too easy to just use the same agency for everything to keep things simple for yourself. But remember, that’s not why you’ve been hired by your client in the first place – they might as well as have just gone straight to the agency themselves.
Instead, you need to ensure that you’re pulling together the best skills from multiple agencies to deliver a bespoke solution that you believe is the best for your client. This may mean that you end up with a different agency for each element of the marketing campaign – but you will feel confident that this is the best offering for your client.
Set clear targets
If a business has brought you in as a marketing consultant to assist them, it’s likely that there isn’t a huge amount of time (or knowledge) for their internal teams to focus on these activities. It also means that they’re likely to focus on wider business objectives when it comes to measuring results rather than having specific targets to determine the success of their marketing activity. It’s important that you ensure these are clearly outlined as these are what you’ll ultimately be assessed against.
Reach out to your experts for help setting realistic targets, when you’re not sure what to measure or even for a second opinion.
Simplify communication channels
One of the main benefits of hiring a marketing consultant or coordinator in the first place is that they streamline the communication between business leaders and marketing teams. But just because you’re making life easier for your client doesn’t mean that yours has to be a mess – if you’re working with multiple agencies you’ve probably got a lot of people to talk to – so try to have only one main contact within each of these organisations that you regularly communicate with to reduce how many conversations you need to have to get things done.
Having regularly scheduled updates and reports is also a huge benefit that can help you set timeline expectations for your clients and yourself.
Marketing consultants are a huge help for SME agencies, they allow our teams to focus on delivering the best results for our clients rather than having to manage the communication channels. That’s why we want to do our bit to make life as easy as possible for you. If you want to have a chat about your upcoming projects or challenges you’re facing, feel free to get in touch or reach out on LinkedIn.
