It’s no secret that customer-centric and sales-driven marketing determines the success and growth of any business. But here’s the thing – Just to sell you the fact that you need to hire a marketing consultant, I won’t be throwing random numbers at you to say, “Hey! Maybe you are not doing that well.”
In the fiercely competitive world of products and services, no matter how complete your marketing team is, at the end of the day, the chances of you getting a million user base in just a week like ChatGPT are not quite realistic. I am not saying it cannot happen, but some things are better left to the market. All you can do is – implement the right strategy with the help of the right people at the right time!
So, do you need to hire a Marketing Consultant?
It wouldn’t be true if I said I didn’t think about bombarding you with random data from the internet to showcase how many companies are not doing well even after having a full-fledged marketing team and then pitch why you need a marketing consultant. But I guarantee that I won’t be relying solely on random data just to persuade you in this entire blog.
In reality, there are multiple things while determining the exact number of companies that have a marketing team but are not doing well. It is challenging, as it requires access to comprehensive and up-to-date data on the financial performance and marketing effectiveness of all companies worldwide. Additionally, the definition of “not doing well” can vary depending on the context and industry.
That being said, it is not uncommon for companies with an in-house marketing team as well as those who have outsourced the same to face challenges or struggle to achieve their desired outcomes. Marketing success depends on various factors, including market conditions, competition, product quality, target audience, marketing strategy, execution, and more.
Moreover, the performance of a company’s marketing team can also be subjective. While some companies might be considered “not doing well” based on their financial performance or market share, others might be satisfied with their marketing efforts despite facing challenges.
Long story short, it is safe to say that there are likely many companies with marketing teams that are not performing as well as they would like.
Who is this blog for?
Let’s say you have a well-balanced marketing team from all genres, yet your growth is moving at a meager pace. In that case, you may want to hire a marketing consultant.
In this blog, we’ll explore the unique benefits of hiring a marketing consultant, backed by, obviously, data-driven arguments, but more importantly, with humane logic, use cases, and anecdotes.
1. Bring a fresh perspective
It’s not a secret – if you have an organization, no matter how small or large it is, there are challenges like internal politics, biases, or preconceived notions. All these things play a crucial role in crafting future strategies and processes. And if you really believe you need to get out of a status quo, a fresh set of eyes is what you need!
“A successful marketing plan is like a Swiss army knife – versatile, practical and tailored to your specific needs.”
Break individual Silos
Consultants work closely with the marketing, sales, customer support, product/ project teams, and even the leadership, and then share detailed strategies. Looking at things from a bird’s eye view allows them to see past the silos which is, unfortunately, a very prevalent thing in a lot of companies more often than not.
Uncover New Opportunities
Their proven yet ever-evolving framework, while keeping themselves detached from all the aforementioned internal issues, gives them a unique advantage in doing an effective SWOT analysis. This insight helps develop your team’s skills, inspires more collaboration, and fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation. In turn, you can identify gaps in your existing strategies, uncover untapped opportunities, and inject new life into your marketing efforts.
Gartner revealed that 85% of marketing teams reported improved delivery times and collaboration efficiency just after adopting the right operations.
10x Your Team’s Productivity
Personally, I have helped teams to improve their productivity by up to 10x once everyone can see the bigger picture – the goal, how their contribution can make something happen – their individual tasks, and the tools that will help them.
All you need is a detailed quarterly strategy consisting of the main objective, methods of achieving it, individual KPIs, and automatic report generations to track daily/weekly/monthly KRAs of each and every team member (yes, even for content writers). This strategy framework doesn’t only help you to monitor the ongoing progress but enables your own team to achieve and most of the time, even exceed their goals.
2. Craft a Unique & Compelling Brand Identity
The job of a consultant is not just to massage the ego of the decision-makers. Although, at times, it really helps to extend the contract; jokes apart, it is to show them the mirror – where the company actually stands, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and then work alongside them to achieve a common objective.
Let’s say your team thinks that they are already doing everything to improve your Brand Perception. Maybe you’re already using Hootsuite Insights or any other social listening tool to measure social media sentiment, using SurveySensum to measure CSAT or Net Promoter Score, and your Search Console (+Google Analytics) shows that you are getting thousands of new visitors coming to your website using just your brand name in Google search. (If you’re not doing any of this, then consider this as a free branding consultation!)
But when all of this is set and done, comes the next phase – what do you do with these insights? Are all these things good enough for you to say that your branding efforts are going in the right direction? Well, if used correctly, they constitute a part of it, but are they complete? I would strongly disagree!
At the end of the day, with all the above things, you are simply collecting data. And mostly, I have seen people use data to validate their conclusions instead of making decisions derived from them. As for consultants, we know there are tons of numbers available for us but not all numbers are actionable, and many of them only look good on charts yet they represent nothing about a brand!
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos
Be a Brand of your Word
Let me give you a very basic example. If you have a ‘Live Chat’ option on your website and a visitor has to wait more than 1 minute before one of your agents responds, you’ve got a couple of options: either use AI chatbots like Live Chat and update their knowledge base so the visitors get the answer(s) they are looking for. If you are not doing that, please just stop claiming 24/7 support. And, it would be a wise move to simply remove the live chat functionality altogether before you draw some negative TrustPilot or Capterra reviews.
A staggering 86% consumers hesitate purchasing when they see a negative review
A marketing consultant, through a detailed brand audit, assesses your current brand perception among potential buyers and identifies areas for improvement. By analyzing customer feedback scores like NPS, CSAT and CES, studying competitor positioning, and staying ahead of industry trends, their job is to provide action items.
- Are you using your positive customer feedback and closing the loop to improve your ratings on aggregator platforms?
- Are you listening and most importantly, responding to your customers on all the channels?
- Have you personalized your automatic responses? How can you optimize it further using which parameters?
Identify & Market your USP
Another issue I have come across a lot with various brands is their lack of effective messaging or a better term would be – a simple answer to the question – What’s your USP?
Having worked in multiple product and service companies myself, I totally get it. Often, in the pursuit of solving a single problem, companies unknowingly create a series of inventions and from all those there is that one feature that effortlessly captivates the hearts of their target audience, resonating with their deepest desires. And yet, it stays untouched by the marketing team as they are unable to adapt and are still stuck with the initial idea of that project.
Branding Strategy for a CRM
Let’s consider the case of a B2B SaaS company offering cloud-based CRM software. When you hire a marketing consultant, during initial audits using multiple sources, he may discover that your target audience consists of sales managers and sales reps who prioritize seamless integration with existing sales tools and customizable reporting dashboards. Based on this insight, while your marketing and branding efforts may be focusing on 10 different features, the consultant recommends positioning your CRM software differently.
Instead of branding it as just another CRM, as part of B2B marketing consultation, he recommends you pivot your brand voice to a scalable solution with seamless data flow between tens or hundreds of supported native integrations and ease of reporting, which is exactly what your audience desires.
Which copy would you prefer from the following:
“CRM Software for Enterprises” VS “Integrate Sales Processes & Get Actionable Insights”
Based on your industry, there may be different customers, consumers, and influencers, and your brand voice needs to change depending on your persona.
Consistent branding across all channels focusing on your USP can increase revenue by 23%, says Ilya Lipovich, a Forbes council member. A clear, to-the-point, unique, and coherent brand identity and message across all relevant channels is a must for attracting and retaining customers. Identifying and strategically pivoting to this branding strategy is what a marketing consultant brings to the table.
3. Improve Demand Generation & Increase Leads
Obviously, for any business, generating qualified leads and converting them into paying customers is a top priority, especially when you are a for-profit organization. However, the issue that companies generally face is creating a detailed strategy on how you can get the funnel right.
Go for 360-degree Marketing
Let’s say for a low-touch SaaS company, it is crucial that it invests in its organic marketing strategy before jumping into operations – An omnichannel marketing strategy. This needs to be followed by defining lead stages – MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and PQLs (Product Qualified Leads). A SaaS marketing consultant brings expertise in demand generation, content marketing, lead nurturing, lead qualification, and client relationship management.
“Marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” – Jon Buscall
On the other hand, for enterprise solutions, be it services or products, in the past, I have recommended a detailed strategy around LinkedIn Sales Navigator as a primary platform for lead generation due to its professional networking capabilities. And with it comes personalized email workflows, whitepapers, case studies, and engaging webinars that address the common pain points faced by their target audience.
It’s no secret that aligning your marketing efforts with the customer journey ensures that your prospects receive relevant information at each stage, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing; it feels like a gift.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
And it’s true! Just ask yourself, how many times have you seen a cold email or received a cold call, and you became a customer right away? I am not saying that it doesn’t happen. In fact, in certain geographies, there are industries like Insurance and Banking thriving with this model where their primary objective is to get as much top funnel as possible. However, even they follow a very personalized approach, i.e. a separate marketing funnel altogether and definition + approach at every buyer stage.
Use Strategies that Work!
Once you hire a marketing consultant who, through his experience, cites industry benchmarks, current trends, and past statistics, he/she can give you a range of options you can choose from. The marketing strategy consultation also includes him diving deep into the challenges that your team may come across while implementing the tasks. He, therefore, identifies all the effective channels, and distribution frequency, sets accountability, and optimizes internal operations.
Because I started my entire journey as a content marketer, my scales used to tip a bit towards content marketing as it generates up to 10 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, while costing 62% less. But having worked with industries across a wide range of demographics and geographies, I know these strategies vary depending on multiple factors.
If I can be a bit philosophical here, when you choose the road less traveled, it MAY make a difference. But in the 21st century, we have a nomenclature for that road as well, ‘Early adopters’. In fact, we have a name for every stage on that scale too! So, modern marketing requires your entire marketing portfolio to be as balanced as your market portfolio – not all eggs in one basket while at the same time, concentrating efforts on the one you know WILL work!
PS: Thanks Warren Buffet and I’m sorry, Robert Frost but it’s not 1915!
4. Leverage MarTech to make Data-driven Decisions
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” – W. Edwards Deming
Would you spend $500 a month for a tool that only hosts your audio and videos if the opportunity cost from those referrals is not breaking even? Maybe not, right?
Once you hire a marketing consultant, he will advise you to incorporate proper UTMs across all channels. This lets you track all customer interactions with your brand. And once you do that, you dig into your CRM data just to unveil the fact that actually, even though those audios on Apple podcast and videos on YouTube were not the first referral sources before someone becomes an MQL or even the last referral sources for a customer, but they play a crucial part in the ‘lead nurturing’ stage.
You find out in the marketing attribution of 10 customers who have an average MRR of $100 and are using your uploads as a second-last touchpoint before making the purchase. Now the $500 investment really makes sense, doesn’t it?
So, the question is – are you tracking the correct data, and is the marketing data being properly managed?
On the contrary, it sounds great that you can have a $3,000+ p.m subscription to Hubspot Marketing Hub, $9,000+ for Adobe Font Folio, and $500+ p.m for Zapier automation. And trust me, it is a wonderful experience working with all these premium tools. It certainly increases your productivity exponentially. But it’s quintessential, especially for startups and SMEs, to ensure that your tools or software also do not feed on your cash flows, but contribute to the ROI-driven roadmap.
HubSpot states that businesses utilizing marketing automation experience a 10% increase in revenue within six to nine months
Use the Tech Stack you need
Instead of all the above tools, there are some others that you may prefer based on your marketing budget. For instance, you can empower your design team with MidJourney so they can generate custom HD images using generative AI. It costs less than $100 per month and will save hundreds of hours of your designer’s time.
Go for Slack as internal communication and its hundreds of free native integrations for notifications. Leverage G-suite or MS Office to collaborate or maybe Notion to document your strategies. So, there are tons of options available in the market. You just need to know which ones!
McKinsey & Company states that companies using appropriate marketing analytics are 39% more likely to see an increase in profitability.
The consultant can advise your team to set up the right analytics tools and tracking mechanisms to monitor essential metrics right from your website or app traffic, user engagement, conversion rates, churn, MRR, and more. By analyzing this data, we identify trends, detect bottlenecks in the conversion funnel, and recommend strategies for improvement.
Apart from just the tools, to run a business, there are hundreds of other associated costs including but not limited to payroll, insurance, travel, licenses, and other admin costs. And this is where detailed projections come into play. I know some of these issues are not a concern of each decision maker in an MNC, but for a company in its growth stage, especially if it’s bootstrapped, I can’t stress more on cost efficiency.
5. Maximize your Cost-to-Impact Ratio
McKinsey & Company found that companies who hire a marketing consultant achieve an MRR increase of 19% within the first year. While on the other hand, the others are growing at 5%.
When evaluating the benefits of hiring a marketing consultant, it’s essential to consider the cost-to-impact ratio for your business. While the hourly rate of a marketing consultant may initially seem higher than that of an in-house employee, the true value lies in the impact they can deliver.
In-house VS Consultant
Let’s examine a scenario where a B2B SaaS business needs to revamp its lead generation and increase conversion rates. They have two options: hire a marketing consultant or hire an in-house digital marketing specialist.
If the business decides to hire an in-house marketing specialist, it might find a qualified candidate willing to work for an hourly rate of $40, or maybe even less, if it’s in a developing country. Let’s assume the project requires 20 hours of work. The total cost for the project would amount to $800.
On the other hand, if the business chooses to hire a marketing consultant with an average rate of $100 per hour, the same project would cost $2,000. At first glance, apparently, the consultant’s price tag appears higher.
However, let’s analyze the impact of each option. With the in-house digital marketing specialist, the business has limited access to specialized knowledge and experience, potentially leading to suboptimal strategies and slower results. The specialist might require additional training or a learning curve, in short, more time to understand the nuances of your business.
Deloitte survey says businesses that hire a marketing consultant report an average return of $2.50 for every dollar invested in consulting services.
In contrast, the marketing consultant brings extensive expertise in B2B SaaS marketing, having worked with various clients and achieving measurable results. They understand the industry’s nuances, best practices, and emerging trends. Their specialized knowledge allows them to develop targeted strategies and implement effective tactics from the start.
As a result, the marketing consultant can deliver a higher impact in a shorter time frame. They can optimize lead generation campaigns, improve conversion rates, and generate a significant return on investment for the business.
So, will you hire a marketing consultant?
A marketing consultant can be your guiding light, helping your business stand out and thrive. By developing a unique yet targeted and data-driven plan, crafting a compelling brand identity, mastering lead generation, and conversions, and unleashing the power of data and analytics, a marketing consultant equips you with the tools and strategies to drive growth, increase revenue, and achieve long-term success.
Your business also deserves the best chance to succeed, and a marketing consultant can be the hero it needs. So, embrace the journey and unlock the full potential of your in this ever-evolving landscape. The stage is set, and the spotlight is waiting for you. Let’s make magic happen together!
