So what the heck is a Strategic Marketing Consultant anyway?

by | Apr 8, 2021

Tired of logging into LinkedIn to be bombarded with messages from market gurus and sales strategists who refer to themselves as mavens?

If you are serious about moving your marketing forward it is wise to consider working with a marketing consultant. With so many labels flying around you might find yourself with a few questions, not least “what does a marketing consultant do?”. As a professional marketer, a strategic marketing consultant can help you improve your business and marketing by understanding your customers and developing strategies that will help your business communicate better with them.

Who Might Benefit from Working with Strategic Marketing Consultant?

I work with a variety of businesses, both B2B and B2C and typically my clients are in or around the North of England.

All are either more established businesses looking to either grow or younger enterprises realising that they need to invest into marketing properly to move the business on to the next level. Everyone I work with is ready and able to take the next step.

These business owners and managing directors are motivated, passionate about the business and ready to get to work. Or, ready for me to get to work.

Some clients want help with a standalone project, an upcoming launch or they just want a fresh set of eyes to breathe some life into the marketing of the business.

I work with businesses that might have stagnated, are struggling to get new enquiries or might be burning customers as fast as they are acquiring them. I’ve helped numerous enterprises navigate the pandemic landscape in order to not just survive but thrive.

When businesses come to me their marketing ROI might not be good enough or might not be being measured at all. Sometimes clients haven’t yet nailed who their target audience is or are marketing without a solid plan in place.

As you can see, numerous businesses and various stages will benefit from working with a strategic marketing consultant.

Strategy Not Tactics – Working With a Strategic Marketing Consultant

There are countless tips and tricks to help with marketing on the internet for free. These promise gold but are often very basic first steps, sometimes give outdated advice and most importantly are not geared towards your business. Your business is as unique as you are which is why strategy, not tactics are essential to ensure the results you want and need.

In order to best serve your business a professional strategic marketing consultant will:

  • Prioritise staying up to date with marketing techniques, current trends and best practice. Maintaining our knowledge through the Chartered Institute of Marketing is an important part of ensuring we offer our clients the very best advice and support
  • Be experienced. The “Been there, seen that” factor is worth its weight in gold when it comes to marketing. It saves time, avoids wastage and again, promotes best practice
  • Bring experience from other sectors to your business. Your business might fall within a niche sector yet may benefit from marketing strategies that have been successful in other areas. A strategic marketing consultant will have this knowledge tucked away to use at the right time
  • Develop effective strategies faster. Time is, indeed, money. When you are ready to move forward a strategic marketing consultant is able to hit the ground running and put you a plan together so that you can start seeing the benefits sooner rather than later.
  • Also often be entrepreneurs themselves. They may have their own businesses and/or sit on the board of other companies, making them uniquely qualified to help you develop your business plan from a marketing and business owner’s perspective
  • Have built up a network of specialists and contacts that clients will be able to tap into. These will include copywriters, SEO specialists, graphic designers etc. Our clients don’t have to waste time, effort and resources trying to find the right people to execute the plan.

Convinced yet?

Our role is to assess where you are now, what is working and what isn’t. We look at everything from your internal marketing processes through to promotional campaigns. The best strategic marketing consultants are creative and analytical. By helping to define the image of the business alongside putting measures in places to evaluate performance they drive a better ROI.

Be warned, we ask a lot of questions. We want to know everything about your business. There’s no value in being coy, we’ve seen it all. Those committed to the process are ready to be questioned on everything from previous marketing efforts to the behaviours and motivations of their customers.

The more information we have, the better the plan. Businesses struggling to answer these questions can still benefit. We help you identify your target audience and can go from there.

This Strategic Marketing Consultant in Action

In order to better understand what I do as a strategic marketing consultant, this short case study will illustrate what I do and the benefits for a business.

I’ve just finished working on a marketing strategy for a Hull-based Business Software Solutions Provider. It’s been a really meaty project – one that I could really get my teeth into.

As a strategic marketing consultant, I often work on a project basis, helping clients gain some focus as to the actions that are needed to help them achieve their business objectives. On this recent project, I was drafted in to help them understand what their marketing priorities should be – and how they would achieve their business sales targets.

So, as a marketing consultant what could I do that they couldn’t? Really it’s often about having a fresh pair of eyes looking for a solution, but someone with an understanding of marketing and how this can help the business move forward. This project was with a company that is shortly to celebrate 21 years in business – but they felt the time was right, now, to look at how to improve their business.

I worked on their target audiences, messaging and promotional channels. I left them with a strategic plan and key performance indicators to help them ensure they were on track with the simple timeline of activities to undertake to make improvements in their business and to their marketing.

Using an external consultant – especially if you have an in-house marketing department – can seem like a big step to take, but often I find that I ask the awkward questions – you know, the ones where people start to shuffle in their seat, the ones you might ignore as a business owner. However, they are the questions that need answers – especially if you’re going to grow and measure success.

A strategic marketing consultant should bring you a new perspective on the way that you are doing business – we are, after all, marketing professionals

The Golden Goose That Will Lay Eggs (if looked after)

Once I have poked and prodded, looked at the data, and you’ve answered the questions you will receive a plan to take your business forward. You will know how to implement the plan and measure the success. Your plan will include some potential promotional choices and will be geared towards the 7Ps of marketing (Product, Place, People, Price, Promotion, Physical Evidence and Process), as well as a timeline and KPIs.

In Conclusion

What is a Strategic Marketing Consultant? A Strategic Marketing Consultant is the highly trained and experienced professional you will seek out when you are motivated by the desire to grow your business, taking it to the next level while measuring your marketing efforts and successes effectively.

To discuss your needs and to find out more about how I can help you get where you want to be, contact me deborah@aer8marketing.co.uk

 

Let’s Work Together

07903 387143

deborah@aer8marketing.co.uk