Let’s face it: you’re a busy person. As a business owner, you’ve got staff to hire, product to maintain, clients to satisfy, not to mention a reputation to uphold and a reach to expand. Dreaming up creative marketing plans may seem like a daunting or frivolous task in addition to the day-to-day operations. The last thing you want is for a marketing campaign to go awry simply because you were too rushed or exhausted to deploy it with the panache and sophistication it deserved. That’s where outside marketing agencies and consultants come in handy. And they don’t even have to live in your neighborhood, or your state, or even your country! You know how you want your business to appear to current and potential customers–as long as you are able to articulate your needs, any marketer worth their salt will be able to work wonders with your vision.
Sit back, relax
You are the resident expert on your business, full stop. Marketing consultants are there to help you get your expertise across to potential clients and laypeople. As previously stated, it may be difficult to step outside your business and look at it objectively, and what the heck even are meta tags and post boosts anyway?? Hiring an outside marketing consultant or agency saves you time, money, and any potential agony spent in figuring out how Squarespace or Snapchat works. And, as you’ve no doubt experienced firsthand, technology changes so quickly that keeping up with the trends can feel like an uphill battle. Luckily, marketing gurus stay on top of the ever-shifting trends for you–that’s their job! No longer will the burden fall on you to come up with catchy ad copy, attractive graphics, or well-timed social media posts, allowing you to focus on doing what you do best.
Best in show
When your talent pool is limited to whomever feels like driving to your particular location, hairy commute or not, you may not have the best and the brightest to choose from. Hiring an outside marketing agency or consultant without geographic limits opens up your options immensely. The best person for the job may live halfway across the country, or on the other side of the globe, but they might be exactly what you need. And missed connections due to time zones or faulty wifi aside, the skill and dedication they’ll bring to their work will be worth sacrificing proximity for professionalism.
The money talk
What if you’ve got the perfect person to handle marketing in your office already? That’s great, as long as they still have time to fulfill their existing duties as Office Manager…or Associate Doctor…or Head of Sales…Overtime, anyone? No one likes to think about it, but employees are expensive. Besides salaries, there are benefits, office amenities, supplies, parking passes, perks, reimbursements, and all manner of incentives companies offer to keep employees around. If you’re considering hiring an outside, remote marketing consultant, that’s one less person who needs a cubicle, parking spot, or slice of cake at the next office party, and one less employee stretched thin with extra duties. And if you have only occasional or short-term need for such a person, even better!
There’s a fear when hiring an outside marketing consultant that said person may not be able to fully “get” the culture, goals, or nuances of the company. But a fresh pair of eyes is often necessary to see what is lacking or what could be played up more in your ongoing marketing efforts. Keep in mind too that your business is their business. A good consultant will dedicate as much time, energy, and skill as is needed to generate campaigns that will make even you, as the owner, take a second look at your business and say “Wow.”