Looking to grow your business? A marketing consultant can make a huge difference for you and your brand. Top marketing consultants are fresh thinking, objective, experienced, and deliver results. They can help you improve your marketing performance, get better results from your budget, and even act as an extension of your marketing department. 

If you're looking for a marketing consultant, here are four factors you should take into account before selecting a firm:

1. Transparency Is Key  

This works both ways — meaning you're transparent about what you need from your marketing consultant, and they're transparent about what they’re able to deliver. Consider asking yourself the following questions to help you gain insight into the process:

• What are your goals?  Are they realistic? 
• Do you need someone to help you improve your marketing performance, or capture new market shares? Do you have a plan to accomplish this? 
• Are you new to marketing?  
• What’s currently being employed? What’s working? What’s unknown, or not working? 
• Do you need advice to validate what you’re doing and to make some suggestions as to how you can improve the effectiveness of your marketing?
   

To identify the right fit, create a list of essential requirements and ask potential consultants how they would address your goals. The right consultant will be transparent and answer your questions directly and honestly. A good consultant will let you know if you're doing a great job, or if they can provide some service to help you improve your performance. 

2. How Much Experience Do They Have?  

When choosing a consultant, make sure they have experience in the industry that you want to work in. If they don't have any experience with your field, they will not be able to provide you with the type of help that you need. It is also important that they are able to give you a clear idea of what needs to be done and how much time it will take to complete the tasks.

Consultants with experience will also allow you to take a dive into past customer reviews to gain more insight into how they've helped (or didn't help), previous clients, with their endeavors.  

Some questions to consider in this area include: 

• Can your marketing consultant demonstrate experience in solving your marketing pain points?  
• Do they have access to your target market?  
• Do they have case studies showing success stories?  
• How will they safeguard your information?

It's important that you analyze their portfolio of past projects and check if they have worked on similar projects before. Make sure to ask them how many clients they have worked with in the past and what kind of results they were able to achieve for them.  That way, you can get a good idea of the results they can achieve for you.

3. Skills to Pay the Bills  

Another important factor to keep in mind is the consultant's skillset. You'll need to make sure the skills your marketing consultant can offer align with your goals to ensure they're fit for meeting or better yet, exceeding them.   

For instance, if you want to improve your digital marketing results, you will look for a consultant well-versed in digital tactics. This means they have evidence and examples of times when they’ve utilized their skills to help other clients reach their digital goals (i.e., email, social media, pay-per-click, etc.). They should also have an idea of how their skills will help them get your digital marketing efforts where they need to be. 

In this case, some digital marketing skills to look out for include: 

1. Technology-Driven 
2. SEO and SEM 
3. Video 
4. OTT/CTV and Streaming 
5. Data and Analytics 
6. Content Marketing 
7. Adaptable to the ever-changing digital world and forward-thinking
    

4. Are They Good at Relationships?  

You'll also need to consider the professional compatibility between you and your consultant. Do they seem enthusiastic to build a relationship with you and get to the root of your problems? Are they committed to helping you find solutions?

This is an important quality to have in your marketing consultant, as their ability to build and maintain relationships with you shows what they can do for your brand with its audience. Conversely, it could reflect poorly on your brand if they're not good at making connections and developing relationships. 

To get a better feel, consider asking questions to uncover their discovery process and how they plan to make recommendations.  

Takeaway: Make an Informed Decision 

Knowing what to look for in the right marketing consultant is the first step to experiencing all the wonderful benefits of choosing the RIGHT partner for you. By looking for transparency, experience, skills, and their ability to build relationships — you ensure that your most valuable asset is in reliable hands that can help you reach your business goals. Follow our Bonneville Bay Area blog for more insight and resources on marketing and more.