Why Hire an Advertising/Marketing Consultant?
As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to managing your marketing and advertising. You may choose to handle the liability yourself, with the understanding that no one else understands your business the same way you do. You might also consider hiring a full-time marketing manager or even assigning tasks, as they come up, to someone who already works within your organization. Consider this… When your business needs plumbing work, do you do it yourself? Hire a plumber to be part of the full-time staff? Or ask your accountant to handle it?
Call the experts.
Although some advertising and marketing companies seem simple enough to be run “in-house,” nothing is as costly as a marketing failure. Not only may you be sending the wrong messages, to the wrong markets, but by the time you catch it, your budget may not be in a position to recover and redirect. The truth is that no one can get the job done as effectively and efficiently as someone who lives and breathes in the industry every day. Plus, the added bonus of constant media contact will pay off financially for your business.
See the forest and the trees.
When you hire a consultant you hire an objective opinion, as well as a fresh point of view. Sometimes a business can lose perspective on itself by becoming too immersed in day-to-day operations and getting lost in the big picture, missing the little details…or vice versa. Unfortunately, sometimes a company’s marketing will clearly reflect this. The focus of the president of a private jet company is on the bells and whistles of his fleet. It is what he considers important in his vision of his business. Inevitably, his marketing may also focus on this part of his business, ignoring what he’s really selling to potential customers: the feel and status of private jets.
If you add another ball, it’s technically juggling.
If you, as a business owner or employee, take on the additional tasks of business marketing, you are diverting attention from other projects and responsibilities. Inescapably, the focus and demands are bound to pull from one and take from others until something hits the ground. Consultants are dedicated to one, and only one, portion of your business. Their focus is engaged and they allow you to keep yours where it needs to be.
The Gumby Factor.
Consultants are very flexible. Immediately ready and available to take on tasks at any time. Accessibility to get a new project off the ground is just a phone call away. On the other hand, trying to hire a new employee specifically to handle your marketing needs requires valuable time to place ads; conduct interviews and then rank applicants, hoping to find the right person for the position.
The M word money.
When you add up the actual cost of hiring a new employee, you will most likely find that hiring a consultant is much more profitable. Hourly rates may seem to favor a full-time employee, but when you factor in employee benefits, training time, vacation/sick time, 401(k), additional overhead related to the location of a new employee and the simple fact that they may be paying full-time salaries for something that may not need full-time attention, profitability will fall in favor of a consultant. which lead us to…
The C-word commitment.
Hiring a full-time employee is a commitment. And bringing in an employee to handle a special marketing project, or set up an initial marketing plan, can ultimately leave you scrambling to find a new project or position for that employee. Or worse yet, you find yourself paying a full-time marketing manager to do basic maintenance. Hiring a consultant does not require a long-term commitment. When a consultant completes a project, they have the flexibility to move into any position they need, from quarterly reviews to basic maintenance, to being completely out of the picture but on the sidelines when they’re ready to step up a notch. .
“There are many ways to move forward, but only one way to stand still.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt