Nonetheless, the commercial definition is regarded as a narrow view of how marketing consulting works. Because of the rapid developments in the digital marketing environment, the definition of consultation is always expanding. Furthermore, the expanding capabilities of AI, MarTech, and Data boost the function of consultancy.
The concept of marketing consultation is still limited to marketing services on a global scale. In the United States, however, marketing consultation is becoming a sophisticated and dynamic business phrase. Because of the increase of personal online businesses, a large number of Americans are managing their digital marketing on their own. As a result, the demand for a professional marketing consultant to examine their marketing strategy and audit their campaigns has grown. This need opened up new avenues for the definition to evolve and go beyond the concept of consulting businesses. Marketing consulting has traditionally been provided by large corporations and branding agency and requires a large budget. The new era is now giving a new generation of tailored services that are suitable for all types of enterprises, including startups and small businesses.
The Business Value of Hiring A Marketing Consultancy Agency
For decades, marketing consulting has been a highly specialised segment of commercial services. The term “consultancy” has been restricted to high-end consulting firms and specialised advertising agencies. As a result of the Internet and the rise of online marketing, marketing consultation as a service began to evolve gradually. So, how can a greater knowledge of the functionality of digital marketing consultation services be gained by asking how marketing consultancy evolved?
1) Commitment to Business Objectives
The main benefit of marketing consultancy services is that it is seen as a strategic partnership. Consultants are mostly employed to assist businesses in reaching their goals. The advantage of consulting is that it does not get engaged in lengthy decision-making processes or internal disagreements like marketing departments, thus it is a direct duty with exclusive commitments.
2) Accountability and creative problem solving
When a company seeks marketing services, it is not only searching for marketing operations to be carried out, but also for professionals in the sector. As a result, marketing consultancy is a very effective company solution for achieving success and growth. While in-house marketing and agencies may take time to test their strategies, consultants can deliver tried-and-true solutions. This is typically associated with the cost of entering new markets or deploying a specific channel, whether organic or paid. A marketing consultant firm can also bring highly creative solutions and talents that can add value to the marketing department.
3) Enrich, Deepen the Marketing Knowledge
Marketing knowledge is a significant competitive advantage for every company. Consultants can supply the team with advanced and highly specialised marketing knowledge, as well as training sessions and support. Furthermore, the consultant’s specialised market research and data analytics approaches will assist the organisation in reviewing their grasp of the product and targeted consumer.
4) Flexible and Faster Integration
Finding the appropriate people is the most difficult part of developing an effective marketing strategy. It is usually the human aspect that is at stake, rather than financial investment or market obstacles. However, hiring, adapting, implementing, and managing those highly capable marketers is a time-consuming process. It is easier in the business context to integrate marketing consultant as a third-party on contract terms to examine the company’s needs and marketing plan.
Furthermore, consultation comes in a variety of forms, allowing organisations to operate under a variety of conditions. The consultancy services can be paid for on a monthly, annual, or value-based basis. Furthermore, the services might be highly focused on certain marketing channels such as SEO and Social Media, or they can be based on technology such as marketing automation or programmatic advertising.
What Are the Main Functions of Marketing Consultancy?
Marketing consultant had to expand its services beyond traditional tasks such as market research and branding strategy due to the expansion of entrepreneurship and business practises. Customer-centric, data-driven marketing and automation technology introduced entirely new levels of functionality and procedure.
Standard Consulting Services
Market Research:
One of the major pillars of the consulting process is gathering market insights and doing competition analysis. Marketers have traditionally employed tactics such as surveys and interviews to gather relevant insights. Eventually, internet marketing revolutionised the way academics worked and opened up new avenues for more accurate materials. Marketing consulting firms may now obtain precise data by utilising web technologies such as SimilarWeb, Social Mention, Google Keyword Tool, Klout, and many others. These technologies enable researchers to obtain useful insights. In the past, conducting research would have necessitated a large budget and the hiring of research firms in order to produce an effective analysis. Everything has changed now that data is readily online.
Marketing Strategy:
When it comes to developing a marketing plan, the job of a marketing consultancy remains extremely successful. I’ve seen marketing organisations use a set of basic approaches for their consumers without tailoring the approach. In an ironic twist, a series of actions is drawn on a presentation and presented as a strategy. This would eventually incorporate social media marketing as well as short-term paid efforts to boost traffic and sales. Later on, the client will realise that those quick successes are not cost-effective and do not contribute to the growth of the brand. Launching marketing campaigns necessitates the creation of an initial blueprint as well as a successful strategy. However, there is still a widespread misperception about investing time and money in engaging a marketing consultancy agency to develop a strategy before embarking on marketing campaigns.
Branding:
The most frequently asked question is, “What’s the difference between a branding agency and a marketing agency?” Most agencies blend marketing and branding in their pitches without distinguishing between the two. Finally, branding is about more than just creative services and design; it is about ideas, perceptions, and beliefs about the organisation. This is regarded as a strategic cornerstone of the marketing strategy. The agency’s job becomes more effective when it possesses the talents and expertise to display strong branding guidelines for creative work and message across various marketing channels.
Technology:
When a marketing consultant firm can give technological expertise, it is quite effective. When technology is unavailable, a strategic strategy is insufficient. As a result, the marketing consultancy’s responsibility is to develop a Techstack plan that includes automation and analytic tools. It is an essential component of the consultancy’s excellence and benefits. Essentially, the role here is to integrate cost-effective technology to the marketing process in order to improve and scale.
New Marketing Principles
Data-Driven:
Market research and advertising strategy based on hypnosis and intuition are no longer viable options. We live in the data age, and marketing decisions are increasingly being influenced by digital analytics. A good marketing consultancy firm must create a fully data-driven strategy that includes everything from research to scenario analysis to control and campaign management.
Customer-Centric:
Companies create products and manage their brands in order to become more customer-centric. At the heart of this objective is consulting, which uses client data to create individualised marketing strategies. Consumer data is quickly becoming the primary source of predictive analysis and advanced segmentation.
Marketing ROI:
Marketing is today viewed by business leaders as one of the primary drivers of growth, and as a result, marketing spending is under intense scrutiny. To produce a profitable ROI, each marketing dollar must be spent. Marketing is no longer a PR or lead entity; it is now at the heart of ROI calculation, and advice should be tailored to support this business goal.
E-commerce consulting:
Online buying is transforming the way businesses do business. The e-commerce process, on the other hand, necessitates the use of a professional consulting firm to ensure the proper setup of shopping carts, tracking pixels, cross-selling, Email automation, and customer journey personalisation. While some may believe that creating a Shopify website is simple, e-commerce marketing is difficult owing to the significant competition on paid channels. Essentially, the e-commerce strategy necessitates substantial planning in order to achieve the desired conversion cost.
Business Consulting Firms vs Marketing Consultancy Agency
Over the years, two major providers of marketing consultation services have dominated the market: consulting firms and marketing agencies. Business consulting firms, in essence, are well-established enterprises that primarily provide management consulting. They offered marketing and sales consultancy, as well as digital transformation, as part of their services.
Essentially, the disadvantage of consulting firms is their high-level strategic approaches. As a result, firms are limited to companies or corporations with large investment budgets. The firm’s experience does not provide the same level of flexibility as boutique marketing agencies and independent marketing consultants.
Furthermore, consulting firms have already formed alliances with top-tier technology providers. As a result, their technology is more expensive and does not work for all sorts of enterprises. Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Marketo, and Hubspot are more expensive than subscription costs. IT infrastructure, training, integration, and other costs will always be an issue. Marketing consulting firms collaborate with well-known technology suppliers such as HubSpot. Ultimately, the issue remains a conflict of interest. Instead than selling a specific technology, consultants should provide a personalised strategy and valid advice.
Personally, I believe that while the alliance enabled marketing consulting businesses to empower their clients with automation, the know-how has become a significant obstacle to the firms’ ability to evolve. Limiting knowledge to one platform resulted in some circumstances of marketing plans and technological exclusivity that are no longer adaptable for clients. Fundamentally, any consulting must provide adaptable techniques and knowledge transfer to the organisation during the transformation and implementation stages.
The Other Side of Marketing Consultancy Agency
Marketing agencies have traditionally included marketing consulting as part of their offerings. Marketing consultation as a service, on the other hand, has become oversaturated among many service providers. Eventually, over the last two decades, agencies have developed to keep up with the digital age by incorporating digital marketing services under their hood.
Meanwhile, native digital firms began to emerge in the market, offering more channel-specific services such as SEO advice, Social Media consulting, Google Ads consulting, Marketing Automation consulting, and so on. As a result, marketing consultancy has been normalised at various levels, and consulting services for the channels have been established.
The drawback of this evolution eventually remains in the disarray represented by employing many third parties to get your marketing up and running. Even the most prestigious organisations would recruit many resources to manage various digital marketing activities. In a single account, you will encounter a worldwide agency team comprised of project managers, a UK-based agency that administers Paid Search, a Local branding agency, a third-party Social Media agency, a marketing technology partner, and so on.
Rethink Marketing
Finally, you will need to reconsider your marketing strategy. Consider how you need to position yourself in the market before you begin marketing operations. Set specific objectives and expectations for your marketing goals so that you may select marketing consulting services that will assist you in achieving those objectives.
The key value of marketing consultancy is still in developing the correct plan and conducting good analytics. Think about marketing in terms other than execution and campaign management. Marketing, in the end, becomes a very strategic job because it is value-oriented rather than results-oriented.
Finally, the most successful solution is to hire a specialised marketing consultation organisation or an independent marketing consultant. Native consultants with a specialised methodology and structure have an advantage here. In other words, rather than simply delegating the duty to an agency, it is preferable to look for the value it provides.
