How Do I Hire a Marketing Consultant?

How do you find the Right marketing company? The TRUTH??? Extremely carefully. I have had meetings with 14 different companies in the past 6 years. Each one disagrees or works differently and all of them look like they are listening to you BUT they do not. Why??? Because THEY all know more about your business than you do. I had three (3) recommended to me so I tried them. OOPs. Bad Idea. I spent lots of $$ and got only about 25% of what I was promised. I also got lots of excuses on why. The market was this...our software was that...you only have the basic system....you need to upgrade to.....we need to start a whole new website....you need to invest in Pay Per Click........... All their excuses were because I was at fault or my system or my website was inadequate. Upshot? I do not trust marketing companies.

Now...I do not know what kind of business you own or work for but I have found that no matter how new and great technology gets with all their fancy tech words and language and gadgets...the BEST marketing device in the World is YOU and your Business card and a Hand Shake. Get out there, Smooze, talk to people, hand out your card and do this at least once per month for at least 2 to 3 days each time in your town and one or two surrounding areas. Spending $$ on a good website is worth it but be careful there too as a good website should not cost you thousands. Be sure it is mobile ready and be sure it is not TOO crowded. People are not into reading like they once were. They like two/three words and lots of pictures. Take the time to put YOURSELF on Google, Google+/Pages, Yelp, Bing, City search and a few others. Put as much information (without getting too wordy) on these sites as you feel comfortable with. Wait about a week or two and then GO Back to each of these sites and make sure you have claimed your business. Google will send a card out to verify. Do It! This is FREE.....oh wow....let me say this again....IT is FREE. Put yourself on Facebook...BUT if you do not understand how facebook works and it changes all the time...see if the person you got to make a website for you understands it and ask if they would help you either until you do understand it and can work it yourself or pay them to operate it for you. Be careful because your Facebook personal is different from Facebook Business. They work similarly but different. I don't know Twitter. Linkedin is mainly out there to find a salaried job. Lots of businesses belong though. I do not need it for us. Marketing folks will promise the world and tell you that it takes time for any strategy to work. Part of that is true...I have done most all of our marketing Organically (which means - with out adwords, pay per clicks or paying hundreds if not thousands to a seo) and 80% has been just hard diligent work on my part but no heavy $$ investment AND in the three almost 4 years since we started here in Newberg, OR, we have gone from almost $0.00 income to 6 figures. Do you know what the other #2 BEST marketing tool is??? Yourself and how WELL you do the job for your client. Your customer service and product or job excellence is paramount. Now word of mouth referrals (good or bad) are only a click or a swipe away on iphones all across the country and the World.

Sorry folks...I am wordy because I am passionate about what We do and how We've done it. If my Marketing Company bashing makes these companies improve on how they do business then it's worth it. If you are a worthy company then do NOT take this personally. If you are not....and you know who you are....take this very personally.

Upshot??? Marketing takes lots of HARD work with no short cuts and does NOT have to cost alot of MONEY $$$ Dinero just your loving time. Hope this helps some of you and I wish ALL of you a Blessed Day Every Day.

Beth,

Before the comments start rolling in, let me suggest the following: add a comment with the URL to your business, any social profiles you have, your blog, and what you're hoping to achieve (increase awareness, specifically fill a funnel with opportunities, etc.). The more information you can provide upfront, the better responses you'll get (and fewer "It depends on a lot of things ...").

Use this as Occam's razor when determining who you should work with.

If their first question is not "Who is your target market?" then do not work with them.

ANYTHING you do: strategy, tactics, images the words you use, ... Everything must hinge on what "your people" like/need/want. If someone starts anywhere else, it's a waste of time, money and resources.

Know your people, speak their language where they are, and love them. (Be for their good more than yours and your results will improve too.)

Lets start by saying there are a lot of great answers here. I would also like to point out that Patricia is right there are things that can be done that does not cost anything. However if a business owner tries to do everything nothing gets done.

Our company only employs the best people. Why? Because these are the people who get things done. I don't have to babysit all of the time and that frees up my time for being able to become of the top posters here on Alignable. So why am I telling you this? I am mentioning this because when you hire the company for your SEO you need to be able to step in and out of what is happening and see that nothing changes on the quality of work and how much work is getting done.

Lets clear up some of the myths about things here about pay per click- Pay per click is great but google rotates all of the advertisers. At most 15% of all of the clicks go to each advertiser, and depending on the competition of the keyword and the amount of advertisers it could be drastically less. This is a great way to supplement your marketing. The hardest part of this type of marketing is the amount of time that one has to spend to ensure that you are getting the most out of it. I know some of you will disagree with me here, but I will tell you through 10k per month at this and tell me you don't check this account 3-8 times every day. Google has no problems burning through your funds, even if you get no return out of it.

Organic results tend to be a touch better in my personal opinion. Getting organic results (your site in the top 5-8 positions of google) it is proven that if you obtain this you will get up to 40% of the clicks as opossed to 8%-15%. Now there is nothing wrong with mixing the two together. This tends to work well, but it also depends on your market place and your business. For example if the main search term in 150,000 searches per month, you might not be able to handle the results of that.

I know this is long, but hang in there with me for a little while longer please-

Blogging- Please do not trust that with somebody else. It never comes together in a way you are after. Most people do not write well, and those that do know almost nothing about your field. My best advice is to blog yourself if you can even if it is only once per week.

Social Media- Even most of the so called experts do this wrong. Social Media is "Social". So in other words it can't be just sale sale sale, buy buy buy. You have to have content that your potential clients like, that has to do with your field but has nothing to do with you. Then when you list a sales item, you can sell to them.

What does this end costing you? Great question!! This depends on what you do! Lawyers Plastic Surgeons pay a lot. Businesses like Bakeries, Gift Baskets, and other Micro businesses pay much less. With that said I really feel it is what you are trying to get out of it. If you want everything that you listed above, then look to spend more than $500 monthly. If you do some things yourself and then the business helps you, $299+.

I hope this helps!

Best Wishes,

v/r

Michael

Agree with all the points stated thus far. It is CRUCIAL for you to get clear on your objectives or have the marketing person help you craft those within the first initial session (paid or free). Even if these are draft objectives! Old Chinese Proverb: Be careful of where you are heading as you may get there. If you have no preliminary direction, then you have to give up the right to complain about the marketing person hired.

1. They should be local.

2. Do they have LinkedIn recommendations?

3.They should be willing to allow you cancel your contract after three months with a 30 day notice as long as you are not past due on your payments?

4. Are they should be willing to introduce you to raving fans.

5. Hire seasoned companies which keep up with the current trends.

6. They should be more interested in you getting new clients/customers than how many "clicks" that you get.

7. They should be prompt in returning calls/emails/texts.

8. You should feel like they care about you and your business and not just trying to close a sale.

9. There should be good chemistry between you and them.

10. If you are dealing with a sales rep, the owner or CEO should be willing to meet with you before an agreement is signed.

11. They should have prices published on their website, but be willing to customize a package for your needs.

12. They should be willing to manage and perform various areas of your marketing, but be willing to teach you or a staff member to do a part or all of the various areas yourself. You will need to pay them for their training, but you will save money.

I think it is important to remember, marketing is not sales. I often talk to people about their marketing needs and different aspects of sales is what they want to talk about. Marketing is everything your company does from manufacturing to distribution and oh, so much more. Marketing is how you go about doing all of your business. What you are asking about is a website development company. While I am familiar with several of these type companies here in the Pacific Northwest, a couple in Arizona, and so on. The simple answer here is, do a lot of research as your business, your reputation, and your wealth is on the line. Set up some criteria that you want met as you should with any type of business change you want to make. Remember, you are hiring a subcontractor who is supposed to complete some project and meet your expectations and if that subcontractor cannot then that subcontractor is not worth hiring.

There are several organizations that can help you develop a list of expectations such as your local Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Administration, if you live in an area that has a college you might want to go and talk to the Dean of the Business Department if they can help you with not only developing the criteria to be met but maybe even developing what you want. Most colleges loves having some real hands on projects for their students to learn on. The college option actually is very inexpensive and might be extremely cost effective yet give some real cutting edge quality and variability.

Hope this helps.

Hiring a marketing consultant is all about you and your unique personal brand. There are many marketing experts to choose from, but if their focus isn't on brand development first, your message may consistently be overlooked... Whatever the medium that is used (print, direct mail, email, social media). Equally important is selecting a marketing advisor who will build a strategic marketing plan that is sensitive to your budget restraints and can provide you with measurable results along the way.

Beth it depends on what you want to accomplish.. as a business owner you have to come up with the content. I was doing this for a restaurant owner, he didn't email, don't give me content to update the social networks with. I did a lot of research to post. He had poor reviews by the locals as well. I charged him $200./month for 10 hours of work. I would find someone that could recommend you to someone, discuss what you expect, start developing content for the person who is going to do the work for you. Also I would start doing it for yourself, so you can see what needs to be done, what is working, let them know your budget.. see where it takes you. As a suggestion, I would start a blog, get your own URL if you don't have one yet. Get a good hosting company like site5.com, dreamiest.com download wordpress.org get started. Start writing. If you need help give me a call.

Beth,

I 100% agree with Alan on providing more data on what you are looking for.

Once you define what you are looking for then I would suggest interviewing a few different providers and look at what they provide verses your needs and also make sure there is a good fit.

I personally offer the services you have asked about and depending on your business needs there are different components that can be provided.

The cost does depend greatly on what you need as well. We have some social media packages that start at $149 a month and others that are $500 or more a month.