Business Growth
Marketing consultant for small business owners
Small business marketing usually fails for an unglamorous reason. Four or five channels were bought separately, at different times, for different reasons, and nothing connects them. A marketing consultant for small business works the other way round. The business comes first, the market second, and the channels last, once there is a reason to pick one.
Is a consultant what you actually need?
Sometimes the honest answer is no, and hearing it early saves a year.
A consultant fits
- You are spending on marketing and cannot say which part of it works.
- You have three or four options in front of you and no basis for choosing between them.
- You want someone to own the strategy while your team or another supplier runs the day to day.
- You are entering a market or launching a service, so the plan has to come before the spending.
- Marketing decisions keep getting made by whoever called you last.
Something else fits better
- You already know the plan and just need it built. Go straight to Local Services Ads or local SEO.
- The enquiries already arrive and go cold. That is sales and conversion systems.
- You want a guaranteed number of leads. Nobody can honestly sell you that, so the meeting will be short.
Consultant, agency or a hire
These three get compared as if they do the same job. They do not, and picking the wrong one is expensive in a different way each time.
Consultant
Buys you judgement, a plan and an order to work in. Running the channels week to week stays with you, your team or another supplier.
Best when
You need direction more than you need hands.
Agency
Buys you execution. Somebody runs the campaigns, the profile or the site and reports on what happened.
Best when
The direction is settled and the work needs doing properly.
In-house hire
Buys you attention every day, at the cost of a salary and the range of skills one person can reasonably hold.
Best when
The volume of work genuinely justifies a full-time role.
A plan you cannot execute and execution with no plan fail the same way, just at different speeds.
Due diligence
Five questions to ask a marketing consultant before you sign
Ask us the same ones. A consultant who cannot answer them plainly is not ready to advise you on anything.
Who owns the accounts?
Your ad account, your analytics and your Business Profile should be yours before the engagement, during it, and on the day it ends. Anything else is a hostage arrangement.
What exactly lands on my desk?
A named deliverable beats a promise of strategy. Ask what you receive, in what form, and by when.
What is the plan built on?
Ask which research produced the recommendations. A plan with no market or competitor evidence behind it is an opinion in a slide deck.
Are you guaranteeing a result?
Rankings, lead volume and revenue sit partly with your market and your competitors. A guarantee is a sales line, and it usually comes with a definition buried in the contract.
What happens if I leave?
Ask about term, notice, and what you keep. The work you paid for should still be usable the week after you stop paying.
What the review covers, and what you decide with it
The review goes wider than advertising, because the answer often is not in advertising. Scope is agreed first, so nothing on this list is assumed.
Where the market picture needs real depth, that is its own piece of work. See market and competitor research.
The business, the services and the customers
A clear view of who you should be selling to, and who you should stop chasing
The market and the competitors in it
Where there is room, and where the fight is not worth having
Current marketing and what it costs
Which spending to keep, cut or move somewhere better
The website and search visibility
Whether customers can find you and believe you when they do
Offers and positioning
A reason for a customer to choose you over the next result
Goals and capacity
Priorities that match the work you can actually deliver
Included by scope: marketing audit, competitor review, channel strategy, lead generation strategy, offer positioning, marketing priorities and growth recommendations.
How an engagement runs
Three stages, whether the work is a single project or a standing arrangement.
- 1
Review
Business, market, customers, current marketing, competitors, website, search visibility, advertising, offers and goals.
- 2
Identify
The opportunities worth taking, and the ones that look attractive but are not worth your effort.
- 3
Prioritize
Recommendations in order, so you know what to do first, what can wait and what to stop.
What consulting does not include
Execution by default
Building and running campaigns, websites or profiles is separate work. It is included only when it is written into the scope, and it is priced as its own thing.
A guaranteed outcome
Rankings, lead volume, conversion rates and revenue depend on your market and your competitors as well as on the plan, so no honest consultant will promise them.
Marketing consulting questions
Do you also do the work, or only the advice?
Both, and they are separate scopes. Consulting on its own is a normal engagement. When execution is wanted, it is written into the agreement, and it might be local SEO, advertising, a website or something else entirely.
What if I already have an agency?
That is common. A consultant can set the direction and then review what the agency delivers against it. If your current supplier is doing good work, we will say so rather than invent a reason to replace them.
How long does an engagement last?
It follows the scope. Some are a single project with a defined end, such as a plan for the year ahead. Others run month to month because the owner wants someone to think with. Both are set out before anything starts.
Do you publish prices?
No. Scope drives cost and scope varies a lot between a one-market service business and a company with six locations. The free growth assessment is where that conversation starts.
Often part of the same conversation
Get a second opinion on your marketing
The free growth assessment reviews your market, your visibility and what you are spending on now. You will hear what we would change first, whether or not you hire us.