Small businesses have to juggle limited resources to scale and grow. In addition, small business owners are also inexperienced with aspects of business management such as:

• Attracting and retaining customers
• Maximizing profitability
• Achieving long-term growth

Fortunately, there’s a specialized marketing consultant that will identify gaps in your business and help you prosper. These consultants are called “small business marketing consultants” and can bring clarity and expertise to a small business.

There is a multitude of strategies for growing a small business. However, all these strategies require serious technical skills before holes in the business process are identified and addressed. A prudent business owner will recognize that they lack the skills needed to achieve these things. Therefore, it’s wise to hire a small business marketing consultant instead to help solve problems within your small business.

What is a Small Business Marketing Consultant?

As we said before, they’re a marketing specialist that works with small business owners. They can be trusted since they have built their careers as marketing professionals in the corporate world over the years. It’s better if these marketing consultants also worked in advertising agencies where they helped grow businesses through numerous marketing strategies.

A small business marketing consultant is responsible for a wide range of services which includes:

• Developing marketing plans
• Creating marketing budgets
• Training and hiring sales and marketing professionals
• Preparing advertisements and overseeing the overall marketing initiatives of a small business

A small business marketing consultant is a subject-matter expert. Small businesses often don’t have the luxury of experience and expertise in marketing. That’s why their strategies usually don’t succeed, even if they’re based on countless content that “guarantees” success. A small business marketing consultant has both the experience and knowledge of the latest marketing trends. They also have the necessary technical skills to implement marketing strategies effectively.

However, the sheer cost often turns off small businesses from hiring a consultant. After all, you’ll get corporate VP-level knowledge about your business strategies. What’s great about small business marketing consultants is that they only usually charge comparatively affordable retainer fees. This means that small business owners will get corporate-level expertise while only spending a fraction of the money.

Here are more ways that a small business can benefit from hiring their own marketing consultant:

Brand-Building

Most small businesses struggle to craft a comprehensive strategy that fits their business and brand. As a result, their money and efforts are spent with very few desirable results. A small business marketing consultant will help create a strategy that works. This is opposed to the prevailing mindset that business owners should adopt the latest and most excellent approach for brand-building.

Sales Funnels

A sales funnel is crucial to the growth of your small business. Without it, business owners like you won’t get to convert customers into buyers. Frequently, small businesses don’t have a clear converting funnel to help their sales grow. A small business marketing consultant can address gaps in a funnel and help develop strategies that will generate more sales for the business.

SEO

If a small business wants to succeed today, then they definitely need a solid SEO strategy. A company’s SEO is vital for a business to reach its target audience and increase its visibility online. As a marketing professional with years of experience in the corporate world, a small business marketing consultant is not a stranger to the nooks and crannies of SEO. They will help small businesses establish a concrete SEO strategy that will rank high on search engine results pages.

Email Marketing

Most small businesses already implement email marketing in their strategy. However, it’s essential to note that not every email is opened by its audience. An effective email marketing effort is defined by numerous key performance indicators (KPIs), such as open rates, response rates, and clickthrough rates. A small business marketing consultant can help optimize a business’s email marketing efforts to nurture a lasting relationship with its audience.

Social Media

Social media is also crucial to a business’s online success. This is even more vital for small businesses that want to expand their reach as much as possible. Having a small business marketing consultant will ensure that a small business can strategically position itself on social media and generate leads and conversions in the long term.

…and More

A small business marketing consultant has a wide array of skills to leverage for your business’s growth. While the services we mentioned generally belong to their portfolio, these are not the only services they offer. Small businesses can consult with their marketing consultants on anything that concerns their business’ scaling, growth, and overall marketing efforts.

What Makes a Great Small Business Online Marketing Consultant?

Choosing a small business marketing consultant is crucial. After all, you will invest a portion of your assets with this person who determines the direction of your marketing efforts. Small business owners should always look out for these qualities to snag a high-performing small business marketing consultant:

Budget-Minded

A consultant will charge reasonable fees for a small business. Moreover, they’ll design their strategies and advice based on a business’ financial capacity. A great small business consultant can adapt to the priorities of a business, such as budget, without compromising the quality of their strategies.

Since most marketing consultants come from the corporate world with deep pockets, it’s hard for businesses to find a consultant like this. However, a seasoned small business marketing consultant will know how to run strategies on a tight budget as they work with small businesses across different industries.

This trait is vital since small businesses are often too thin to invest resources in large-scale marketing campaigns.

Great Communication

Small business owners will work with their marketing consultants to improve their business processes. That’s why the consultant must enable clear communication channels with their clients. This ultimately means that they can be reached anytime, whenever an owner needs help on something. Moreover, many small business owners are unfamiliar with marketing jargon. Therefore, the consultant should be a good listener and a good communicator so they can work with teams within a small business.

A consultant should recognize this and simplify communication with their clients. After all, a strategy can’t be implemented effectively if business owners fail to grasp its importance or how to execute it properly. Consultants should be great communicators. By communicating effectively, trust and confidence will be established between them and business owners.

Down-to-Earth

As we said before, small business marketing consultants are subject matter experts. They came from decorated backgrounds across several industries. However, these credentials shouldn’t become a barrier between you. A humble consultant is great at working in teams and suggesting remedies for your business needs. You have to remember that you’re the star of the show, no matter how small your business is.

Knows How To Prioritize Based on What Your Business Needs First/Most Since Budget Is Limited

Some business consultants often have one-size-fits-all strategies for their clients. Keep yourself away from these people since they won’t have the flexibility to address the issues of your business. Instead, you should look for someone that can craft strategies around a limited budget and still bring quality results for your business. It’s a no-brainer to avoid hiring someone that won’t adjust to your budget limitations because that means that their strategies won’t ever be executed.

Helps You Execute, Good Ideas Aren’t Enough

Your consultant promises growth through the ideas they’ll contribute to your small business. However, these ideas won’t be enough to help your business prosper if they’re not adequately executed. Therefore, you’ll need a consultant who enables you to implement all these strategies into actual, executable steps. You hired them because of their expertise and experience. This should extend to the execution of your plans and not just be limited to idea generation only. After all, you also don’t have the expertise to execute these strategies. Most likely, you’ll be working with unfamiliar software, systems, and even people.

Having a consultant that guides you through the process is a huge plus, especially if you’re looking to implement their marketing strategies in the long run.

Now that you know why a small business marketing consultant is suitable for your business, what things should you ask before you decide to work with them? It’s not enough that they check all the boxes in the list of traits above. As a final measure, there are three things that you have to ask a small business marketing consultant to see if they’re a good fit for you:

How Do You Plan To Work With Our Team?

Your relationship with your consultant is anchored on communication. Do they have a formal communication channel, such as weekly emails, phone calls, and so on? Do they also have a supportive communication culture that makes you feel heard and acknowledged? 

Furthermore, you also have to ensure that they’re willing to share their strategies with you, such as KPIs and marketing plans. If your consultant doesn’t want to share this information with you, they’re probably just in it for the money.

All these things matter since you’ll be working with them to grow your business. A consultant that refuses to maintain a close relationship with your team will ultimately fail to make your business succeed.

How Will You Measure Results?

Measuring the results of business strategies can be daunting, especially if they’re launched on various channels. How do you even measure brand awareness or how your audience perceives your content?

A small business marketing consultant will most definitely answer through analytics. Working in the corporate world as a marketing professional will make them no stranger to analytics, KPIs, and other tools that measure success and viability. Relevant measurements will depend on the goal of your strategies. So, you have to ensure that your consultant knows what to measure and how they can measure them.

Suppose your consultant seems like they have a clear understanding of the metrics. In this case, they’ll be more willing to make the necessary adjustments for your campaigns.

How Do I Compare With Your Other Clients?

Finally, you should ask how you compare with the other clients they’re working with. For instance, if they don’t have any other clients aside from you, then you should reevaluate if they can do their consultancy services well. But, suppose they have other clients. How big are these businesses? Can they guarantee that you won’t be deprioritized if they’re bigger than you? Also, knowing how you compare with their other clients will give you a benchmark on how well they can work with your small business. For example, they may or may not have the experience of working with small businesses with similar budgets and industries. 

Small Business Marketing Consulting With Flyrise

Do you want to have more clarity on your business process to grow? In that case, a small business marketing consultant is an absolute must for your team. Their level of expertise and experience is a serious asset for any small business owner that aims to grow sustainably into the future. However, many business consultancy services out there may not fit your mold, which can be very frustrating.

As a marketing-oriented firm, Flyrise developed a system with marketing services that make us a viable partner for business growth. We’ll help you fly your business to new heights with our team of experts led by a marketing consultant specializing in small businesses. Contact us today, and we’ll show you we’re a good fit!