Why Hire an Advertising/Marketing Consultant?
As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to handling your marketing and advertising. You may choose to handle the responsibility 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 arise, 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 staff full time? 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 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 itself. The truth is, no one can get the job done as effectively and efficiently as someone who lives and breathes in the industry every day. In addition, the added benefit of constant contacts with the media will prove financially beneficial for your company.
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 of itself by being too immersed in daily operations and getting lost in the big picture, missing out on the small 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 can also focus on this part of his business, ignoring what he is 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 marketing the business, you are diverting attention from other projects and responsibilities. Inevitably, focus and demands are bound to pull from one and take away from others until something falls to 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 belongs.
The gummy factor.
The consultants are very flexible. Immediately ready and available to take on tasks at any time. The accessibility to launch a new project 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 money of the word M.
When you add up the actual cost of hiring a new employee, chances are you’ll find that hiring a consultant is much more cost-effective. 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 placement of a new hire and the simple fact that you 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 in the long run leave you scrambling to find a new project or position for that employee. Or even worse, 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, he has the flexibility to move into any position he needs to, from quarterly reviews to basic maintenance, to being completely out of the picture, but on the sidelines when he’s ready to step up a notch. .
“There are many ways to move forward, but only one way to stand still.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt