Digital marketing consultants are online marketing specialists, brought on to provide strategic insights and expertise to help improve your digital marketing strategy – usually on a temporary basis. Normal consulting duties include:
- conducting digital marketing audits
- solving specific marketing problems
- helping initiate or augment marketing strategies
- providing training or reporting overhauls
You can hire a digital marketing consultant as a freelancer, individual contractor, or through a marketing agency, and they are cost-effective alternatives to entire marketing teams (whether internal or external).
Types Of Digital Marketing Consultants
While consultants are available for a variety of digital marketing needs (SEO, SEM, PPC, content marketing, social media, analytics/reporting, etc.) they typically come in two varieties:
- Generalists: With a broad skillset covering a range of marketing areas, generalist consultants are great for high level marketing strategies or cost-effective approaches.
- Specialists: While they may specialize in multiple subsets of digital marketing, digital marketing specialists are industry experts in their field(s), and are a great option when looking to solve specific problems or fill gaps in existing marketing teams.
What Does A Digital Marketing Consultant Do?
While consultants can execute campaigns and strategies for you, they usually act in more of an advisory capacity, often for one-off work, or with the intent of helping in-house marketing teams. Their responsibilities typically involve either developing new marketing strategies and solutions, or helping refine and audit existing marketing plans (can be to improve ongoing ones or vet proposed ones).
Some of their common uses for digital marketing consultants include:
Developing & Auditing Marketing Strategies
Digital marketing consultants can be brought on to create data-driven digital marketing plans tailored to your business goals and target audience needs, or to audit existing strategies and campaigns to ensure they align with your objectives and are actually delivering results (and recommend solutions if not).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Whether you just need them to help conduct keyword research for your team to work off of, or to come in and do complete SEO audits, digital marketing consultants are great for ranking higher on search engines. Although it is important to note that SEO is not a simple one-time checklist: it is a long term strategy that requires consistent refining and optimizations, like through monthly SEO services.
UI/UX, Accessibility, & Web Design
From user experience testing to accessibility audits or entire web design services, you can use consultants to help improve any aspect of your website or digital services/products.
Paid Advertising (PPC & SEM)
Consultants can be brought on to develop, audit, or manage paid advertising campaigns (Google Ads, Local Service Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc). They can help ensure things are set up correctly and pinpoint areas for improvement, whether at the individual campaign level, or starting from the ground-up by assessing what channels you should even be advertising on. For routine paid ad work, you would typically want to consider monthly PPC management services (can be done before a consultant takes a look, or after they’ve helped establish a strong starting point).
Social Media & Content Marketing
Digital marketing consultants typically won’t actively manage the day-to-day of social media accounts, but they are experts at auditing or developing strategies to increase brand awareness and customer engagement through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter). Blurring the lines with freelancers or contract work, consultants can often even create the engaging copy or graphic content for you to use in your social media marketing.
Performance Tracking & Analytics
With access to your analytic tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or CRMS), consultants can analyze website traffic and campaign performance in order to provide data-driven recommendations to improve ROI and help identify issues/opportunities. They can help ensure you have proper and easy-to-understand reporting and conversion tracking in place (Tag Manager, call tracking, etc), so you actually know how marketing efforts are performing.
Benefits of Hiring a Digital Marketing Consultant
- Cost-effective alternative to hiring a full-time employee or entire agency.
- Access to specialized expertise without the commitment of a full-time hire.
- Fresh perspectives and innovative marketing techniques that can help your business stay ahead of industry trends and algorithm changes, and your in-house team grow.
- Saves time and maximizes return on marketing investments.
When Should You Hire A Digital Marketing Consultant?
Now that you know what a digital marketing consultant is, when should you actually use one?
- If your business lacks in-house marketing expertise – helping you get started without one, or even help guide you in the right direction for hiring.
- When launching a new product, website, or brand – to ensure crucial mistakes aren’t made or opportunities missed.
- When marketing efforts are not delivering expected results – to help troubleshoot and course-correct ASAP.
- When you’re struggling to scale your business and improve online visibility – even if things are working already, consultants can bring an outside perspective and expertise to take you and your team to the next level.
- When your in-house team needs training or guidelines – with a short-term contract from the start, consultants are happy being brought in to improve your own team and processes.
How To Choose The Right Digital Marketing Consultant
Whether you need work on your SEO, PPC, social media platforms, website, or anything else, you need to ensure the consultant you hire has a strong understanding of the chosen discipline, the required digital marketing tools, and of your specific business goals. It is crucial that you find someone who is not only a digital marketing expert, but who you can easily and comfortably work with.
Here is a quick checklist of things to review before making your decision:
- Review their digital marketing resumé, case studies, or client testimonials/reviews. If none are publicly available, make sure you ask!
- Ensure they have industry-specific knowledge and experience (location knowledge too if applicable). Check their education, training, and certifications.
- Evaluate their approach to marketing strategies and problem-solving – especially in relation to your business goals. Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
- Ask about their pricing models (hourly, project-based, retainer, etc) and communication methods. Make sure they’re a good fit for your requirements.
Final Thoughts On Digital Marketing Consultants
A digital marketing consultant brings specialized expertise to help improve your business’s online presence, typically on a short-term basis. They can audit your current strategies, develop new ones, or fill in gaps in areas like SEO, PPC, social media, UI/UX, and content marketing. Hiring a consultant is a cost-effective way to get expert insights without the commitment of a full-time employee or agency. Whether you’re launching a new product, facing challenges with marketing results, or need support for your in-house team, a consultant can provide fresh perspectives and solutions to boost your marketing efforts.