Why Hire a Marketing Consultant

So why would you spend good money to hire a consultant? Well, it could be a very cost effective solution for a number of problems.

So what is a consultant? A consultant is an individual or company that offers their services on a pay-per-need basis. Typically a consultant will have some expertise that you are lacking in-house. Consultants are not new, and have been used extensively in the field of IT or accounting for many years. Companies hire Marketing Consultants for many of the same reasons that they hire any other consultant.

So why are consultants cost effective? After all, a consultant’s hourly rate is almost always higher than the hourly salary that you would pay to an employee. But, consider the fully loaded cost of an employee. In addition to their salary, you need to pay benefits, payroll costs, workers comp, expenses, mileage or a car allowance, office space, supplies, vacation pay and probably more. And, you have to pay an employee all the time. Not so for a consultant. Typically you will negotiate a fixed fee or hourly rate, and just pay for the work done. When there is no project to work on, you don’t pay.

So why a marketing consultant? Many companies in the process business are fairly small, so marketing may be a secondary job, handled by senior management or sales management. It could be that these folks come from a technical background and don’t have a lot of expertise in marketing. Or maybe they have the skills, but not the time. Now I assume, since you read this blog, you acknowledge the importance of marketing to the business mix. So here you have an important part of your business being handled by staff who may not have the skills or the time needed to make it happen. The solution: the marketing consultant. With a skilled marketing consulting firm, you can entrust this critical part of your business to a firm that has the skills, and will absolutely make the time. But instead of the high and ongoing cost of hiring a full time marketing department, you only need to pay your consultant when there is work to be done.