Delegating Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Choosing the Right Digital Marketing Consultant

When selecting a consultant, it's crucial to find someone who takes a keen interest in your business and its objectives. They should have a clear understanding of your website's strategic and specific goals. Are you aiming for maximum traffic, or are you more interested in attracting qualified leads? Are you selling products, seeking new members, newsletter sign-ups, event registrations, media coverage, etc.?

The consultant should demonstrate a clear understanding of the demographics of the audience you want to attract. This includes whether your target market is currently online, comfortable using email, and any geographical restrictions on your marketing.

Effective digital marketing requires a comprehensive, integrated plan that targets where your audience spends time online. It's not enough to focus solely on search engines. You need to proactively reach out to potential visitors, not wait for them to find you. Additionally, your offline marketing should incorporate your website, as up to a third of your traffic can now come from real-world sources.

Therefore, the consultant should propose a broad plan (if suitable for your goals) that includes:

• Search engine strategies
• Paid listings
• Review sites and directories
• Linking with other relevant sites
• Advertising / e-zine sponsorships (depending on your budget)
• Online public relations opportunities
• Integration with your offline marketing

A successful digital marketing strategy should also include an email strategy. The consultant should propose ideas for targeted, personalized (and fully opt-in) emails. This requires a contact database that you can use to segment the different audiences for these messages. The consultant should also be able to help you create this, if required.

Lastly, the consultant should explain how they plan to measure the success of any marketing campaign against your goals and objectives. Marketing is a continuous process, during which you'll learn a lot about your site and your visitors. This knowledge should be analyzed and used to tweak your site and refine your business strategies. A competent consultant will be able to collaborate with you to achieve this.

What Assurances Can You Expect?

It's important to understand the distinction between sales and marketing. The role of a marketing consultant is to drive qualified traffic to your site. Completing the sale is a separate challenge.

Marketing is a gray area where it's challenging to provide solid guarantees of results. This is particularly true in the area of search engine optimization, as search engines are unpredictable. If a consultant promises you a "top ten placement," you should be cautious - they might be using tactics that could be classified as spam.

However, you should ensure that the consultant has a good track record and can provide references from other clients. Good web knowledge and proven online marketing tactics are as important as an in-depth familiarity with your industry.

When setting your contract with the consultant, it's important to have a mutual understanding of your goals, expectations, and budget. There are many opportunities for free promotion online, but if you're prepared to invest, you can potentially build your traffic faster. Since building awareness of a site takes time, a minimum six-month period would be advisable, with appropriate exit clauses for both parties.

Conclusion

Successful digital marketing is a team effort! Hire a consultant who you feel comfortable with, who asks lots of questions to understand your business and your goals, and who seems genuinely interested in promoting you. But then be prepared to work with them - respect and consider their suggestions, and allow them to be creative in their approach.