Not every brand, business or startup has the requirements or budget to jump head first into digital marketing – PR, social media, videos, contests, creative advertising – and bringing in an agency to plan and run everything can be overkill. On the other hand, not every team is set up with the expertise or bandwidth to handle the work internally so they need an agency to take over for them.
Here are three situations where bringing in a consultant or hiring an agency on a short consulting project is the smarter choice.
1. YOU JUST NEED A SOLID PR / SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
You’ve decided you need to get coverage on blogs and online magazines, you need a social media program, and you have people on your team that can run it. You’re not sure where to start or what to focus on.
You have questions like:
- Which bloggers and journalists should we be reaching out to and how do we find them?
- How do we identify and engage our target consumer and influencers?
- What tactics will contribute to sales the fastest? What channels should we be focused on? How often do we update? What does regular engagement and interaction look like?
- What types of analytics should we set up and what listening tools are best to use?
A consultant can help you establish your goals, objectives, strategy, plan, tactics, timeline, get your team started, and check back now and then.
2. YOU’RE ACTIVELY USING PR AND SOCIAL MEDIA BUT IN A DISORGANIZED, HAPHAZARD WAY
You just need a tuneup, a refocusing of your team’s energies.
A consultant can help identify what’s been working, what hasn’t been working, what will work and why. The best approach is typically to double down on things that are working, dump the things that aren’t and based on a fresh evaluation, try new things.
It’s also important once in a while to get a specialist’s perspective on whether the success metrics you’ve identified are really the ones that will lead to an increase in sales.
3. YOU NEED HELP GETTING BUY-IN FROM YOUR EMPLOYEES, YOUR BOSS OR THE REST OF YOUR TEAM
You’ve decided to take your PR and social media marketing to the next level, but everyone is either too busy to get involved, doesn’t see the value or has had poor results in the past and doesn’t want to go there.
You need some muscle in the room.
A consultant can spend the day with your team to develop a clear point A to point B strategy, in real time and get them excited about the idea. For more on that, here are 10 ways to convince anyone about social media.
