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Why Businesses Need Marketing Consultants Even During A Recession
By EdCornish
Smart businesses know that clever and effective is the key to success during both good and bad economic times. The problem is that many businesses are finding it hard to adapt their strategies to today’s economic climate.
This is not surprising as successful especially in a recession requires detailed knowledge and experience that many businesses don’t have. Investing in good consultants can help businesses reconnect with their customers or clients and promote their products/services more effectively.
This article provides a brief overview covering the following:
• What consultants are
• What can businesses expect from a consultant
• How they can help businesses during a recession
• What to look for when choosing a consultant
What are Consultants?
A consultant is a trained professional or company who can assist a business or organisation in creating and implementing effective strategies to promote their products or services.
A trained consultant should be able to view things from the target audience’s perspective including how they think and react to a business’s products or services.
Good consultants are certainly worth the investment since they can handle all of a business’s requirements leaving the client free to focus on other important business needs.
Whether a business is just starting up or has been trading for some time an experienced consultant can assist them in investing their budgets wisely and creating strategies that working both in the short and long term to meet and in some cases exceed their expectations.
So what should you expect from your consultant?
A good consultant should:
• be experts in a number of techniques and strategies
• provide creative, fresh and successful strategies that are tailored to the businesses goals and target audiences
• assess current strategies, identifying problems and suitable solutions
• handle any issues or problems that may arise during a recommended campaign quickly and efficiently
• collate and analysis data including providing campaign reports
• be in regular communication with the client being able to listen as well as make suggestions
How can Consultants can help businesses during a recession?
Recession is a difficult time for business suddenly customers aren’t as willing to part with their money as they used to be, plus existing campaigns may have become much less effective.
What is often needed is a fresh approach, but where to start? No business wants to start risking their budgets testing different strategies until they find the ones that work. What they need is someone who has the expertise to access the current situation and experience to suggest proven solutions.
This is where a good consultant or company can really help, finding ways to make budgets stretch
further and work more effectively to improve business ROI.
Yes hiring consultants is an addition cost that needs to be carefully considered, but surviving a recession is not just about cutting costs it’s about using resources wisely. Investing in a consultant can help businesses review their current identifying areas where resources could be saved and where existing or extra resources should be placed for maximum results.
What should I look for in a consultant?
Hiring a consultant can bring a business valuable expertise and a fresh successful approach to their efforts; however, as with any industry it’s important to pick the right consultant for the job.
The following are a few points to consider when selecting a consultant or firm:
• Recommendations – Make sure the consultant or firm can provide client recommendations. Ask for a list of current clients who can be contacted for references.
• Compare – It’s worth getting in contact with several different consultants and comparing them not only on price, but also experience and service. The right consultant is not always the cheapest or most expensive, but often the most experienced.
• Research – Do some independent research on consultants. Businesses can use the internet to research individual consultants or companies and check if there are any complaints or issues they need to be aware of. Even the best companies may have disputes from time to time so if there are complaints businesses should try to find out more about them and how they were resolved.
• Rapport – It’s important to have a good working relationship with your consultant. You want someone who will listen to you and communicate on a regular basis. If you have doubts about their ability to communicate with you then its best to look for another consultant.
• Creativity – Part of the job of a consultant will be to come up with fresh new ideas and strategies and this requires creativity. If the consultant or firm don’t seem very creative or lacking in ideas you need to look elsewhere.
• Multiple Strategies – Never put rely on just one strategy. Look for consultants who will offer a number of carefully planned strategies that can be put to the test and provide clear results in both the short and long term.
No one can be an expert on everything and in business it’s important to recognise an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and use them accordingly. is a specialist field and it is unlikely that most businesses will have individuals with all the expertise needed in this area so hiring a consultant or firm provides an excellent solution.
However, it’s important for businesses to approach hiring a consultant carefully, taking the time to find the right consultant for them to ensure their business is successful not only today, but long into the future.
Recession is a difficult time for everyone, but by spending resources wisely and getting the right expert help many businesses can actually become stronger and more successful.
Hedley Basford skilled and experienced www.basford.com/sales/services-marketing.html”>marketing consultants are committed to making your business more successful by offering you a personal service with honesty and integrity.
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