With the internet and social media marketing along came a huge line of new marketing consultants. Unfortunately a big chunk still live in their mother’s basement and never made a penny online. Even worse, they have no business experience. Getting advice from these people can cause you a lot of headaches and take your business down.
Here are several tips for securing talent that will save your project time, mistakes and money when choosing a Marketing Consultant:
– Meet 1 on 1
– Look at their work product, PR, past strategies, designs
– Ask about the products they have launched themselves
– Check the Alexa Rank and Page rank of their websites.
– Check their presence online.
– Ask about their revenue models online and check examples given.
– Have they won or been nominated for industry awards?
– References are nice, but really, who gives bad references?
– What specific, off-the-cuff strategies does the consultant propose?
– Do the strategies proposed seem cogent, offer fresh perspective?
– Check if what he/she is offering are real strategies or just a bunch of tactics you could learn from a book.
– Do they have hands on experience in business?
– Don’t price shop. Good consultants are not cheap. Here the saying “you get what you pay for” really applies.
– Listen to your guts.