Digital Consulting: What Is It? What Benefit Does It Bring Your Business?

Many businesses still fail to maximize the benefits of online marketing. They lack an in-house team or deep knowledge of building an online presence.

This is where digital consulting is helpful. Experts in this field use their wealth of experience across multiple industries to develop and improve campaigns.

Read below to learn how a digital marketing consultant can help grow your business, answering your questions like:

• What is digital marketing consulting?
• How does it work?
• What are the top digital marketing consulting benefits?

Ready to improve? Let’s go!

Watch this video to find out more about how Digital Authority Partners can create a great marketing strategy for you!

What Is Digital Marketing Consulting? 

Digital marketing consulting involves partnering with an expert independent consultant or agency to optimize your online presence. In particular, these professionals specialize in helping you to: 

• Build an online marketing plan that integrates all your digital channels.
• Execute campaigns according to the budget, trends, goals, and audience.
• Manage and optimize ongoing activities.
• Analyze online performance based on metrics.

The digital consulting process usually starts with an audit. The consultant studies your existing digital presence and marketing efforts. They interview the business owner or department head, if you have one. 

This audit identifies gaps, issues, and untapped opportunities. Then, the consultant recommends custom solutions to address your business’s weak points and strengthen revenue-generating strategies.

Depending on the agreement, these consultants implement the tactics on your behalf. Usually, they train and guide you. This way your company can still use their techniques long after the partnership has ended. You can also pass on the learning to your team as you scale. 

These consultants also provide different services, including the following:

Consultants can offer any or all of these depending on your business needs and their specialties. Their work with you can either be a short-term contract to help you get started or a long-term partnership to help you stay on top of the evolving market. 

An average bill lands between $1,000 and $5,000+ monthly for such services, with contracts between 6-12 months. The cost depends on their experience, expertise, and work scope. Your industry, business size, and budget also matter. So is it worth it? 

Benefits of Hiring a Digital Marketing Consultant

Digital consulting is all about letting an expert help you maximize the full benefits of Internet marketing using the right tools and strategies. This way, you can focus on core operations. Look to a digital consultant to provide: 

     1. Expertise You Lack In-House

Many small businesses lack a marketing plan, let alone a team, to manage online campaigns. Digital consulting provides them with the same high-level expertise that large corporations enjoy at a fraction of the cost. 

Consider a small clothing boutique run by a husband-and-wife team. Although they are passionate about fashion, they have limited marketing experience. Because their shop is small, they also have no budget to hire a full-time marketing specialist. 

Hiring a consultant reveals many areas for improvement. For example, their website is not SEO-friendly. Their pages do not collect information to build an email list. Social media use is inconsistent.  

The consultant offers several ways to improve:

• Identify high-performing landing pages and optimize them according to SEO’s best practices.
• Use topic clustering to improve link building.
• Create lead magnets to start developing the email list.
• Use automation to streamline email workflows.
• Create editorial calendars and use platforms that allow post-scheduling. 

Then, the consultant designs a marketing plan requiring only basic knowledge and systems. This way the boutique owners can implement them easily while focusing on their strength—retail operations. Their business and their marketing campaigns can improve without the expense of a full-time specialist. 

     2. Research on Untapped Audiences and Opportunities

The best consultants are adept at using comprehensive market research and analytics to identify untapped audiences and opportunities. 

Market consultants dive deep into existing customer profiles and expand them. They look into their behavior, personalities, and trends. Is your market the norm or the exception? How do they respond to price changes or inflation? They also research competitors and explore newer strategies such as feedback loops.

All these insights help reveal potential new customer segments that align well with your business.

For example, digital consulting reveals that a flower shop has built a good following and reputation on Facebook. However, it fails to recognize a growing interest in Instagram among younger urban professionals. 

This demographic of 25- to 35-year-olds differs from the current Facebook audience. They appreciate exotic, modern floral arrangements more. They are also willing to spend more on custom designs. 

The consultant then follows these three key steps to attract this Instagram audience:

• Create a thorough, accurate Instagram customer persona.
• Run targeted Instagram ads based on demographics, relevant keywords, and location. 
• Optimize the flower shop’s Instagram profile and initiate an organic content strategy consistent with the audience’s expectations.

A digital marketing consultant’s outside perspective helps reveal profitable new directions often overlooked internally.

     3. Risk Mitigation

Poor digital marketing execution wastes budget and damages brand reputation. Working with an experienced consultant helps mitigate these risks through their proven expertise.

Consultants execute hundreds of campaigns across multiple industries. This experience makes them aware of common mistakes that prevent costly errors.

For example, an unseasoned digital marketer designs a website that inadvertently hurts conversions because of slow page speed or cluttered layouts. A consultant follows UX best practices to fix the problems or avoid them in the first place.

Consultants are also highly skilled in tracking and measuring the returns of digital marketing activities using data analysis and attribution modeling. 

For example, a consultant works with a local jewelry shop to manage their digital marketing campaigns. They run in-depth tracking to identify returns:

• They install Google Analytics for traffic sources, on-site behavior, and conversions for the website. The consultant sees the pages and campaigns that drive the most purchases.
• For Google Ads, they build campaign dashboards to measure clicks, cost per click, conversions, and purchase revenues. This step shows ad and keyword returns.
• For email marketing, they segment the list and A/B test subject lines to see which generates the highest open and click-through rates. They track sales from promo emails and tie revenues back to each campaign.

These efforts help the business steer budgets toward more cost-effective campaigns.

Summing Up

The competition is fierce, and consumers expect more from brands. You need a digital marketing plan that works if you wish to scale your business today. 

The right digital consulting service generates revenue-generating campaigns based on your budget, marketing objectives, and audience. As a strategic partner, it provides the expertise and perspective to optimize your digital presence for growth.

Do you need the right Chicago consulting agency to develop or uplift your online marketing strategies? Contact Digital Authority Partners to schedule a free consultation.