Internet Marketing Consultant Engagement
I heard a great line from a colleague a while back say he has seen so many times where the consultant says I have the experience and the business owner had the money, when the relationship was over it seems like the consultant had the money and the business owner had the “experience.” How many business owners do you think have been there before? This is why so many business owners are gun shy in dealing with internet marketing and marketing in general.
So how can we both avoid this “experience?” In my experience the best way to avoid a failed engagement of any kind is to define goals and objectives. Set benchmarks where you are today and where you want to be each week and month in the internet marketing consulting engagement. Call it management by objective MBO or anything else. The name of the game is you are going to get out of the relationship what you or your team put into it.
Too often I have been paid for internet marketing consultant advice to see that the client is not willing to either do the work or put the necessary resources into a project. A good consultant will hold the client accountable and hopefully the result will be a positive one for both.
Skill sets in internet marketing including SEO, PPC and e-commerce might cross over in many niche markets it is always a better fit to find someone who has skills in your niche. Here’s the reason why. S/he can leverage existing relationships in the industry and best practices. Experience saves time and money. I love this quote by Red Adair, “If you think it is expensive hiring a professional, just wait until you hire an amateur.”
In internet marketing or any marketing for that matter it is always advisable to “test” before spending the half or whole budget on a marketing effort. The reasons are pretty simple. If we know we can get results using one method let’s just do more of it and do it better. We can always test other markets but we want to shore up what is currently working and make it much better.
If the internet marketing consultant is who s/he says they are then they will have a Linked In, Facebook and Twitter account for openers. Go check them out in those places. Google them. See what others are saying about them. Are they coming up on the first Google search results page? The need to be.
Basically at the end of the day you are hiring experience and relationships from your internet marketing consultant, it is easy to do short and small engagements to limit any risk and get to know one another.
Jim Peake is an internet marketing and a management consultant. He was at the epicenter of the Internet taking the world by storm when he sold the Kasparov vs. Deep Blue Web Site event to IBM. This event put the internet on the front page around the world of every newspaper and TV news back in 1997. Jim is currently involved in a couple of niche markets in drug addiction treatment, real estate, education and publishing and software and technology. He is a member of the Internet Old Timers Foundation.