Continue reading to learn:
- The key differences between hiring a marketing consultant and a marketing agency
- What a marketing consultant does (and doesn’t do) versus an agency’s role
- How consultants and agencies can team up for maximum impact
When your business needs marketing help, you might be unsure whether to hire a marketing consultant or a marketing agency.
At first glance, these options sound similar. After all, both involve marketing and consulting expertise. However, they differ in scope and approach.
We’ll break down the differences between the two, explain what each does and doesn’t do, and help you decide which is best for your needs.
What Does a Marketing Consultant Do?
A marketing consultant is someone you call on to sharpen your marketing approach. Whether they work solo or in a small team, they bring focused expertise to your business.
Some marketing consultants focus on online campaigns, others on shaping your brand image or refining content. Typically, they step in on a project basis, whether that means solving a specific challenge or laying out a complete marketing plan for your business.
A marketing consultant might:
- Review your current marketing, market position, and competitors to spot improvement opportunities
- Build a clear plan that defines your target audience, channels, and key messages
- Coach you and your team with tailored tips, training, and best practices
- Provide hands-on support for tasks like tightening website copy, refreshing branding, or launching an ad campaign
If you own a small business, you might benefit from working with a marketing consultant for small businesses who understands the unique challenges of a smaller enterprise and can tailor a strategy to your needs. For example, a consultant can develop a budget-friendly plan to reach your local audience and advise you on where to spend limited marketing dollars most effectively.
What a Marketing Consultant Doesn’t Do
While a marketing consultant focuses on strategy and high-level planning, there are limits to their role. Understanding what they don’t typically do is just as important:
Full Execution of Campaigns
In general, a digital marketing consultant will not act as your entire marketing department, executing every task. They plan the work, but they usually aren’t the ones creating all the content, designing ads, or managing social media daily unless it’s a very small scope.
Multiple Specialized Services at Once
A consultant is often a one-person shop. They excel at a few things but won’t cover every marketing specialty simultaneously.
For instance, they might deliver solid strategy advice and SEO expertise, but they probably won’t handle video production or public relations. If you need broader support, they can point you toward other professionals who specialize in those areas.
When you’re searching for a “marketing consultant near me,” keep in mind the specific services you need so you can find someone whose strengths match your priorities.
Long-Term Implementation
A consultant is often a project-based advisor rather than an ongoing execution partner. They come in to share a plan or fix an issue, and then they step back while you or others implement the plan.
If you don’t have in-house staff or support to carry out their recommendations, you might have to do more legwork to execute the strategy.
What Does a Marketing Agency Do?
A marketing agency is a company that businesses hire to execute marketing campaigns and manage ongoing marketing efforts. Agencies are often full-service, meaning they offer a wide range of marketing and advertising services.
In many ways, a good agency can function as an outsourced marketing department for your business, handling things like:
- Digital advertising (Google Ads, Facebook Ads)
- Search engine optimization
- Social media management
- Email marketing
- Content creation
- Website design
- Branding
Unlike a consultant who hands you a plan, an agency actively runs your marketing campaigns to promote your business on multiple fronts. Essentially, they do the work for you on a day-to-day basis.
When you hire an agency, you gain access to an entire team of marketing professionals. Even if you interact with one account manager, behind the scenes, you have people with various skill sets working on your projects.
They also have tools, software, and established processes for marketing that a lone consultant might not. If you want to scale up your marketing quickly or need a lot of bandwidth (for example, launching a big, multi-channel campaign), an agency has the manpower to handle it.
What a Marketing Agency Doesn’t Do
Despite their broad capabilities, hiring a marketing agency also comes with some limitations or considerations to keep in mind:
Budget-Friendliness
Generally, agencies cost more than hiring a single consultant. You’re paying for a whole team’s time, expertise, and overhead. If you have a very tight budget and only need a small amount of help, an agency might offer more services than you require. It might also cost more than your budget allows.
Personal, One-on-One Time
Even though you have dedicated account managers, you may not always work directly with the senior marketing strategist for every task. In a consulting relationship, you’re directly interacting with the expert doing the work.
Good agencies certainly give plenty of attention, but it’s a different feel than the one-on-one dynamic of a consultant.
Scope and Flexibility
An agency often prefers to handle all aspects of your marketing campaign since they have the resources to do so. If you only want help with one narrow task, some agencies may not take on a very small project, or they might propose a larger plan.
Agencies also may require a minimum commitment: a 6-month contract or a monthly retainer, for example. This can be adjusted if you were hoping for just a quick, short-term engagement.
How Marketing Consultants and Agencies Can Work Together
It’s not always an either/or choice between a consultant and an agency. In fact, in some situations, you can benefit from both marketing and consulting services. Marketing consultants and agencies can complement each other’s strengths, working in tandem to achieve the best results for a client.
Here are a few scenarios showing how they might work together:
Sequential Strategy and Execution
A common approach is to hire a consultant first to develop a marketing strategy, then bring in an agency to implement that strategy. For example, you might engage a consultant to analyze your market and create a 12-month marketing plan.
Once the plan is ready, you can hand it off to a marketing agency that has the team to execute all the campaigns, content, and creative outlined in the plan. The consultant may stay on in an advisory role while the agency runs the day-to-day operations.
Consultant as an Advisor to an Agency
Sometimes, a business is already working with an agency but needs an outside expert’s perspective on high-level strategy. In this case, a marketing consultant, like a seasoned industry expert or fractional CMO, can be hired to consult periodically. The consultant might review the agency’s plans or campaign results and provide independent feedback.
Partnering on Client Work
From the service provider side, consultants and agencies sometimes partner with each other to serve a client. For instance, an independent consultant might realize their client needs execution help and refer them to a trusted agency with which they can collaborate.
Conversely, an agency at full capacity or lacking a very specific skill might bring in a consultant to fill that gap. In some cases, consultants can even partner with an agency themselves to deliver a mix of services.
For businesses with big ambitions or complex needs, this marketing and consulting approach can be very effective. Just keep in mind, though, that using both means you’ll be coordinating with two external parties. This requires clear communication so everyone stays on the same page.
Consulting and Execution in One Agency
What if you want the strategic insight of a consultant and the execution power of an agency? The good news is you don’t necessarily have to choose one or the other in isolation.
Some providers offer a hybrid approach, essentially marketing consulting delivered by an agency that can also implement the recommendations. This model gives you the best of both worlds in a single partnership.
You start with expert consulting to map out what your business needs to do, and then that same team within the agency immediately goes to work putting the plan into action.
With these marketing consulting firms, there’s no handoff delay or potential miscommunication between separate parties. The strategists and the implementers are on the same team, focused on your goals.
At Frontier Marketing, we follow this hybrid model. We’re a local marketing agency that combines strategic consulting with hands-on marketing services.
We regularly provide comprehensive marketing consulting services to dozens of clients. Our team acts as both the trusted marketing advisor and the group that carries out the work.
Grow Your Business With a Trusted Marketing Partner
When you partner with Frontier Marketing, you get your own dedicated team of experts who adapt as your needs shift, building marketing plans that align with your long-term growth goals.
You’ll have a direct line to our team for any questions, plus monthly check-ins and clear analytics reports. You’ll always know how your metrics are tracking. Call (847) 254-0837 or email info@frontiermarketingllc.com to discuss how we can help.
