What is a digital marketing consultant?
A digital marketing consultant has many different roles and responsibilities and in many ways is a considered to be a “jack of all trades.” Essentially, it is the person or team responsible making a business known. It’s about making a name for the company and getting it out there.
What are the typical roles and responsibilities of a digital marketing consultant?
While it would be impossible to list all of the typical roles and responsibilities of a digital marketing consultant, here are some of the more prominent roles:
- Overseeing SEO Projects: Any company that has an online presence should implement some kind of SEO strategy and this is the primary responsibility of a digital marketing consultant. It may not be down to them to do all of the legwork for the SEO, but instead, carry out SEO audits.
- Web Design: When it comes to web design, the role of the digital marketing consultant is to ensure the right message is being conveyed and that it creates the right user experience. How a person feels about a website when they visit is paramount, especially when making a first impression. If a customer visits a website and feels that not much effort has been made and that it looks pretty slapdash, they’re going to have the same impression about the company. It’s the role of the digital marketing consultant to draw them to the site and make it so useful and user-friendly that they never want to leave.
- Social Media: Social media marketing is massive due to the sheer numbers that use social media sites daily. Facebook alone has more than 1 billion users. Add those to the Twitter and Instagram users and all the other global ones dotted around the world, and that’s one heck of a lot of people. Marketing via social media is probably one of the most effective ways to advertise these days, but you need the expertise of the digital marketing consultant to pull it off.
- Overseeing Advertising Campaigns: Advertising is a full-time job, so rather than spend all day concentrating on that, the role of the digital marketing consultant is more to oversee any campaigns. They are also heavily involved in deciding where to spend money advertising.
Best points? Because digital marketing is just that (digital), it means that as a consultant in the field it’s not necessary to always work from one particular place of work. Sure, there may be the odd meeting you need to attend or clients you need to see every so often. But, as a general rule of thumb, you have the freedom to work from pretty much anywhere. Working with different clients you always get a variety of work too.
Any bad points? Digital marketing is easy enough to get into but is often difficult to drum up new business as many companies are still unsure as to what it really is. It also requires someone who has a lot of patience and isn’t afraid of hard work. The workload of a digital marketing consultant varies in that one day they’ll have hardly any work and then another day, it will be coming out of their ears. It’s very much a case of finding the right balance between life and work, but also sticking to strict deadlines.
Adhering to a regular schedule and routine is of the utmost importance for a digital marketing consultant.
An ideal day for a digital marketing consultant
Whether you’re looking for a move up the ladder, or to delve into a completely new field the following will walk you through an ideal day of what it would be like to be a digital marketing consultant:
9:00–11:00: The first couple of hours of any typical day is usually spent going through emails and other forms of communication to get to grips as to where everything is. This is the when the day gets planned out and all tasks that need to get done are prioritized and scheduled in. If working with others a small team talk may also be done during this time to catch up on any KPIs and discuss any problems there may be.
11:00–1:00: Meetings with clients are often scheduled in for the morning wherever possible as people tend to be at their best before lunch. This could be to discuss current contracts or to create new ones. Sometimes, meetings will take place in the office. Other times, you may be invited to a restaurant or other social setting to discuss business.
1:00–2:00: Lunch, yes, even digital marketing consultants get to eat!
2:00–4:00: This part of the day is largely spent checking through all advertising campaigns including those on social media, in newspapers, or on the company’s own website. Analytics reports will also be scrutinized to ensure performance levels are as they should be or if any improvements need to be made.
4:00–5:00: This power hour is often used just to go through the actions of the day to make sure everything that needed to be done, did get done. Any tasks that didn’t get done need to be recorded somewhere and scheduled in as a priority for the following day.
5:00–?: Hopefully, by now, your day will have finished, but there are invariably instances when digital marketing consultants have to put in a few long hours in order to meet that all-important deal.
You should now have a much better understanding as to what the role and responsibilities of a digital marketing consultant and hopefully it’s not scared you too much! It is a very busy role, but it’s also one that’s very rewarding. And with us living in a digital day and age, there will be no shortage of jobs for the digital marketing consultant for a long time to come.
