A consultant will help you determine the scope, expertise, research and time required to make your project succeed.

If you wanted a bridge built, an engineer would ask about materials, weight capacity, length, and width, etc.

Are you building the Golden Gate Bridge or a platform over your backyard creek?

Like many professional service firms, it’s tough to give a prospective client a figure until we define the scope-of-work.

A marketing or communications professional will drill down with you to define the problem you are trying to solve, particularly if you don’t approach them with a pre-formed, articulate idea. Often, communications pros find people ask us for a press release because they want to announce something new, yet when you drill down on what the product or service is, who the audience is, and what they want to achieve, you find out it’s a niche audience the product appeals to and a press release may not be the right tool. Or a press release may be fine as one step in a larger campaign to successfully launch your new product or service.

A consultant will help you determine the scope, expertise, research and time required to make your project succeed.

We understand that money is tight. Business owners have a good deal of responsibility and competing demands. Consulting with a marketing professional brings professional expertise to your marketing and communications challenge. Be honest about your budget and let the consultant help you define specific expectations. Otherwise, it’s a waste of your time.

Here are the considerations when we use to price projects with clients.

Define the Scope of Work.

After meeting with you and defining the project, I’m going to itemize the scope of work and confirm that with you. By being specific about expectations, we both understand my role and yours. You’ll sign an agreement for a specific amount with payment terms and a not-to-exceed amount. Some of the costs in that scope will depend on who is doing what. Are you implementing the plan, or am I? If you are, that can limit the scope, but it will also possibly limit your results.

Do you have time to implement the plan and stick with it? If not, reconsider whether it is wise to do the implementation in-house.

Conduct Audience and Product Research.

How recent and detailed is the research available to plan your project’s goals? 

Do you have research directly related to the audiences you want to influence? Are you adapting a campaign designed by a parent division to your audiences? Does it speak to your audiences or you? If it’s already working in Illinois, why wouldn’t it work in Indiana?

An external consultant is going to ask the tough questions and look at your problem with a fresh set of eyes and experience built by serving other clients and industries. What appeals to you about that campaign may not appeal to the audience you want to influence. Do you have blinders on about your product, your competition or the marketplace?

You could spend too much money and lose critical time if you don’t test your assumptions first.

When is research not a good idea?

It’s your money. If you choose to make your marketing and communications decisions based on your gut, it’s your decision. It will be tougher to set realistic metrics for the results.

Do You Have the Expertise?

When I was in-house and hired advertising or PR agencies, I hired them to do the tasks I lacked the time, talent or resources to do. I was pulled in too many directions to achieve certain fundamental tasks that drove business.

Anyone can design social media posts, right? Can they design effective ones? Can they post consistently, and target them to the appropriate audiences? The question is do the posts create traffic for your website? Calls? Bookings? Sales?

Particularly when wording with independent practitioners or smaller firms, you are often working with highly experienced professionals at a fraction of the cost of hiring them in-house.

Make certain your marketing and public relations are building an audience for your brand and influencing the action you want the target audience. Be specific.

What’s Your Time Worth?

Your time is important, so how much time can you dedicate to marketing your product or service well? Is there time to plan and deliver a consistent, compelling message to the right audiences via the right spokespeople?

Make the time to research, create and define the work in a way that will build a successful campaign. It doesn’t take months to do so when you use a consultant. You will have measurable goals defined to evaluate and re-define for the next phase too. You’ll have the facts behind you to base the results on.

Is an urgent response needed? Are you in a crisis and need to act now?

If you are in a crisis because someone has been hurt, stolen money or committed another crime that costs your business money or reputation, then time is fleeting to get your message – your side of the story – communicated. That urgency is going to cost more. Your business and your customers need attention pronto!

You’ll get more done with an extra set of hands and a fresh set of eyes on the problems you need to solve. Communication is an art, but the principles and knowledge skilled professionals bring to it will serve you well.

Contact Browning Business Strategies LLC for more on this topic.