What Is a Digital Consultant? (And Why You Need One)

Are you thinking of hiring a digital consultant to help grow your business? 

As business owners, we tend to do everything ourselves, at least when we’re starting up. But when you reach a certain level, it becomes impossible to do everything on your own well enough to get results. 

If you’ve hit a wall—or you just have too much on your plate already—it could be time to bring in some outside help.

Digital consultants can help with website traffic (and sudden traffic drops), leads, and sales while you focus on running your business.

Read on to learn whether hiring a digital consultant could help your business, what kind of consulting you (may or may not) need, and how to choose the best consultant to work with.

What Is a Digital Consultant?

Digital consultants are experts in the online world. Using their knowledge of SEO, digital marketing, Google Analytics, and more, they help companies enhance their online presence, reach their ideal audiences, and, ultimately, increase traffic and conversions. 

So, if terms like SEO, pay-per-click campaigns, and content marketing strategy sound like another language to you, a digital consultant could be invaluable. 

These people know how online sales funnels work. And they use that knowledge to drive meaningful traffic for their clients.

The Two Types of Digital Consultants

Digital consultants’ capabilities vary in scope and scale, but there are generally two types.

1. The Hyper-Focused

Some are individuals with expert-level skills, focus, and experience in one area of online business. 

Whether creating and optimizing your sales funnels, setting up digital ad campaigns, or revamping your blog content with an effective content strategy, a specialized consultant can help.

They’ll customize their strategic approach and tailor it to your specific business.

2. The Holistic

Other consultants prefer to take a more holistic approach, and look at your business as a whole. These consultants will work with you to integrate all your online marketing efforts into a cohesive strategy to maximize sales.

They’ll analyze everything you’re currently doing—and what your competitors are doing—looking for the issues holding you back and opportunities you’re missing. 

For example, they may find technical issues with your website and start there. Then they’ll focus on building a plan to grow your email list, or developing new content to draw more potential customers to your website. 

If you’re looking for digital growth on a bigger scale—or to execute with more speed than an individual consultant can facilitate, consider a digital agency. With an agency, you’ll benefit from the pooled experience and efforts of a whole team.

Choose a content marketing agency if you’re looking for organic traffic growth, or look for another specialized agency with experience helping businesses like yours.

What Does a Digital Consultant Do?

Digital consultants vary widely in their niches and skill sets—from SEO specialists to social media whizzes to content marketing. 

Whatever their focus, the underlying goal is always the same: To help you devise and implement a strategy that improves your online presence and generates sales. 

Here’s a closer look at some of the things digital consultants help with.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Want your website to start showing up on the first page of Google results? Then you may want to look into working with an SEO consultant.

SEO has many aspects, and while some consultants specialize in one area, most businesses can benefit from a more comprehensive approach.

SEO consultants typically start by analyzing your website and traffic, looking for any technical or performance issues. They’ll point out changes you need to make, and work directly with you to fix them.

At the same time, they’ll look at the content of your pages and recommend any potential content refreshes or SEO optimizations that can boost your rankings and help attract more targeted organic search traffic. 

Depending on what type of business you have, they may help restructure your product pages, or update blog posts, so the right people start finding them.

Beyond working directly on your website, consultants often provide additional services, like backlink audits, outreach, content strategy, and managing new content creation processes.

Content Management

Writing a blog post takes a lot of time, and consistently doing so is hard for most business owners. Even if you enjoy writing blog posts, and have the time to do it, your blog will only be effective with a well-planned content strategy in place. 

Outsourcing SEO copywriting to a consulting firm can save time and accelerate your results. The goal is to drive the traffic you need without using up the time you need to accomplish other things.

A digital consultant specializing in blog content can provide you with a full strategy for publishing. They’ll use research and data to uncover the topics your ideal customers search for, as well as what type of content is working for your competitors. 

From there, they’ll create optimized articles and publish consistently on your website.

Email Marketing

If you’re not using email marketing, or not getting the results you want, a digital consultant can help grow your list and use it effectively.

There’s a lot to consider, like choosing the best email marketing software, deciding what to send your subscribers, and writing emails that convert subscribers into customers. 

If you’re just starting with email marketing, you need to build a list and start getting your readers engaged. 

If you already have a sizable email list, you’re dealing with the question of how to market effectively to those people.

You can bring in an expert to plan and execute a list-building strategy that works. If you want to improve your marketing, consultants can help you reach the next level with strategies like segmentation, sales funnels, and more.

Social Media Management

To grow your social media audience and gain more followers, you need consistent and engaging posts and interaction with customers. 

Social media consultants can take over the unrelenting task of posting on your social media accounts and keeping up conversations. This will not only save you time but also lead to more effective use of these platforms.

Working with a social media consultant means your posts will have a look and feel more aligned with your brand voice. And since consultants work full-time in their specialties, they’re on top of trends and changes. 

They can keep your posts fresh and ensure you’re doing what works in a constantly changing landscape.

Digital Ad Campaigns

Looking to advertise on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, or try paid ad strategies on Google? There’s a lot to learn about these marketing tools, and hiring a consultant can ensure you maximize your returns.

In addition to running paid ad campaigns, digital marketing consultants can help you promote your products through sponsored posts, podcast ads, and other types of media placements.

4 Key Benefits of Digital Consulting Benefits for Your Business

If you’re worried about the cost of working with a digital consultant, consider these incredible benefits. 

It Saves Time

As the saying goes, time is money. And learning complicated, specific skills like SEO and copywriting for lead generation can take years. 

That’s a lot of time. 

Bringing in an expert will save you all the time that would otherwise be spent having to learn a new skill or hire and train someone to do the job.

It’s Cost-Effective

The beauty of working with a digital consultant is that you pay for the services rendered. Most contracts are also flexible, meaning you scale up when you need more help, and scale back when you want to focus on other projects. 

By contrast, hiring an in-house digital expert full-time is a long-term commitment, which can be well over $100,000 per year depending on the experience you need. With a consultant, you can stretch your marketing dollars much further, with the added benefit of getting work done on a predictable timeline.

Access to Expertise

Leading digital consultants are trusted, experienced experts. They’ve helped dozens—if not hundreds—of businesses and entrepreneurs scale their online presence. 

All of that knowledge is invaluable for your business. They’ll have a level of expertise that will put your company in the digital fast lane. 

Long Term Strategy

Working with a digital consultant isn’t just about completing a project. It’s about undergoing a transformation that will skyrocket your business results now and in the future. 

After your project is over, you’ll feel the benefits of improving your digital strategy for months and years to come. With the right performance marketing strategies in place—you can continuously track results and improve on what you’ve built. 

This is especially true if you learn from the changes your digital consultant implements. By maintaining the structures they establish, you’ll continue on the path toward online growth and success.

What to Look for in a Digital Consultant

With so many types of consultants, areas of expertise, and price points, it can be overwhelming when you start looking for one. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering whether a consultant is right for you.

Have They Worked with Your Type of Business?

Look for consultants who have worked with a similar business to yours. For example, if you have an ecommerce business, you want to be sure you connect with consultants who have experience with ecommerce services.

How Much Do Digital Consultants Cost?

There’s a wide range of costs when hiring a consultant. Some charge a monthly fee, and some charge on a per-item basis. 

For example, you could pay a monthly fee for a comprehensive consulting service that covers a full range of services. Or, you could pay once for an in-depth analysis of your website, with a report of recommendations.

Consider what your cash flow can handle and what returns you hope to see from working with a consultant. 

How Have They Helped Past Clients?

Read case studies, testimonials, and even ask to speak to past clients before signing up with a consultant. Doing your research will help you choose someone with a good track record who you can feel confident will get you the results you’re looking for.

Do You Want a Large Agency or a More Personal Touch?

Because you’ll be working closely with your consultant, possibly for months, make sure you’ll enjoy working together. Personal preference, as well as the size of the project, make a difference here.

If you want more individual attention and communication, working with a smaller firm or a personal consultant may be best for you. When you work with these types of consultants, you’ll be more involved in implementation and have more chances to learn.

If you want a hands-off solution with the power of a large staff, look for a bigger digital consulting agency. These firms can get the work done more quickly, but you’ll be less involved and likely invest more to pay for it.

How Do They Present Their Consulting Services?

This is the ultimate reference. If you’re hiring a consultant for SEO, do they show up in relevant search results? If you’re hiring a social media expert, what do their social media accounts look like?

We May Be Perfect for Each Other

You need traffic, not more headaches.

Let us handle every piece of the process for you.

DCP helps generate consistent traffic that drives sales. Our experienced team can help with everything from technical SEO challenges to content strategy and conversions. 

Learn more about how we can work together on our content marketing services page.