Marketing departments often turn to marketing consultants to guide strategies, support campaign execution, and transform customer engagement. While hiring a consultant can be a game-changer, finding the right consultant can be challenging.

In this article, we’ll break down the essential skills and qualities to look for in four different types of marketing consultants so you can make smart, strategic hiring decisions.

Key takeaways

  • Marketing Strategist – A skilled marketing strategist aligns all marketing efforts with business goals and long-term plans, using data-driven analysis to diagnose the true root of challenges. They combine creativity with strategic thinking to generate fresh, actionable ideas for campaigns and processes, while communicating persuasively to unite cross-functional teams around shared objectives. Adaptable and forward-thinking, they stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and rapid market changes to ensure strategies remain effective and competitive.
  • Digital Marketing Consultant – A digital marketing consultant blends creative, technical, and analytical expertise. They excel at crafting versatile copy for SEO, social media, advertising, and email campaigns, while mastering SEO fundamentals, including on-page, technical, and keyword optimization. Skilled in SEM, they manage paid search campaigns effectively to maximize results within budget. They analyze data to guide decision-making, apply UX principles to improve user experiences, leverage marketing automation tools and CRM systems for efficiency, and implement Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) strategies to boost customer actions.
  • Content Marketing Consultant – A content marketing consultant ensures that every piece of content supports the company’s business objectives. They invest time in learning the industry, products, services, and market trends to create relevant and impactful content. Their SEO knowledge covers keyword research, on-page optimization, and E-E-A-T compliance. They think critically and creatively to craft fresh, audience-focused material, collaborate seamlessly across teams and partners, and excel at managing priorities, deadlines, and content calendars. With a multi-channel mindset, they can adapt and repurpose content for blogs, social media, white papers, videos, and more.
  • PR Consultant – A PR consultant combines data literacy with storytelling expertise to create compelling brand narratives that resonate with target audiences. They use analytics to measure campaign performance and refine strategies. Skilled in persuasive communication, they confidently pitch to journalists and influence stakeholders. They build and nurture lasting relationships with media contacts and influencers, understanding the long-term value of trust. With strong business acumen, they recognize potential risks, market opportunities, and the broader business landscape, ensuring PR strategies align with the company’s overall objectives.

Must have marketing strategist skills

A marketing strategist can help you gain a fresh perspective on how to align your marketing efforts with your business goals, identify growth opportunities, and create a roadmap to achieve them.

They can even give you ideas on how to implement tactics and processes within your organization to scale your marketing operations, such as introducing a new customer segmentation strategy or implementing a more efficient lead-nurturing process. Here are some skills to look for in a marketing strategist:

  • Strategic planning and vision: A marketing strategist can map out long-term plans that align with your business objectives. They also understand how every marketing activity fits into the larger picture and make decisions based on their ability to identify market gaps, analyze competition, create detailed marketing plans, and align marketing with sales and revenue targets.
  • Analytical and problem-solving skills: Great marketing strategists are excellent problem-solvers and can assess complex situations, ask the right questions, and get to the root of business challenges that may appear as “marketing problems” on the surface. They should be comfortable working with analytics tools to interpret campaign data, measure ROI, and refine performance-based strategies.
  • Creativity and innovation: A skilled marketing strategist brings fresh, original ideas to the table. This could be a new message, an unexpected campaign angle, or a new distribution channel. They can also take a bold idea and turn it into an executable plan that resonates with your target audience.
  • Strong communication and collaboration: Marketing strategists should be able to work across multiple teams, explain ideas clearly, present strategies persuasively, and align internal teams around shared goals.
  • Adaptability and a learning mindset: Marketing is a constantly evolving field, so look for someone who follows industry trends, embraces new technologies, is passionate about testing and iterating and thrives in a fast-paced environment.

Must-have digital marketing skills

Digital marketing is a vast field, and you need a mixture of soft and hard skills to do well. When hiring a digital marketing consultant, first consider what you want to achieve, and then determine the specific skills you need. Here are some skills to look for:

  • Copywriting: The ability to write copy is one of the most transferable skills across all areas of digital marketing: SEO, content, email, outreach, social media, and paid advertising. A consultant with strong copy experience can build and repurpose content to meet different needs.
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization): A strong SEO digital marketer will be able to help you understand how the web and search engines like Google work, how to perform on-age or technical SEO and how to get your content to perform better on organic search.
  • Search Engine Marketing: ​SEM skills are essential to manage paid search campaigns. It requires finding the right keywords for bidding on, analyzing performance and adjusting ads to drive higher conversion rates. If you are running paid campaigns, you will want a digital marketing consultant who knows how to manage ads so you stay on budget.
  • Data analysis and interpretation: Knowing what data is available, where to obtain it and how to analyze and interpret it is critical. Having a digital marketing consultant who can interpret your data throughout your entire campaign will ensure that you consistently optimize your campaigns and achieve the desired results.
  • User Experience (UX): Although often associated with designers, digital marketing consultants should understand the basic principles of UX. Good UX improves customer interactions and contributes to better results and conversions.
  • Marketing automation tools: Proficiency in platforms like Google Ads Editor and CRM systems will help digital marketing teams to streamline marketing processes and campaign management. ​
  • Conversion Rate Optimization: Implementing CRO strategies to enhance the percentage of website visitors who complete desired actions, such as making purchases or signing up for newsletters, will improve the performance of your website and other digital marketing assets.

Must-have content marketing skills

Content marketing consultants assist companies in enhancing their content and social media strategies. If you’re looking to hire a content marketer to amp up your content marketing strategy and get more leads from organic searches and your lead magnets, here are some key skills and qualities to look out for:

  • Business awareness: Consultants should understand a client’s business goals so they can craft content that aligns with and supports those objectives. This includes understanding how the company makes money, what’s being sold, and the focus of its marketing activities (brand awareness, lead generation, customer retention, etc.).
  • Willingness to learn: Effective content marketing requires a thorough understanding of the subject matter and tactics that will lead to increased awareness and conversions. A good content marketing consultant will take the time to learn about your industry, products and services, trends, and industry best practices.
  • Strong SEO knowledge: If you want your content to perform better in organic searches with your audience, a solid understanding of SEO fundamentals is a must. They must be able to conduct keyword research, perform on-page SEO, incorporate inside and outside links, optimize content for specific keywords, and incorporate E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) into the content.
  • Critical and creative thinking: A successful consultant should be able to understand the pain points, behaviors, and motivations of the target audience, craft fresh content angles, repurpose content, and think strategically, tactically, and visually to present ideas clearly and compellingly.
  • Collaboration and communication skills: Consultants must work well with others within and outside the organization. This includes working with product, customer support, customer success and sales teams, customers, partners and trade organizations. Being approachable, empathetic, and able to communicate ideas helps foster strong connections.
  • Time management: Meeting deadlines and juggling multiple priorities is a key part of the job. Strong organizational and time-management skills help ensure projects stay on track and are delivered efficiently. It is also very important to be able to plan a content calendar, set realistic timelines, and prioritize by impact.
  • Multi-channel marketing: Transforming a single piece of content into multiple formats or uses helps reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right message. Content consultants must possess a comprehensive understanding of how to write for various formats, including social media, blogs, white papers, emails, and videos, among others.

Must have PR consultant skills

When hiring a PR consultant, look beyond the glossy pitch decks and client lists. Instead, look for these five essential skills:

  • A strong understanding of data: A good consultant should know how to use research and analytics to measure a campaign’s performance and shape strategic decisions. This will help ensure your story reaches the right audience in the right way.
  • Storytelling ability: Whether framing your brand narrative, crafting a press release, or developing a thought leadership article, your consultant should know how to structure a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. They should also be able to identify the hook that grabs attention and the emotional or logical payoff that resonates with the audience.
  • “Gift of Gab”: A successful PR consultant can confidently pitch to journalists, guide interviews, and persuade stakeholders. This means they should know what to say, when to say it, and how to move conversations toward a desired outcome.
  • Relationship building: A strong consultant builds and nurtures long-term relationships with media contacts, influencers, and industry stakeholders. Look for someone who practices reciprocal altruism, where they give without expecting anything in return, because trust pays off in the long run.
  • Business acumen: A PR consultant should have a solid grasp of the broader business landscape, like the company’s supply chain, potential reputation risks, and internal culture. This big-picture thinking enables them to identify opportunities (and threats) that less experienced consultants might overlook.

Choose the right person with the right skills

Choosing the right marketing consultant is about knowledge, experience and credentials. Look for someone with the right blend of strategic thinking, creativity, and adaptability that you feel you can work with and will help you meet your marketing and business goals.

If you need help with your existing marketing programs, give us a shout.

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