If you’ve worked in digital marketing for a while and are looking to switch things up in your career, you may consider taking on a job as a marketing consultant. But how do you know if this is really the right career move for you?
A helpful starting point is to familiarize yourself with the marketing consultant job description, as it touches on the key responsibilities and skills you’ll need to be successful in this role.
To give you a better idea of what marketing consulting entails, we’ve put together this job description guide covering the most common responsibilities, skills, and qualifications for marketing consultants in 2024.
If you’d like to skip ahead to one of the sections, just use the clickable menu:
- Marketing consultant job description: Overview
- Marketing consultant job description: Responsibilities
- Marketing consultant job description: Skills
- Marketing consultant job description: Qualifications (and how to get them)
- Next steps
Ready? Let’s get started!
1. Marketing consultant job description: Overview
A marketing consultant helps businesses and organizations reach their objectives by crafting strategic marketing maneuvers. Companies may seek the help of an experienced marketing consultant, either temporarily or permanently, when they want to boost their public profile, create a new content or social media strategy, launch a product, or rebrand their company with new visuals and messaging.
A marketing consultant’s primary role is to identify industry trends and implement marketing strategies that benefit the company. Generally speaking, this includes tasks like:
- Developing and executing targeted marketing campaigns
- Establishing relationships with potential customers
- Identifying emerging markets and opportunities for the company
- Researching and analyzing competitor strategies
- Developing customer segmentation models and personalized offers
- Analyzing data to identify trends in customer behavior
Though they must be knowledgeable in different digital marketing approaches, consulting marketing professionals typically don’t need to understand the technical details of each task in order to execute it— instead, they focus on the strategic work, leaving the hands-on work for others.
The best part about being a consultant is that it allows you to specialize in one particular area—whether it’s SEO, social media marketing, direct response marketing, or something else entirely—while always keeping the goal of helping companies connect with customers at the forefront.
2. Marketing consultant job description: Responsibilities
With this general overview of a marketing consultant’s role in mind, let’s break down the more specific tasks and responsibilities you’ll need to be adept at to make the most of this job. The following top ten points are based on a comparative analysis of marketing consultant job descriptions found on Glassdoor, Indeed, and Monster:
- Conducting market research to understand customer trends and needs and develop effective overall marketing plans
- Examining market trends, competitor activities, and customer feedback to optimize strategies for maximum performance outcomes
- Utilizing various media and digital platforms according to customer demographics and preferences to reach a broader audience base
- Crafting promotional materials, such as brochures, advertisements, and other marketing tools, to increase brand familiarity and recognition among target audiences
- Establishing connections with prospective clients and partners to ensure alignment in achieving business goals
- Setting objectives for marketing projects and monitoring performance metrics against those benchmarks as part of the decision-making process within the marketing department
- Tracking changes in digital technology, consumer behaviors, platforms, etc., to adjust existing strategies or create new ones as necessary
- Overseeing budgets for marketing efforts to guarantee cost-effectiveness over time while maximizing results across channels
- Analyzing key data points such as engagement numbers and website analytics to measure successes or areas of improvement for future marketing initiatives
- Composing comprehensive reports on campaign results with recommendations on how best to move forward with new strategies informed by data analysis
3. Marketing consultant job description: Skills
In addition to the responsibilities outlined above, a variety of broader skills are necessary for success as a marketing consultant. These include:
Communication skills
Effective communication is essential for marketing consultants to navigate the complexities of their clients’ businesses and markets, understand their needs and goals, and clearly outline strategies and solutions to advance their objectives. Communication skills are also a critical component of content creation, data analysis, and report writing.
Analytical skills
Marketing consultants must be able to accurately interpret and analyze data from various sources, such as customer surveys, A/B testing results, and website analytics, to identify trends and draw data-driven conclusions. So, Data Analytics is a key skill to develop if you’re planning to apply for marketing consultant jobs.
Research skills
Another required skill often mentioned in marketing consultant job descriptions is research. Consultants must be able to find relevant data, assess the data’s reliability and accuracy, and make sound recommendations based on their findings. So, a deep understanding of the research process, data sources, and analysis techniques is essential.
Strategic thinking skills
Strategic thinking is a must for any marketing consultant. They should be able to think broadly, identify trends and make strategic decisions on how to reach target audiences best. This requires them to have an understanding of their clients’ goals, the market landscape, and strategic tasks and objectives.
Organizational skills
Like all marketing professionals, consultants need to stay on top of tasks and deadlines, manage multiple projects simultaneously and prioritize their workloads for maximum efficiency. Developing strong organizational skills can help them keep on top of their projects and deliver results on time.
Project management skills
Along with organizational skills, marketing consultants should possess project management knowledge and experience. This means they can effectively manage the timelines, resources, and budgets of their campaigns, ensuring that they are on track to meet their clients’ expectations. Project management experience is advantageous for any marketing consultant job.
Negotiation skills
And finally, negotiation skills are also important. Marketing consultants must be able to negotiate external vendors, contracts, and terms as part of the project management process. For example, they may need to identify the best deals for media buys or negotiate rates with influencers. This requires a good grasp of the marketing process and negotiation experience.
4. Marketing consultant job description: Qualifications (and how to get them)
If you’re serious about becoming a marketing consultant, earning a marketing degree or certification might be helpful. But it’s important to understand that this is by no means a requirement. The benefits of having marketing qualifications depend on the type of marketing strategy you plan to use, any prior education, as well as the marketing experience you already have.
That said, both marketing degrees and professional certification programs can provide an extra edge when applying for marketing consultant jobs.
Academic qualifications
Formal academic qualifications are particularly useful for those who are just starting out in digital marketing or do not have an undergraduate degree or postgraduate qualification in a related field. This could include a degree in marketing, business, communications, or economics, such as these three examples:
- BA (Hons) Digital Marketing
- BSc (Hons) Digital Marketing and Data Analytics
- MSc Strategic Digital Marketing
The difference between BA and BSc undergraduate degrees is that the former typically involves more broad-based learning, while the latter focuses on developing specific skills and technical knowledge.
Professional certifications
Taking on a four-year degree (or longer, if you choose to go the post-graduate route, too) isn’t for everyone. Another great option is to pursue professional certifications. This has the advantage of providing valuable evidence of your knowledge and experience in the field without the need to commit to an entire degree-level course.
If you’re interested in getting certified, check out this list of the best digital marketing courses in the world right now.
These online courses, too, can help demonstrate your commitment to the field and provide potential employers with further evidence of your digital marketing knowledge.
5. Next steps
If you’re looking to take your career in digital marketing to the next level, becoming a marketing consultant could open up some exciting new opportunities. However, as this overview of the marketing consultant job description has shown, there is a lot to consider before taking the plunge.
Research the job in detail to make sure you possess—or gain—the skills and qualifications necessary to succeed. And, of course, always stay up-to-date with the latest trends and strategies in digital marketing.
Want to get a hands-on introduction to digital marketing? Why not try out our free, 5-day short course?
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