How to get the most value from a freelance content consultant

Bringing in outside help for your construction marketing canfeel like a leap of faith, especially if you’ve not done it before. A construction content marketing specialist is an expense – but the value you get in return should be many times more.

If you get it right, anyway. You can hire the best construction marketing consultant in the world, but it will be wasted money if you don’t prepare effectively and provide what they need to do it right.

Here’s some practical advice to make sure you get the most value from a freelance construction content and marketing consultant based on my own experiences with clients:

Work out your overall marketing goal before bringing someone in (your ‘why?’).
Be prepared to spend money to get the outcomes you want.
Involve yourself and your team consistently.
Review and back up successes with further investment.
Understand that marketing is not an instant fix. Set realistic expectations.

1 – Work out your overall marketing goals before you bring someone in

First and most important, know why you’re bringing a marketing person in.

You don’t need all the details, but having an ideal outcome from the start is a good idea.

For example, your target could be:

Increasing the number of leads you get, or
Launching a new product or service onto the market.

Things you can work out once you bring in the outside help are:

What specific marketing activities could be the most effective way to do that.
Planning and creating effective content.
Building the marketing distribution structure (i.e. setting up an email newsletter system).

And so on. But you need to have that end goal in mind first. If you really don’t know where to start, you could commission an initial content marketing review to assess where you are and have a strategy session to start the process.

Suggested actions:

‍Layout strategic goals for six, 12 and 24 months ahead.
‍Determine what a successful marketing outcome would look like before approaching consultants.
‍Plan to bring marketing into board-level discussions.
‍Research how friends and competitors began their marketing work, get advice.

2 – You will need to spend money to generate the outcome you want

Marketing is not free. If someone tells you it is to try and get your business, they are lying and should not be trusted.

You can do a certain amount without spending too much extra (like posting on social media, taking your own pictures etc) but even those will take time, and that’s a cost in itself. You also run the risk of looking amateur if you try to do everything as cheaply as possible.

Doing it properly means you should expect to pay for some or all of the following depending on how advanced your current operation is:

Graphic design.
Website design, build and maintenance.
Specialist SEO work.
Paid social media work.
Third party emails and advertorials.
A newsletter management service (Mailchimp, for example).
Case study and testimonial creation.

And, of course, the marketing professional themselves! That’s not an exhaustive list. Which ones you choose will depend on your goals. As for how much you should budget…unfortunately the answer is “it depends”.

You can work out specific budgets once you start, but be prepared to spend something if you want results.

Suggested actions:

Begin marketing at a time of strength when there is budget available, not as a last resort when there is no money available to spend.
‍Make sure the finance department and marketing team are introduced and encourage them to be friends!
‍Remember that the headline cost of an item might is often a lot lower than it seems (i.e. a whitepaper download that costs £3,500 to produce but brings in 150 leads is actually a very low cost of £23.33 per lead, not £3,500).
‍Be prepared to take punts and risks. There will come a point where you just have to try things. Like any investment, be prepared to lose some money occasionally when you try ideas out.

3 – Involving yourself and your team will get the best results

Dedicating regular time to marketing will help your business get the best outcomes.

You and your team know the ins and outs of your business, what you do from day to day, how your product or service is better than everyone else’s, where the pain points are, how you help customers get past them, how your product meets regulations… and so on, and on and on.

That makes you the most valuable resource for any marketer. The more information your team can give marketing, the better. Sales angles, common objections, pictures, quotes, important industry updates… it all helps.

Marketing people can only use what we are given, so getting involved with their work will help you get the most value out of it.

Suggested actions:

‍Set up regular planning meetings between leadership and marketing, at least once every two weeks.
‍Arrange meetings between sales and marketing people for idea swapping and planning.
‍Encourage all employees to share marketing on their professional channels and with clients.
‍Ensure sales team are always using the most up to date marketing materials (sales people will need reminding, trust me).
‍Encourage non-marketing team to give feedback on content, but not design. Encourage design feedback for senior people only (again, just trust me there…).

4 – Commit to reviewing output and reinvesting in what works

There’s a temptation with marketing to think “job done!” when something works or when your website seems to be flying after six months.

You must resist this temptation at all costs.

Effective marketing needs constant work, reinforcement and reinvestment. If you’ve ever seen your website slide down the search engine rankings after being at the top, despite you not changing anything, that’s because you stopped working on it.

Marketing isn’t a one and done task. You should consider it a permanent part of a successful business model once you introduce it, review activity and commit to reinvesting resources accordingly.

Suggested actions:

‍Include a marketing review at every board meeting to look at what has worked, what hasn’t worked and what has kind-of-worked but maybe needs refining.
Work on the assumption that funding will continue for everything unless there is a reason for it not to, rather than the other way round.
‍Agree this review structure with the marketing consultant from the outset.

5 - Set realistic expectations; marketing is not an instant fix

Finally, you shouldn’t expect an instant fix. If you’re in need of something to turn the business around within a month, it’s probably too late and you should save your money rather than give it to someone like me.

Accordingly, any marketing consultant who tells you that everything can be done instantly is either being dishonest or doesn’t know what they’re talking about. (Or both?)

You should expect a new marketing idea (for example paid google ads, or a new SEO strategy) to take six months or even longer to perform to its potential. Things need time to bed in, your website needs to build authority with algorithms, people need to have your business shoved under their nose a dozen times before they buy.

Marketing is a long-term game. Set your expectations accordingly!

Suggested actions:

‍Embed marketing in your long-term business strategy, focus on the overall outcomes rather than individual month-to-month outputs.
‍If you start a new line of marketing activity, budget for at least six months initially.
‍Include “set up” time in the sales timetable, marketing material doesn’t appear overnight.
‍Don’t assume that tasks are as easy as they look.