Year 2020 was an eventful one. Global Pandemic, Tiger King on Netflix, US Elections and loo roll stockpiling, of course. 2020 was also the year when the global pandemic pushed shoppers to go online but also local, which in turn meant SMEs had to up their digital marketing game. Given the recent changes in the digital marketing landscape, there’s been a vast increase in demand for marketers with SEO, Content, PPC and Social Marketing skills.
Source - Marketing Week
If you’ve ever wondered what a senior marketing consultant working in an agency does, or if digital marketing might be your future career path, allow us to shed some light on some of the main tasks and responsibilities senior marketers have.
First of all, in order to become senior, all aspiring marketing consultants go through a thorough development process that allows them to not only get to grips with core digital marketing skills such as the ones listed below, but also gain business acumen.
- Strategic thinking - ability to approach client projects holistically
- SEO, Paid Marketing, Social Media, CRO and Content Marketing - develop, implement and monitor strategies across the full marketing mix. Understand how different digital channels connect and how to deliver the right message at the right moment in time
- Data analysis - ability to analyse raw data and draw insights
- UX understanding - ability to identify user needs and deliver the right info at the right point of the sales funnel
- Creative thinking - Explore new ideas to achieve the goals of the client & their campaigns
- Emerging trends and best practices - be a lifelong learner
- Attention to detail - the holy grail of everything
Client work
As internet marketing consultants, our priority is to ensure that our client’s online presence is at its best at all times and that the client’s products and service offerings match the requirements of the digital environment.
The senior nature of the role requires that consultants have established stakeholder management experience which plays an important role in advancing our clients’ online presence by recommending practical, realistic, tried & tested marketing solutions. As expected, a lot goes into it.
Marketing strategy
A senior digital marketing consultant would not only take the lead on client accounts and be responsible for managing high budget accounts to meet business KPIs and goals, but a senior consultant would also bridge the gap between the client’s business, the customer’s needs and the online world, also known as marketing strategy.
Marketing strategies serve as roadmaps that ensure campaigns (SEO, PPC, Social, Email, Video) are in line with the set goals and business KPIs. The aim of marketing strategies is to ensure that our client’s online presence provides value to potential customers and acts as a trusted source of information that users come across at the right point in time.
For an effective digital marketing strategy that results in great ROI and meets business KPIs, marketing consultants need to nail down the following key elements:
Client’s Business
Getting to know our client’s business like the back of our hand is paramount to delivering a good service and takes a lot of determination and commitment. Marketing consultants are not only responsible for building strong relationships with clients by maintaining a can-do attitude and providing excellent customer service, but seniors are also responsible for understanding how business’ needs or service offerings might need to change over time and adapt the marketing approach. The Global Pandemic has no doubt irreversibly changed the digital marketing landscape and senior marketers have been busy analysing the audience shift and recommending new approaches to business to help survive lockdown.
Target audience
At Adtrak, seniors often are required to work with businesses across multiple sectors including home improvement, professional services, construction and engineering, automotive and more. Part of our job is to comfortably market for B2B and B2C audiences which tend to be wildly different; one of them is looking for efficiency and expertise, while the other is looking for deals, entertainment and information. With this in mind, a senior digital marketing consultant crafts marketing strategies in line with the needs of the target audience, focusing on painting an expert picture for B2B industries and adapt the marketing tone to a more approachable, informative one for B2C industries.
Audience analysis
Competitor and industry research
A consultant’s ultimate goal is to help clients grow their business through efficient marketing. In order to identify expansion opportunities, consultants need to truly understand who the customer is and stay abreast of industry trends to identify changing or new customer needs and adapt the product and service messaging accordingly.
Electric blinds interest over the past 5 years
Content Planning & Storytelling
Content marketing plays an important role in marketing strategy and refers to the planning, creation and distribution of valuable and relevant media that helps attract, convert and retain customers. Although highly creative, content marketing allows marketers to fall deep into the world of data analysis and craft data driven marketing pieces that aim to address users at all the different stages of the marketing funnel. A dedicated marketer will put a story behind every campaign, service or product to meet the ideal customer’s needs rather than push a sales heavy message to users at all times.
Business storytelling is about telling a brand’s story through all the information available on the website, blog and social media - it’s about consistently communicating the same trustworthy message to your audience wherever on the marketing funnel they might be.
Measuring & Analysis
Measuring and analysing the return on investment for your marketing efforts is by far one of the most exciting sides of being a senior digital marketing consultant. Diving deep into data to understand what has worked is equally important to understanding what hasn’t worked - and here’s why:
- Understand what campaigns are driving the most sales
- Discover insights and determine what needs to be explored next
- Provides a clear picture on progress and yearly marketing goals
Without data analysis of your Organic, Paid and Social campaigns you’ll not know how well the marketing is performing and this could be hemorrhaging time and resources on a medium that is not best suited for your industry.
Mentoring, Training & Knowledge Sharing
An important part of a senior’s role at Adtrak is helping to shape aspiring marketing consultants through knowledge sharing and generally being the go to person for not only technical know-how, but also for overall marketing processes and specific industry knowledge. Colleague shadowing and collaboration can often help peers advance their technical skills and knowledge allowing them to start confidently using new, more advanced marketing techniques.
Research and Development
Given this fast-paced industry where there’s what feels like at least one new update every week, our senior marketers are instrumental in the advancement of the agency’s offering by keeping abreast of industry trends and researching, implementing, testing and feedback on new techniques, tools and processes.
Do you Want to Become a Digital Marketing Consultant?
Adtrak offer a wide range of digital marketing services and have in-house teams which specialise in:
- SEO / Organic Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Social Marketing
- Paid Advertising
- Conversion Rate Optimisation
Whether you are just starting off in your career, or are an experienced senior digital marketing consultant, Adtrak loves to work with aspiring and dedicated marketers. We are a friendly bunch with a love for data, creativity, tech and biscuits.
Do you Need the Help of a Digital Marketing Consultant?
If you think your business might benefit from working with a team of digital marketing consultants to help increase the number of leads you are receiving from your online marketing efforts, get in touch with us.
