Marketing for Consultants: 6 Digital Marketing Tips To Get Started

Digital marketing for consultants can prove a challenge for many businesses in this space. There are many competitors, many channels to choose from and sometimes budgets can be low and not sufficient to achieve the goals.

 

However, there are proven tactics that help you as a consultant to start strongly. And that should start with your goals and what you are looking to achieve.

 

In this article I list six tips to help you get started with your digital marketing strategy. And reach out to me below if you require further help.

 

1. Invest in Google Ads

 

Google Ads is a pay per click (PPC) marketing platform that allows consultants and other businesses to target their audiences as they search for their services. Using targeting and bidding tools, you are able to reach people as they search on Google and browse sites that are part of the Google Display network.

 

 

As a consultant setting up Google Ads, there are a number of campaign types to choose from. These include Search, Display, Remarketing, Video, Discovery and a few others. However, not all will be relevant because they will not bring you the best results.

 

Below, you’ll read more about the campaign type that I recommend that will bring the best results for you.

 

2. Review your landing pages

 

If you’re running online ads, the landing pages you point them to should be well optimised and closely related to what visitors are looking for. Your visitors should be fully engaged and you should check how engaged they are for different devices like mobile, desktop and tablet.

 

The Google PageSpeed Insights tool helps you to test your landing pages to see how optimised they are and how fast they load. And you’ll be able to download a report that you can share with your web developer who will help you to fix any errors and speed up the pages.

 

This is important mostly for mobile visitors who are often on the go and have less time to wait for your pages to load.

 

Also, check metrics like bounce rate in your Google Analytics account to see how optimised the pages are. And aim to reduce the bounce rate below 50% for all your pages.

 

 

3. Conduct competitor research online

 

Conducting competitor marketing research for consultants helps to create an effective digital strategy. And this insight will help you to create better targeted PPC campaigns as you see what keywords competitors are using and how you can include some of these.

 

The SERanking platform helps you to carry out this competitor research and you can use its research tool to look into competitor campaigns.

 

 

The tool will also help you to see which keywords they rank for organically. And this insight can help you create a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy to help you rank higher on Google for your primary keywords.

 

4. Target people who are searching

 

The best marketing campaign type for consultants is a Search campaign in Google Ads. And that’s because this campaign type unlike others focuses on targeting people who are actively searching for your consultancy services.

 

Other campaign types that I listed above mainly focus on targeting people who are engaged in other content and are not necessarily looking for your services. For example, when you set up a Display campaign and target people who are browsing third party websites on the Google Display network, you use image ads and hope that they will show an interest in what you have to offer.

 

But with a Search campaign, you add keywords that people use to search with on Google and show them your text ads. These are highly qualified people for your business, so you will always see a higher conversion rate.

 

One of the things you’ll need to do is carry out keyword research with the Keyword Planner tool. And you will create a campaign and add ad groups where you’ll add your ads and keywords.

 

 

5. Track your sales or leads

 

An effective marketing tactic for consultants running online ads is to setup conversion tracking to track the conversions they get from their website visitors. This tracking can be setup for calls and for form submissions both from the ads and from the website.

 

For your PPC campaign in Google Ads, you can setup conversion tracking to track calls and lead form submissions. And you can track both on your ads with call and lead extensions and from your website with call tracking and form submissions.

 

 

Also, setting up goal tracking in Google Analytics helps you track all your traffic sources and not just Google Ads traffic. And you’ll be able to see how all the traffic sources contribute to your conversions when you check your multi channel reports. To get started with goal tracking, visit the Admin page in Analytics and go to the Goals page and use one of the available templates to setup your goals.

 

 

6. Hire a PPC expert

 

Consultants can also hire PPC experts to set up and manage their campaigns in Google Ads. And this helps to bring in expertise that they don’t have in-house and will help to achieve a high return and better performance.

 

But before hiring a PPC consultant, check that they have the experience that you require. And check if they have worked with other clients and if they have case studies and reviews.

 

Also, check if they are a Google Partner which gives you confidence that they have skills and experience managing Google Ads campaigns for other clients.

 

Case Study

 

CNS IT is a provider of IT solutions to small and medium sized businesses in the UK. They operate in a very competitive market and average cost per click for their keywords is around £20. They contacted me to setup a new campaign, and I setup a Search campaign to target businesses in their locations. The campaign was able to achieve an impressive 9% conversion rate. Read the full case study.

 

Get in Touch

 

As a digital marketing expert, I work for many consultants helping them setup and manage campaigns in Google Ads. Contact me below to discuss your strategy and to find out more about my services.