subject: The Business To Business Consulting Heist [print this page] Full Marketing Consultants and the Highway Robbery They Take Advantage Of
I often see a lot of my recruiting clients hire these full service marketing firms to take care of many different facets of their organization. A lot of times, these companies cash-in on facets which are not needed or could be done by the client with minimal study.
To ensure that the sales pitch which they give to the prospective client sounds effective and comes across as intelligent, various marketing terminologies are used throughout their presentation in order to create an illusion of marketing acumen which would prove to be too difficult for the normal business owner to understand.
Here are a two ways in which consulting firms sell you, though provide no ROI
1. The Need for Social Media this is one of the best tricks marketing consultants pull. Social media, social media and more social media, though what are the real benefits of social media for most companies? Take a gander; there are no real benefits of this marketing medium for companies who are selling regular products or services which are somewhat of a commodity. For instance, if your company is a reseller of some form (or forms) of technology, not many people or more specifically, potential customers, are not going to take their free time to get on YouTube and watch your video.
This video increases their beautifully crafted invoice. To add on to their fees, most forms of social media will be filmed by a recommended video artist who works exclusively with the marketing vendor whom you hired. The kickbacks these consultants must receive from this are in the Tony Soprano league. Instead, heres a hintNYU and USC have the best students in this area and theyre a lot cheaper.
Additionally, any videos of or relating to your company should be on the website and should be interactive for the user. The video should explain your product. Instead, too many marketing consultants, knowing what CEOs like, formulate a video of the CEO directly to talk about something on the website. Not only does this look a little cheesy it provides nothing to the visitors of that particular website. The most useless one Ive ever seen was of the CEO of Best Buy; he took the cake of uselessness.
2. Branding I love this oneaccording to every marketing consulting firm, they are able to brand your business in a more effective and creative manner than you are. This is despite the fact that you live and breathe your company. Branding, by nature, is figuring out what you want the public to see you as. For instance, we own a recruiting firm which focuses on executive level sales and marketing placement.
The only branding which would work for us is adding on a phrase as to how we are different than our competition. Last time I checked, a degree from a well-known medical was not a requirement for figuring this one out. The best type of branding arises from reading a book.
