A Consultant Can Improve Online Performance

An Internet Consultant can really add improvements to a business; even website design and development companies should regularly source a consultant’s advice and recommendations. The Internet is a massive place with a population that is evolving at an impressive rate.

Every week there are many new websites, techniques and approaches that could be applied to promote and draw new customers to a website. As with all marketing, it is not the method that ensures success, it’s the approach taken. The approach needs to match what Internet users are expecting to see, a good Internet consultant will understand what current best practice techniques are required to maximise on the amount of success a marketing campaign will generate.

The future of a business’s interaction with an internet consultant will change; in the next few years consultants could hot desk within the businesses they serve. In one day spent at a client’s office many face to face meetings could occur, for example a meeting with the sales department to cover:

  • Current online performance and what should be focused on internally.
  • The Internet provides the best consumer research platform available, it can let you know what your customers want, when they want it and what they can’t find on your website. A consultant can review and provide this information.
  • Feedback on how discounts and offers are performing online, reviewing successes and failures of promotions to learn and improve them.
  • Discussions on how new sales initiatives can be applied online and what new products and services need to be promoted, and to what audiences. The same could occur with the marketing department, providing advice, feedback and recommendations.

This would allow a marketing department to understand what is working, what could be trialled and how best to develop future marketing messages. Employing a full time Internet Consultant would be expensive and potentially flawed. If a company is lucky enough to have an Internet Marketing manager, they should still seek external consultancy services. It can be hard to see past business constraints and current ways of working, sideline objectives often take over and much time can be spent building relationships with key stakeholders.

Full time employees often have interdepartmental barriers that can cause conflict due to different objectives and priorities. It then becomes very hard to break the “It’s how it always has been done” mindset and think out of the box.

An external consultant can cut through existing cobwebs, propose and implement measurable improvements without some of the full time employee constraints. It’s a benefit that often applies to externally sourced advice and recommendation, maybe this is because the organisations that seek external help understand the associated returns.