Marketing ROI: Guide to Hiring a Social Media Marketing Consultant

Inner Architect’s focus is Social Direct Marketing based on the integration of social media channels with direct marketing strategies. We focus on producing positive measurable results for our  wine industry clients. Do you know how to hire a consultant?

You are your winery’s GM, COO, Marketing Director, or Direct to Consumer Manager and you are in charge of creating, executing, and maintaining a social media marketing plan with Twitter as your centerpiece. You understand the following challenges in executing this task:

• Time: you do not have the time to execute and maintain your winery’s social media marketing plan
• Expertise: you do not have the expertise nor the background to leverage Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Foursquare, etc.
• Expense: you do not have the budget to hire, train, and pay benefits to a new employee to execute your marketing plan

What Are You Getting From Your Social Media Consultant?

What are you getting when you hire a social media consultant to run your company’s Twitter presence?

• Goals: have you identified your goals for Twitter? Do you want to drive traffic to the tasting room, sell wine club memberships, network with wine journalists, broadcast events, develop new leads, or create offers?
• Strategy: do you have a specific strategy that you want the consultant to execute?
• Plan of Action: did you receive a written plan of action from your consultant on how they will achieve your desired goals?
• ROI Measurement: Is your consultant explaining how he/she will measure their efforts on Twitter to provide a clear picture of the ROI for your investment in their services?
• Progress Reports: Has your consultant set up a schedule of regular reports detailing their progress?

Are You Ready to Participate?

Are you ready to provide the critical cooperation and help to your consultant to ensure success? Are you ready to authorize:

• Tasting Room: allow your consultant to brief tasting room staff on your Twitter action plan
• Measurement: require your tasting room staff probe visitors to understand which channel provided the motivation for their visit ie. Twitter, Facebook, email, postal literature, telesales, catalog
• Database Integration: are you ready to bring all your data points POS, eCommerce, telesales, email, Twitter, Facebook all together in order to create life-time value for your consumers in each marketing channel

Conclusion

If you are not receiving the service and planning from your consultant then it’s time to reevaluate your decision. Review and use this article as a check list for what you should expect from your marketing consultant and from your organization.