Key Takeaways:
- Digital marketing consultants guide, strategise and map out a marketing plan with their expertise for better results.
- The average cost of hiring a consultant may range from $2,500 to $20,000+ per month.
- A consultant studies the target audience and identifies the highest impact channel to create a growth strategy aligning with the business’s goal.
- The best consultants can offer a 78% increase in returns and significant scalability.
Hiring the best digital marketing consultant in the USA is not just about getting good leads in ad campaigns; it is much more than that. From getting referred in answer engines such as ChatGPT and voice search results to getting measurable growth in ROI, it is all now requiring the right strategy and the right tools.
With tighter privacy rules and quicker algorithm shifts of search engines and social media, every big or small business is struggling to attract an online audience. Thus, hiring a digital marketing consultant is not a choice but the need of the hour.
While many step back due to high cost, let’s look at the real pricing required for digital marketing.
Cost of Hiring the Best Digital Marketing Consultant in the USA
Let’s get a breakdown of the pricing by first looking at what you are paying for and what affects the cost.
What Does a Digital Marketing Consultant Do?
It’s important to understand what you are paying for. Here is what all digital marketing consultants do for you:
- Map out a marketing strategy aligning with your goal
- Plan, create, monitor and manage your advertisement campaigns
- Enhances sales and brand visibility using various strategies such as SEO, SMM, SMO, etc.
- Use data and analytics to make improvements and optimisations.
- Email marketing and CRM setup
- Takes care of content funnel, ad optimisation, SEO, website content and ranking
- Tracks and reports performance.
While the terms “digital marketing agency” and “digital marketing consultants” overlap, there are differences.
A digital marketing agency takes care of everything in the online marketing and does it themselves. While digital marketing consultants do not replace your in-house marketing team, they guide you with proper planning, strategies and optimisation for better results.
Their core work includes:
- Doing comprehensive competitor research
- Creating a social media strategy aligning with the latest trends and algorithm updates
- Mapping the customer journey
- Laying out content strategy
So hiring a digital marketing consultant means paying for expertise, experience and strategic growth.
Average Cost of Digital Marketing Consultants in the USA
Digital marketing consultant in USA charges may vary depending on various factors, but here is an average pricing range:
Hourly consultancy: $75–$350+ per hour
Monthly cost: $2,500–$20,000+ per month
Project/Strategy Sprint $5,000–$80,000+ one-time
Fractional CMO $7,500 – $35,000+ per month
Performance-based % of revenue, profit, or bonus structure
While these costs may vary depending on the following factors:
- Expertise
- Experince & Portfolio
- Industry
- Scope of work
- Timeline
- Expected result
The best digital marketing consultants with a great portfolio and experience of scaling big brands may quote $300+ per hour or $20k+ per month. If this seems a costly afair, you can choose a mid-level consultant who charges fairly and delivers desired results.
How can the best digital marketing consultant help you achieve better ROI?
If you are still confused about whether spending on a digital marketing consultant is worthwhile. Or if you are thinking that your digital marketing team doesn’t require a consultant, here is what the numbers say:
- More than 78% of businesses in the USA reported better ROI after hiring a digital marketing consultant in just six months.
- With the right email marketing strategy, businesses made an average return of $36 while spending just $1.
- 55% of marketers face challenges in understanding the target audience.
- 72% fail to get desired insights from analytics and data
In all these scenarios, expertise and right guidance can help ensure consistency.
Here is why every business needs a marketing consultant for growth and scalability:
- Identifying high-impact channels: Not every channel is effective for every business. As the goals are different, the strategy and optimisation for every channel need to be unique. For the right plan, it’s important to identify the highest impact channel. Businesses can leverage each platform, such as social media and search engines, depending on the audience they want to target.
- Waste elimination & budget efficiency: Budget optimisation is all about spending the right amount at the right place. When you know the highest-impact channel, you can allocate more of the budget to that channel while cutting down on the poorly performing channels and ineffective strategies.
- Performance Tracking & Continuous Improvement: As there are number of online marketing channels, it becomes difficult to keep track of each one. While tracking the performance is not enough, using the insights to map improvement is also important. Consultants guide you to optimise performance points for better value by studying the cost per acquisition, lifetime value, and other metrics.
- Leverage AI & automation systems: Automation tools and AI in the digital marketing industry are making waves; it’s time for you to adopt these in your digital marketing plan. Consultants can give you suggestions on the right implementation tools and adoptions that can help scale profitability.
Consultants can be your smart move to get a competitive edge. If you have one, you have an expert who can guide you through the ups and downs of the marketing journey and leverage every channel and every trend to its maximum result. Beyond the short-term gains, investing in a digital marketing consultant will offer long-term benefits.
Summary
Consultancy may look like a luxury thing, but in this hyper-competitive world, the best digital marketing consultants will help you leverage the right tools and strategies for the most effective results and scalability. Though agencies or in-house teams can run ads, SEO campaigns, or email marketing campaigns, the best digital marketing consultant in the USA will help you map a strategy that optimises the budgets effectively, improving the ROI and targeting brand identity.
