How to Decide a Consultant’s Hourly Rate
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Ready to kick your marketing efforts into high gear but are unsure where to start? Consider hiring a marketing consultant to help you plan and implement successful campaigns. There are a few elements to consider when setting an hourly rate and factors that may affect certain consulting fees.
A marketing consultant is an employee who works in a contract role providing advice and building strategies and publishing campaigns that promote your product and brand. Your business may set goals to boost your marketing efforts, only to notice you’re lacking the employees and resources to do so. Marketing consultants can handle these complex tasks for you. Depending on their skills and expertise and your business’ needs, you can hire them to complete a wide range of services, or you can stick with one or two.
Common tiers of marketing consultant services include:
Marketing consultants should have a strong skill set to help effectively promote your content and bring in impressive conversion and engagement results. Marketable skills for consultants to have are:
Now that you know which services and skills to look for in a talented marketing consultant, you can determine your budget. Here’s what to consider when setting an hourly rate:
The first thing you need to do when determining rates is to figure out the typical amount consultants are charging for certain services and how much organizations are typically willing to pay for them. Head online and research average marketing consultant salaries. This helps you better understand how much to budget and how to better prepare for the initial amount a consultant will ask for.
Your business should be willing to pay higher rates for marketing consultants with more skills and relevant experience in your industry. Consider how much experience a consultant has and how much they typically make in a full-time marketing position. This helps you determine the rate they’re most likely to charge clients. For instance, a marketing coordinator usually makes around $45,000 per year. Use this number to help you determine how much they may charge hourly for their services.
Divide their annual income by the total hours they worked in a year. Since they will be covering their own health care costs and other benefits, it’s best to multiply that hourly rate by three to account for these additional expenses and ensure they have enough to make a livable wage.
Speaking of livable wage, consultants will also need to base their rates on how much they need to make each year to live comfortably. This includes monthly expenses, like bills, mortgage or rent payments, groceries, car payments and insurance payments, along with common expenses like regular car maintenance or doctor appointments.
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There are common factors that may impact how much consultants will charge you for their services. These typically include:
As you determine what to pay marketing consultants, consider how advanced their skill set and experience are, especially if they’re charging higher rates. A larger investment in a great marketing consultant can bring in impressive sales leads and more long-term customers.
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