A communications consultant is an expert in the field of establishing brand reputations, cultivating a brand voice on media, and increasing engagement with customers using traditional and digital media. As a communications consultant, you will be expected to be an expert in diverse skills related to art and design, as well as an expert communicator.
Your skills should also include the ability to grasp complex ideas and simplify them for larger audiences. This becomes especially important when creating a brand’s design, such as its logo, collaterals, and more.
Why hiring a communications consultant?
Knowing how to encourage consumers to buy from a certain brand takes years of experience and skill-building. The only way a business can survive is if it meets its sales targets and if customers keep returning to buy from the business. Even if a business organization is capable of producing great quality products, that doesn’t always mean that they equally excel in the art of marketing those products to clients.
That is where a communications consultant is brought in. The primary job of the communications consultant is to build a narrative and brand for the business. They then have to market that brand to a target audience. The target audience is designed to be one that is most likely to be receptive to and buy from the business.
Many businesses either don’t know how to effectively leverage social media, or they simply don’t have the time to handle marketing themselves. In such times, a business may hire a communications consultant to step in and offer assistance.
A communications assistant can either be a full-time employee, but more often than not, they are freelancers as well. Working part-time or entering into retainership agreements with certain clients is also how communications consultants get work.
The communications consultant will have to work with the marketing and communications department of businesses, or their marketing representative, to identify and deliver key findings pertaining to an effective communications strategy.
Here is everything you will have to do as a communications consultant:
1) Copywriting and Graphic Design
These are basic skills that all communications consultants have. Even if you don’t know how to write good copy or edit quality pictures, you should know what looks good and what works. Communications consultants typically gain their skills after working in the industry for a long period of time, at least ten years. All these years of experience help them instinctively understand how to communicate better with different audiences.
But these skills can also be learned earlier. If you know how to write great copy or conceptualize a good post for social media, then kudos to you. Otherwise, many companies already have an in-house design department. In these situations, you would direct, assist, and support the team in implementing your strategies.
2) Branding
Developing a client’s brand image will be a crucial job for you. In order to do this, you will first have to understand the client, as well as their mission and vision. It’s your job to integrate the company ideology into your marketing strategy and build a brand voice that is unique to the client.
This branding can also extend to logo design, website design, collaterals, and other company branding equipment. Here you will be expected to help build the brand’s public image through their branding.
3) Social Media
In today’s world, social media is the biggest and best way to reach out to large audiences and increase your customer base. For many businesses, higher social media engagement rates fuel sales and success. At the same time, having low visibility on social media can hurt sales as well.
People turn to social media to find out about life, what to buy, and who to buy from. Here, the communications consultant has to identify the correct target audience and build social media campaigns that draw them towards their client.
The communications consultant should know how to use different social media channels, as well as how the algorithms on these different platforms work. Your job will be to increase your client’s influence and reputation on social media and then generate those leads to sales.
4) Analyze and Market
Understanding key metrics and analytics also falls within the job description of a communications consultant. Much of this information is already available online for free. Tools like Google Analytics and more will help you.
The objective is to collect data on how the company’s communications strategy is working, as well as how it can be improved. An example of this is running metrics after a social media campaign to better understand how effective the campaign was.
5) Present Findings
As a communications consultant, you will also have to present the findings of your research to your client. The business insights you gained from understanding the client’s communications strategy is explained here, along with your recommendations for improvement. From your presentation, the client should be able to understand how your presence as a communications consultant can elevate their brand.
You can do this by presenting suggestions for improvement, as well as isolating any areas where the client’s current communications strategy might be lacking.
You can also diversify your skillset to gain more job opportunities as a communications consultant. These involve offering training to improve customer relations or media relations in general.
To conclude
A communications consultant has to understand the client’s business, as well as their business goals. It’s your job to guide the company towards a communications strategy that can meet those goals. The tools of your trade are social media, data, as well as the ability to understand what will resonate with audiences and what won’t. Use your skills to join a workforce of communications experts who enable clients to scale their businesses and establish their reputations.
As a communications consultant, you’re always busy ensuring that your client’s voice is heard by consumers. You should also ensure your reputation is just as secure by getting insurance for your communication business. Find out more about insurance for communication consultant.
