Understanding Brand Consultants
Who are they?
An individual who develops strategies and plans to develop or define your brand is known as a brand consultant. A brand consultant, to put it simply, focuses on ways to identify, improve, and develop a brand's reputation over time.
What do they do?
All the services which Brand consultants provide are mainly categorized under 3 main phases.
Research & Insights
Website audits: They make sure the website presents information clearly by analyzing the copy, messaging, and digital metrics.
Competitor Analysis: They can do market research to look for competitors and then help you find your niche markets.
Design Audits: They look at all the visual components used in a company's communications across all platforms and help with making it streamlined.
Value Audits: They assist bigger businesses, in particular, in determining whether their corporate messaging aligns with their values and vice versa.
Strategy
Creating a Brand Strategy: Answering questions like Who are we? what do we do? What do we stand for? The answers to these questions will help you determine the brand promise, personality, architecture, status, and target market.
Creating Brand Messaging: Defining things like Mission statement, values, logo usage, overall messaging, brand voice, and identity standards.
Providing Brand training: Assuring adequate adoption of the created brand guidelines and helping train employees on how to effectively communicate the brand message and live it each day through their actions
Design
Creative Visual development: Consistent color palette, logo, typography, and overall visual representation of the brand
Creating a Brand guideline document for all the employees to follow
Do I need a brand consultant for my brand?
You need a brand consultant if you relate to one/more of the reasons below:
You're either attempting to attract a new audience or your brand identity feels obsolete.
Your business has recently undergone some substantial adjustments.
When you launch a new product line.
You're unsure of how to set yourself out from the competitors.
You're having trouble reaching your target audience with the proper message.
Increasing web traffic.
What to look for in a brand consultant?
Good understanding of business
Understand trends
Knows the difference between marketing and branding
Asks questions about your brand/business/goals
Have an iterative process
Have great communication skills
How much should I pay a brand consultant?
There are a lot of different ways a consultant can charge--hourly, cost plus profit, value, etc. So, it depends on who the consultant is and what you want done.
According to our experience, these rates often range from $65 to $300 per hour. This fluctuates significantly based on a person's background, expenses, and demand. Fees for the typical consultant usually fall in the $100–175 per hour range. If you compare this to the wage of an employee, which can be $30 an hour ($60,000 per year), you might think it's way too expensive. What you need to do is consider every element that goes into a project.
But let's be more explicit. What if one consultant can give you a 10-hour ($1,500) plan that results in new sales and a $10,000 profit boost? Would that be worth the expense? Absolutely. On the other hand, it can be a complete waste of time and money if you pay $1,000 for a week of brainstorming and counseling with no results. The "value," in this context, refers to what your company will get from the outcomes of the brand consultant.
If your company is small and just getting started, you might not need a brand manager on staff full-time but can work with a part-time/freelancing consultant.
As your company expands, you might think about hiring a brand manager full-time.
