Marketing consultant clients span a whole range of different industries. Essentially, any company that’s focused on marketing, that cares about their brand or wants to bring in new customers could use the services of a marketing consultant. Knowing exactly which types of clients you’re targeting will help you attract and close more of those clients.

Here are some of the most common types of clients marketing consultants encounter.

==> Brand Oriented Companies

Brand oriented companies tend to be larger companies with larger marketing budgets. Their primary goal when they’re spending marketing dollars is to win mindshare and associate specific emotions with their brand.

In other words, they don’t expect to make a sale right away. Their primary concern isn’t response or sales, their primary concern is brand.

A marketing consultant in this context helps guide the business’ brand along and makes sure that every ad the company puts out adheres to the brand’s core message.

==> Response Based Companies

These are the polar opposite of brand oriented companies. These companies don’t care about branding at all. Their main objective is to turn a profit from every ad. If they spend $10,000 on advertising, they expect $12,000 in revenue to come in. If they don’t make back their initial investment, the campaign was a failure.

In this context, a marketing consultant can help choose what kind of media the company advertises in (radio, mail, internet, TV, etc.) They can help direct the copy or the creatives to ensure they convert. They can also help pick specific publications or channels to advertise in.

==> Small Businesses

Marketing consultants can also specialize in helping small businesses succeed. For example, a marketing consultant might help a local dentist figure out how to attract more clients from surrounding cities.

Small businesses tend to expect very measurable results. You either get them more customers or you don’t. If you succeed, many small business owners will be more than happy to refer you to other local business owners.

==> Service Providers

Service providers can include Software as a Service (SAS) providers, industry-specific consultants (e.g. software consultants), debt consolidation specialists and really any other company that provides a service. Many of these companies operate on the internet or operate on a nation-wide basis.

Marketing consultants in these contexts tend to be tasked with establishing a pipeline. These companies don’t just want you to come up with one or two successful marketing campaigns. Instead, they want you to help them develop a repeatable system of generating clients on a regular basis.

Your job is to identify ways they can bring in more customers and convert more customers, then make sure their staff can actually execute on that plan consistently.

These are some of the more common kinds of clients you might encounter as a marketing consultant. You can target everyone from very small businesses and solo-entrepreneurs to multi-million dollar corporations. Clients come in all shapes and sizes.