How much demand is there for marketing consultants?

One of the biggest fears of going it alone is the worry of not knowing whether or not the demand for what you’ll be offering will be sufficient enough to get things off the ground in the early days and sustainable enough to render your business a success in the long term.

Given the fact that we grant skilled marketers the chance to join the Opportunity Marketing as franchisees and essentially start their own business as marketing consultants, we thought it’s only right to look at the potential size of the market for the clientele we cater for.

In order to identify how much demand there might be out there, we have to look at what we’re offering and who we’re offering it to.

SMEs in the UK

Latest figures published show there were over 5.2 million SMEs in the UK which had less than 10 employees in 2016. We’ve looked at the figure for the smallest number of employees as these businesses are the ones which are unlikely to have a dedicated marketing department or team and thus are the ones which can typically benefit from expert advice. These smaller businesses with less than 10 employees also accounted for 95.6% of the total number of SMEs in the same year, showing that they make up a large portion of businesses within the UK.

Furthermore to this the overall turnover for businesses with less than 10 employees was £718 billion in 2016, which averages out as a turnover of around £138,077 per business. Given that this is just an average figure there are going to be business turning over well beyond this amount meaning there are going to be a fair few businesses which will be able to afford our services. Take this into account along with the sheer number of SMEs and it’s clearly evident that there are plenty of businesses which fall into our target market.

Now this is merely a brief overview to demonstrate the size and scale of the SME market however we hope it provides some sort of idea of the number of potential clients out there.

But do SMEs need marketing support?

Well if we look at the failure rate of businesses within the first 3 years then it’s clear to see that they’re lacking some sort of support or assistance. Over half of the UK’s SME market fail to make it past 3 years of operating with even more failing to make it to 5 years.

Now this doesn’t mean that their failure is strictly down to marketing however there is a strong likelihood it plays a part. Research from Hiscox on small businesses needs for marketing support revealed that 26% of their respondents (out of 1,000 small enterprises) claimed they need some sort of marketing support and advice. Additionally research from Royal Mail MarketReach also highlighted that 81% of small firms saw marketing as being critical in their aspirations to grow.

The openness to marketing and the acceptance of its role in business growth by SME owners is a big testament to what can be achieved if it’s done properly –  all of which is likely to see SMEs viewing our services as being necessary.

The offering

One of the strong points of Opportunity Marketing is in what we offer. While there are many creative agencies and marketing consultancies out there, they don’t place as much of an onus on making the strategy the basis for their recommendations. This is a fundamental part of our practices here at Opportunity Marketing as we recognise the importance first establishing what needs to be done before deciding how to go about doing it. Many consultancies and agencies are quick to offer fancy new websites and marketing collateral without establishing how necessary it actually is.

At Opportunity Marketing we’re offering skilled marketers the chance to come aboard and we understand that you’ve most likely got the worry in the back of your mind in regards to how much potential business there is available out there. Understanding how big of step working switching from employment to self-employment can be, we hope this blog has gone some way in putting you at ease, however if you do have any further questions then feel free to get in touch.