The world of offline consulting is massive. There are so many opportunities and such a wide variety of ways to help an offline business find success online.
In this section of the guide, you will find a list of services that many offline consultants are performing today in their own consulting companies. It is impossible to list every possible service opportunity but let this list serve as a starting point and you can create your own unique ideas from there.
Web Design – Creating websites, company blogs, mobile sites or specialized sites to meet a businesses particular industry needs.
Website/Blog Maintenance – Once a site goes live, it needs to stay current. Many companies do not have the time or expertise to do this themselves so it presents a fantastic consulting opportunity.
Search Engine Optimization – Once a company has a website live on the internet, they need to make sure the site is found by potential buyers. SEO services can be an easy sell if the client sees the potential payoff of being ranked high on search engines. Google Places is a “must learn” for local SEO.
Media Buy Campaigns – Most companies have advertising budgets and they understand that their audience is surfing websites like Facebook. Helping companies run effective Pay Per Click campaigns on these kind of networks can be very profitable for both the consultant and the offline company.
Lead Management – Generating and managing leads found through online methods can also be a profitable service. If you can help a company capture warm/hot leads online and turn them into buyers, you will have repeat business for a long time.
Domain Registration and Hosting – While these are both very inexpensive things to setup, most offline companies don’t even know where to begin. This is a very easy way to help a company and make a nice profit as a consultant.
Social Media Management – Ask any local business if they think Twitter and Facebook are important and they will agree. They will also be willing to pay credible consultants a management fee if they can take care of the company’s social media profiles.
Mobile Marketing – Mobile media is exploding and offline companies are noticing that most of their customers are carrying around hand held devices. Turning those devices into marketing messages for a local business is something that many of these companies would be very interested in learning about.
Video Marketing – Once a business has a website and/or company blog running, they are going to attract an online audience. A great way to extend more value to that online audience is showing them videos of the company in action. A restaurant owner can show “behind the scenes” footage of the kitchen, a dry cleaner can show the detailed process they follow to make their client’s clothes come out clean and perfect every time.
There are many other opportunities available to a consultant when it comes to working with offline companies. In the end it all boils down to your interests, your skill set and what the customer sees as the highest value in terms of return on investment.
