Marketing Consultant Online: What a Plan Review Covers

Booking a marketing consultant online for a plan review means paying for an hour of an experienced marketer's attention on the plan you already have, rather than paying them to write one from scratch. A good review tells you which of your assumptions will fail, where your budget is in the wrong place and what to measure next month. This guide explains what a review covers, what to send beforehand and what a useful outcome looks like. It is part of our wider guide to getting business advice online.

Who a plan review is for

A review suits three groups:

• Founders who have a plan, or at least a spreadsheet and some intentions, but no marketer on staff.
• Small businesses spending £500 to £5,000 a month on advertising without a clear idea of the return.
• Anyone about to sign an agency retainer and wanting an independent view first.

It is not the right session for a business with no plan at all; that is a strategy session and takes longer. Nor is it for someone who needs the work done. A review tells you what to change, not who will change it.

What to send before the session

The more you send, the less time the consultant spends asking. Send:

1. The plan itself, even if it is one page.
2. Three to six months of numbers: spend by channel, leads or enquiries, sales, website traffic.
3. Your one-sentence description of the customer.
4. Your prices and your main competitors' prices.
5. The three competitors you worry about.
6. What you have already tried that did not work, and what you think the reason was.

If you have not launched yet, a plan review is premature. Start with our guide to how to validate a business idea and come back once you have real customers to describe.

The seven things a reviewer checks

1. Who the customer is

"Small businesses" fails this test. "Independent cafés with two to ten staff in UK cities, owner-run, already using a card machine" passes. Every later decision depends on this sentence being specific.

2. The offer and the price

Could a stranger say in ten seconds what you sell, who it is for and why you rather than the alternative? If the consultant cannot after reading your plan, your customers cannot either.

3. Channel fit

Are you where your customers actually are? A common finding: a business-to-business software company putting 70% of its budget into Instagram because the founder enjoys it, while its buyers are on LinkedIn and in two trade newsletters.

4. Unit economics

This is where most plans fall apart. A worked example:

Figure	Value
Monthly ad spend	£2,000
Leads generated	80
Cost per lead	£25
Lead-to-customer rate	10%
New customers	8
Cost per customer	£250

If a customer is worth £400 in first-year gross profit, the channel works and could take more budget. If a customer is worth £150, the channel is losing money on every sale and should be cut or fixed before anything else. A reviewer will ask for these six numbers and, if you cannot supply them, that gap becomes the first action.

5. Measurement

Can you trace a sale back to the channel that produced it? Tagged links, conversion events and a simple weekly sheet are usually enough. Without them, the next review will be guesswork too.

6. Compliance

UK advertising must be legal, decent, honest and truthful under the CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority. Email and text marketing to individuals needs consent under rules the Information Commissioner's Office oversees. A reviewer will flag claims you cannot substantiate and mailing lists you cannot evidence.

7. Sequencing

Finally: what should happen in the next 30, 60 and 90 days, in what order? Plans usually list ten things in parallel. A review turns them into a queue.

What you should leave with

Ask for these before the session ends:

• Three to five prioritised changes, with the reasoning.
• One thing to stop doing immediately.
• The three numbers to check every week.
• A written summary. In a chat session you have the transcript; in a video session ask the consultant to type the summary into the chat.

What it costs and how payment works

Rates vary with experience and sector. As a benchmark, a 60-minute review from a consultant with ten years in your market usually costs less than one week of a badly targeted ad budget. On ConsultChat you pay when you book, the platform holds the payment until the session is delivered, and the consultant is credited only afterwards. Check the platform's current terms for how disputes are handled.

Be wary of the "free marketing audit" offered by agencies. It is a sales document, and it will conclude that you need the agency.

Questions to ask the consultant

• "What would you cut first, and why?"
• "Which single number would you check weekly if this were your business?"
• "What have you seen fail for businesses at my stage?"
• "Where is my plan optimistic?"

Our guide to questions to ask a business mentor covers the broader list.

Choosing the right marketing consultant online

Look for direct experience at your stage and in your sector, a profile that names specific results rather than adjectives, reviews from completed paid sessions that mention specifics, and a willingness to say "I don't know, but here is how to find out". Avoid anyone guaranteeing results or page-one rankings.

Next step

A good marketing consultant online will not rewrite your plan for you in an hour. They will tell you which three things in it matter and which five do not, and that is worth more. For how this fits alongside finance, legal and operations help, see our hub on business advice online. When your numbers are gathered, create a free ConsultChat account and book a review with someone who has already marketed to your customers.