Top 10 Pain Points Your Communications Consultant Can Solve

Your organization is doing meaningful work — healthcare programs save lives, associations advance your industry, nonprofits that make a difference — but your communications hit roadblocks. Emails go unread, social posts underperform with low click-throughs, and campaigns don’t get the results you hoped for.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. And the truth is, sometimes you might just need the right partner to help your messaging and strategy reach their full potential.

While agencies provide broad, full-service support, a communications consultant offers focused, strategic, and flexible expertise that complements your team, and, yes, even while working with an existing agency.

Here are 10 reasons why bringing in a communications consultant might be the smartest move for your next project.

1. Lack of a Tailored Strategy

If your messaging feels scattered and reactive, and no one in the organization knows which initiatives matter most, it is a common issue. Consultants dig into your organization’s specific challenges, goals, and audience behaviors. The result? Strategies designed to actually solve your problems, with no cookie-cutter campaigns and no generic advice.

Consultants can also create frameworks and toolkits so your team can continue executing and maintaining communications independently. This could include launching a new campaign, rolling out internal communications, or engaging stakeholders.

Often, hiring a communications consultant to perform a communications audit, helping to clarify your organization’s goals, and build a strategy better aligned with your organization’s mission can help you prioritize your messaging. A consultant can even develop a phased communications plan that focuses your organization’s efforts where they have the biggest impact.

2. Too Many Contacts, Too Much Confusion

If your organization has multiple agency contacts or agencies, it often slows down decisions and further frustrates your staff. Small changes can take a week or more to resolve, especially if your contacts need to consult a subject-matter expert (SME), adding more time and more delays to agenda items that are impacting your organization’s bottom line. A consultant can bridge your internal team and agencies, providing oversight, aligning messaging, and streamlining approvals to prevent delays.

The upside to working with a consultant means you have one person managing your communications projects. Faster responses, clearer direction, and fewer email tags, while still collaborating seamlessly with your agency if you have one.

3. Misaligned Channels and Messaging

Is your organization struggling with its website, social media, and email campaigns? Are they not producing the results you’re seeking? More importantly, do you know why? It may be inconsistent branding or gaps in messaging.

Consultants assess which platforms, messaging, and tools best fit your brand and audience. This can include internal communications, social media, email campaigns, websites, stakeholder messaging, and media relations.

This ensures every communication channel works efficiently and delivers the intended impact.

4. Low Engagement from Employees or Target Audience

As leadership teams make decisions, they need department heads and front-line staff to bring those visions to life. But what happens when internal teams aren’t responding to those initiatives or calls to action?

Consultants help organizations craft messaging that connects with employees and audiences, earning buy-in so the organization can move forward without disruption. Strong communication leads to engagement that supports retention, satisfaction, and organizational alignment.

This can include improving attendance at staff town hall meetings, boosting member engagement, or increasing participation in fundraising campaigns.

5. Leadership Struggles to Communicate Vision

Executives and leaders are tasked with articulating goals and securing buy-in; however, these goals often fall flat.

From executives to department heads, communication consultants help leaders communicate with clarity and impact, such as developing tailored messaging for specific audiences. This ensures that your vision and strategy are understood and embraced across your organization, and positively impacts your bottom line.

6. No Clear Measurement or Metrics

Can you confidently say that your organization’s communications are making an impact? Many organizations rely on the “spray-and-pray approach” especially those who don’t have a firm grasp of how to define metrics, track performance, and refine their communications strategy.

Hiring a communications consultant can eliminate the unnecessary guesswork to help you define measurable goals, track the right metrics, and help interpret the results so your communications strategy continuously improves.

7. Budget Constraints or Need for Flexibility

Full-time hires, maternity leave coverage, or agency retainers can be expensive for businesses. However, there are still projects that need to be completed to keep the organization moving forward.

Considering bringing in a communications consultant on a project basis, for fractional part-time coverage, or for a pilot initiative can provide scalable support without the significant costs, allowing leadership to focus resources where they matter most.

8. Uncertainty About Consultant Value

In most cases, organizations hesitate to engage a communications consultant or agency because they’re unsure of the return on investment (ROI). And that is entirely fair. Unlike hiring a new employee, most contracts don’t include a 90-day performance review and a cancel-for-any-reason clause.

Working with a communications consultant on a single project lets your team experience the value and fit before committing to a longer-term engagement, making it perfect for testing new strategies, campaigns, or channels.

9. Missing In-House Expertise

It isn’t uncommon for teams to lack specific skills or experience, and organizations don’t always have pre-built teams to rely on. What organizations fail to realize is that by asking teams to complete projects they don’t have the skills or experience for, you’re overloading some of your best team members.

Consultants often bring niche expertise that may not be in-house, such as healthcare communications, association engagement, or nonprofit storytelling. Consultants can also train internal teams to maintain and implement these strategies moving forward, if desired. This allows your organization to scale its impact without overloading your team.

10. No Strategic Partner to Navigate Complexity

When your communications initiatives aren’t aligned with your organizational goals, communication challenges can feel overwhelming. Complex projects begin to take a back seat to day-to-day activities, which in turn creates missed opportunities to propel the organization forward.

Consultants act as a strategic partner, helping you navigate complex communications challenges, elevate your brand, and align messaging with organizational goals. Whether you’re supplementing internal capacity or needing someone to work alongside an agency, a consultant adds a strategic layer that drives results and helps anticipate and build adaptable strategies that remain effective as priorities and audiences evolve.

The Bottom Line

A communications consultant isn’t meant to replace your team or agency; they help amplify results, provide clarity, and deliver practical solutions to the real pain points that slow your progress.

Which of these pain points is a common occurrence in your organization right now?

Feel free to reach out to us to explore how a communications consultant could elevate your organization’s strategy and results.