Mitch vs hiring a marketing agency

The call usually goes the same way. A friendly voice, "we help tradies in your area", and a proposal at A$1,500 a month for a year. Before you say yes or no, it helps to know what that money buys and what you will still be doing yourself.

What the retainer covers, and what lands back on you

An agency sells hours: a strategist, a designer, someone to schedule posts. You still supply the raw material, because only you were at the job. The photos, the details of the repair and the sign-off on every post come from you or your office person.

Mitch is a narrower thing. You send in the finished job, it drafts the Facebook and Instagram posts, and on Local and above the Google post, the review text and the reply drafts. You approve. No account manager, no monthly call.

Side by side

Questions for any agency quote

1. Is the price GST inclusive? A A$1,500 quote that becomes A$1,650 on the invoice is a different deal.
2. What is the agency's fee and what is ad spend? Some proposals mix the two.
3. Is SEO in the retainer or another line?
4. Who holds the domain, the website login and the Google profile?
5. What do I pay to leave in month four?
6. Can I see work for a tradie in a market like mine, say a plumber in a regional town rather than a Sydney property developer?

Cold calls from someone "who noticed your Google listing is not ranking" deserve extra care. Ask for the company name and ABN, then check the ABN on the ABN Lookup site before you talk further. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.

Where Mitch falls short

Mitch does not build a website from nothing, design a logo, run paid ads, shoot video or do PR. It does not guarantee rankings or build directory citations. If you are launching a new company in Adelaide and need the name, logo, site and van wrap done together, that is agency work.

A smaller example: a deck builder in Penrith finishes a job on Friday. With an agency, the photo goes in a shared folder and appears in a post on Wednesday. With Mitch, the draft is there before Friday smoko ends. The difference is speed and cost, not creativity.

When the agency is the better pick

• A rebrand, a launch or a full website build.
• Paid ads run by someone who does it daily, with your budget and your sign-off.
• Several crews or branches, where one team needs to coordinate.
• You would rather brief a person once a month than use any app.

Using both

Plenty of tradies hire a one-off site build and use Mitch for the weekly work. Agree who posts to which page. Two sources posting to the same Facebook page in the same week looks muddled.