Mitch vs hiring a marketing agency

Good agencies exist, and some contractors get real value from them. The friction tends to sit in the retainer, the onboarding calls, and the gap between the proposal and the posts that go out.

Mitch is a different kind of purchase. You take a photo of the finished job in the truck, add a line about it, and Mitch drafts the Facebook and Instagram posts about a minute later. Nothing posts until you approve it.

Who each one suits

An agency suits you if you want a person to plan, a rebrand, a new site, video or paid ads, and you have the budget and the time to brief them. Whoever pitches you, ask to see work for a business your size in a town like yours.

Mitch suits you if the gap is the weekly routine: posts going out, review requests going out, and someone keeping the Google profile active. You send in a job and the work gets done, without a call.

Side by side

What an agency costs, and what it leaves out

Retainer quotes for a small local business typically run $750 to $2,500 a month, usually on a 6 or 12 month term. Ask whether SEO is in the retainer or billed on top, and put that line item in your comparison.

The other cost is your time. Even with an agency you tend to send the photos, approve the posts and chase the review asks. The retainer pays for someone to organize that work, and you still carry part of it.

Mitch plans are $99 (Social), $189 (Local) and $449 (Complete) a month. See the pricing page for what each plan includes. Review requests start on the Local plan. The website work starts on Complete. Review asks need your customer's mobile number and a consent tick before anything is sent.

Where Mitch stops

Mitch does not build websites from scratch, design a logo, run paid ads, or produce video. It does not promise rankings. It does not build directory citations.

Here is a made-up example. A bathroom remodel finishes in Tulsa. You send in a photo and a line, and Mitch drafts the posts, the review ask and the profile activity. Anything beyond that is agency territory.

When an agency is the better pick

• You are rebranding or launching a new company and need the whole identity done.
• You need a website built from the ground up, not just fixed.
• You want paid advertising set up and managed by someone who does it daily.
• You have several locations or crews and want one team coordinating the plan.
• You would rather brief a person once a month than use any app.

In those cases an agency does things Mitch does not, and the retainer can be fair value.

Questions to ask any agency before you sign

1. What is in the monthly fee, and what is billed on top (ad spend, design, SEO)?
2. How long is the term, and what does it cost to leave early?
3. Who owns the website, the domain and the ad accounts if we part ways?
4. Do you work on my Google Business Profile, or only my website?
5. How many posts and review requests go out each month, and who writes them?
6. Can I see work for a business like mine?

Get the answers in writing. An agency that hedges on the term or on who owns the accounts is telling you how the relationship will go.

Using both

An agency can build the site and run ads while Mitch handles the weekly posting and review requests from your jobs. Let only one of them post to each page, because two sources posting in the same week looks messy.