Commercial
Who we are not a fit for
Most businesses do not need a marketing agency, and some of the ones that do should not hire this one. Here is the list, written to be used rather than to look humble.
Do I need a marketing agency is the right question to ask before you ask who. If any of the following describes you, the honest answer is no, or not us, and you have just saved yourself a month of calls.
Where we are the wrong shop
- You want your current site optimised in place. This one is first because it is the most common. We do SEO on websites we build, so it is a hard no rather than an opening position.
- You want the person who pitched to be different from the person who delivers. There is one person here and he does both, which is either the reason you hire us or the reason you do not.
- You want a ranking promised, or a date attached to one. We will not do it, and we publish the refusal rather than negotiating it privately.
- The search seat in your industry and your city is already taken. One SEO client per industry, per city, and when it is gone we tell you it is gone instead of taking a deposit to put you on a list.
- You want an ad account managed for a percentage of the spend. We charge a management fee and your budget goes straight to Meta, which means we have no incentive to tell you to spend more.
- You want milestone billing, a deposit arrangement or net sixty. Websites are paid in full upfront and retainers are billed monthly.
Where the money does not work
Below our floor the honest version of this work does not exist. What exists for a few hundred a month is a generated report, a scheduled post and an invoice, and we would rather point you at a tool you can run yourself than take the money and perform the motions. The floor and the arithmetic behind it have their own page.
The division that actually matters is yours, not ours. If one new customer is worth a fraction of the monthly number to you, the maths never closes and no amount of good work fixes it. Tell us what a customer is worth on the call and we will do that division out loud, with you, before anybody signs anything.
Where the timing does not work
If you need revenue inside three weeks, search is the wrong instrument and we will say so rather than sell you the wrong quarter. Paid social moves faster, and we will tell you honestly whether your offer is one that paid social can carry. Sometimes it is not.
If you are about to rebrand, sell the business, or change what you sell, wait. Structural search work on a business that is about to change its name is paying for the same thing twice, and the second invoice is the one you will remember.
Where we are a fit
A business with real margin on a repeat customer, in a trade or a service, in a city where somebody is already searching for what you do. One decision maker. A willingness to be told the truth about the numbers, including in the months when the numbers do nothing interesting.
90 day initial term, then month to month at the same price. The industry asks for 6 to 12 months.
If that sounds like you, the rest of this section tells you exactly what you are signing up for before you ever speak to us: the term, the floor, the ownership, the exclusivity rule and the things we refuse to claim. Read the ones that would annoy you most first.
Questions
Do I need a marketing agency at all?
Often not. If referral already fills your calendar and you have no capacity for more work, marketing is a cost with nothing on the other side of it. Fix capacity first, then come back.
Is this a sales filter dressed up as honesty?
It is a filter and it is honest. Both are true at once, and the test is whether the disqualifications cost us money. They do, every month, and we publish them anyway.
What if I am under the floor but serious about this?
We will say so on the call and tell you what to do yourself in the meantime, specifically, for free. Then come back when the numbers work. We would rather have you in a year than have you resent us in two months.
Can you make an exception on the existing website rule?
No. It is the one rule with no exceptions, because the alternative is being judged on a ranking while somebody else controls the build. We will measure anybody’s site. We will only change one we made.
My industry and city are already taken. What now?
One SEO client per industry, per city. Ads and websites are not exclusive, and we say so.
