Firm internet marketing is a phrase professional service businesses use for everything that happens online: the website, search, paid advertising, email, social presence and the reputation that surrounds all of it. Because the phrase covers so much, proposals under it are almost never comparable. One agency quotes a content retainer, another quotes an ad management fee, a third quotes a rebuild, and the firm ends up choosing on price for three different pieces of work. The fix is not more meetings. It is a written scope produced by the buyer before any proposal arrives, so that every quote answers the same question. This page sets out how to write that scope and how to check the answers you get back.
Write the scope before you take the pitches
A usable scope fits on two pages and contains five things. The service lines you want more clients in, ranked by profitability rather than by revenue. The geography or market you compete in, stated precisely, because national and local are different products. The state of what you already have: the site, the analytics, the listings, the existing content and who maintains them. The internal capacity you can commit, particularly professional time for interviews, review and approval, which is the resource that kills more plans than budget does. And the outcome you will judge on, expressed in enquiries or signed clients rather than in traffic. Hand the same two pages to every candidate. The quality of the questions that come back is the single best signal you will get about who is worth hiring, and it costs you nothing to collect.
What a competent provider does in the first ninety days
Almost always the same sequence, regardless of the label on the retainer. An audit of what exists, including the technical health of the site, what already ranks, where enquiries currently come from and what the listings say. Instrumentation, meaning analytics and Search Console configured properly, conversion actions defined against real business events rather than page views, and call tracking if the phone matters. Remediation of anything actively losing you enquiries, such as broken forms, slow pages or a listing with the wrong hours. Then, and only then, production: pages for the service lines you named, in the market you named. A provider who proposes content production in week one without instrumentation has committed to being unable to prove anything they later claim.
Consultant, agency or package, and how to tell which you are buying
Three shapes are sold under the same phrase. A consultant sells judgement and a plan, sometimes with hands-on execution, and suits a firm with internal capacity that needs direction. An agency sells a team and delivery, and suits a firm with budget but no internal capacity. A package sells a fixed bundle at a fixed price, and suits nobody particularly well but is cheap and predictable. The tell is in the proposal. Judgement is priced by the engagement and describes decisions. Delivery is priced by the month and describes deliverables. A package describes inclusions with no reference to your situation, which is why the same document can be sent to a law firm and a plumbing company. If you are weighing internet marketing consulting against a full service retainer, ask each to state what they would do differently for you than for their last client, and compare the specificity.
The checks that survive the sales call
Google publishes guidance on hiring a search provider that works as a checklist here too. Ask for examples of previous work and success stories you can verify independently, then verify them. Ask what results they expect and in what timeframe, and remember Google's own note that some changes take effect in hours while others take months. Be wary of unsolicited approaches, of claimed special relationships with Google, and of anyone who will not explain their methods plainly. Nobody can guarantee a number one ranking, and Google says so. On the commercial side, insist on ownership of the domain, hosting, analytics, ad accounts and every asset produced, with the agency granted access. Insist on named individuals rather than a generic team, a deliverables list with dates, and an exit clause with thirty days notice after any initial term.
Questions people ask about firm internet marketing
What should firm internet marketing actually include?
Whatever your scope document says, and nothing you did not ask for. Typically a working site, search visibility for your named service lines, reliable intake and tracking, and one or two acquisition channels executed properly. Breadth is usually a symptom of a package rather than a plan.
How do we compare proposals that describe different work?
You cannot, which is why the scope document comes first. Give every candidate the same two pages and require them to price against it. Where a provider proposes something extra, ask for it as a separately priced option so the comparable core stays comparable.
Should we hire in house instead?
In house works when there is enough sustained work to keep a competent person busy and someone senior able to judge their output. Below that threshold you get an under-supervised generalist. A common middle path is one internal owner of the plan plus external specialists for execution.
What contract terms matter most?
Ownership of accounts and assets, named deliverables with dates, a defined reporting shape, and notice terms. Those four decide whether the arrangement is auditable and whether leaving is a decision or a rebuild. Price is the term buyers negotiate hardest and the one that matters least.