In Australia, you can expect to pay a small business marketing consultant around $30 to $300 per hour. While paying $300 an hour isn't feasible for most small businesses, there's still some great value to be provided by cheaper digital marketing consultants. When looking for a great marketing consultant, be sure to:

1. Check that they have practical experience (preferable with direct experience in your niche)
2. Verify that they understand how to market for small business 
3. Check out their website and ensure they have either compelling copy on their website, blog, or both
4. Give their LinkedIn profile (and other social media accounts a browse)
5. Ask for a free consultant (or pay for a small project) as a starting point
6. Find a marketer whose best skills complement your needs. (Are they an SEO ace, social-media savant, or a paid ads guru?)

In my experience, if a marketing company or consultant doesn't have a solid online presence, generic website copy, blog (or guest posts/ feature articles), these are all major red flags. Why? Because you're going to be paying them to take care of this for your business if they can't manage this properly for themselves, what proof do they have that they're capable of doing this fr you?

This might sound harsh, but a bad consultant or agency can leave your business worse off than before due to incompetency and inexperience.