Positioning that says nothing
A proposition every competitor could also claim is not a position. If swapping in a rival’s name leaves the sentence true, the market has been given no reason to choose.
03 · Strategic Marketing
Marketing judged on contribution.
Reach, impressions and engagement are inputs. None of them appear in a set of accounts. We start from what a customer is worth and what one costs to acquire, and work backwards to the activity that justifies itself.
01 · The problem
A budget is being spent. Nobody can prove what it bought.
This is rarely anybody’s fault. Marketing is measured in its own vocabulary, finance is measured in another, and no one is asked to reconcile the two, so the annual review becomes a discussion about activity rather than return.
Channel chosen by fashion
Budget follows whatever was discussed most recently rather than where this business’s customers actually decide. The result is presence everywhere and traction nowhere.
Acquisition cost is unknown
Without a defensible cost per acquired customer and a lifetime value to set against it, there is no way to say whether spending more would be growth or waste.
Nothing is governed
Campaigns launch without a stated hypothesis, a measurement plan or a stopping rule, so underperforming activity continues on momentum rather than evidence.
02 · What you receive
Positioning first, then the engine.
Building demand generation before the proposition is settled is how businesses spend efficiently on the wrong message. The order below is not negotiable, and it is the reason the work holds.
03 · How it runs
The proposition is a pricing decision.
What you claim, who you claim it to and what you charge are one decision, not three. Marketing engagements that treat them separately produce a proposition the finance function never agreed to.
- 01
Establish what a customer is worth
Margin, repeat rate and retention by segment. Until this is known, every judgement about acquisition spend is a guess dressed as a decision.
- 02
Settle the position
Which buyer, against which alternative, on what claim, tested against what the sales team actually hears rather than what the leadership team hopes.
- 03
Build the engine
Channels funded against modelled return, each with a hypothesis and a stopping rule agreed before any money is committed.
- 04
Report in financial terms
Monthly, in the language of the P&L. If marketing cannot be discussed at board level without a translator, it will keep being cut first.
04 · Is this the right service?
Five signs this is the work you need.
Any one of these is worth a conversation. Three or more usually means the problem is positioning rather than execution.
- You could not state, to the nearest sensible figure, what it costs you to acquire one customer.
- Your website copy would remain true if a competitor’s name were substituted for yours.
- Marketing reports on reach and engagement; the board asks about revenue; neither side is satisfied.
- Discounting has become routine, which usually means the proposition is not carrying the price.
- You have changed agency more than once and the underlying problem has followed you.
05 · Questions
On strategic marketing specifically.
General questions about fees, timing and how engagements are scoped are answered on the frequently asked questions page.
No. Agencies execute; we set the position, the economics and the governance they execute against. Good agencies generally welcome this, because a clear brief and an agreed measure of success is what they have usually been asking for.
We are not a creative studio and we do not pretend to be. We write the proposition, the architecture and the brief, then work with whoever produces the work, yours or a partner, to keep the output faithful to the strategy.
Then the first version is approximate and clearly labelled as such, which is still far more useful than nothing. We record which assumptions are weak and what would need to be tracked to firm them up, so the model improves as the data does.
Yes, though the shape changes. With long sales cycles and few accounts, the work concentrates on proposition, pricing and the account economics rather than on campaign volume. The underlying question is identical: what a client is worth against what winning one costs.
Honestly: it depends on your sales cycle, and anyone who answers otherwise is guessing. What appears quickly is clarity on where money is currently being wasted, which is often the first measurable effect. Revenue change follows the cycle length of your own market, not our engagement calendar.
06 · Start the conversation
Tell us what is actually holding the business back.
An introductory consultation is a straightforward conversation about your position and your priorities. No charge, no proposal deck, and no obligation to go further.
- What to expect
- Forty-five minutes with a senior adviser, followed by a short written summary of what we heard.
- What to bring
- Your last set of management accounts, if you have them. If you do not, that is already useful to know.
Vader Barclay ConsultingManagement · Accountancy · Marketing