Growth consulting
Work out what is capping growth, then build the plan that removes it.
Growth consultingBranding and positioning
Brand is not decoration. It is why someone picks you at the same price and clicks you at the same bid. We work out the position, write the story, and build the identity that carries it.
You are competing on price because nobody has been given another reason
When a market cannot tell two companies apart, the only variable left is cost. Buyers negotiate, ads get more expensive, and sales calls fill up with justifying the number. A clear position does more than win preference. It lowers what you pay for attention across every channel at once, which is why it is usually the first thing worth fixing at a company that has stalled.
Things clients tell us first
- Prospects treat you as interchangeable with two or three competitors
- Discounting to close deals you should be winning on merit
- A website that lists features and takes no position
- Internal disagreement about who you are actually for
- Rising media costs with no brand equity taking the strain
What's included
Scope moves around depending on where you are. This is the usual shape of it.
Positioning
The category you compete in, the buyer you are for, the alternative you displace, and the one claim you can defend better than anyone in the set.
Research
Interviews with customers, prospects and lost deals, plus a structured read of how competitors present themselves. The position comes out of what buyers say, not what the leadership team hopes.
Messaging
A hierarchy running from the one-line position down to proof points, objection handling and copy for each channel, so everyone tells the same story.
Voice
Tone, vocabulary and writing standards, with worked examples across ads, site, email and sales material.
Identity
Logo, typography, colour, layout, photography and motion, built as a system that holds together rather than a single logo file.
Rollout
Guidelines your team can actually apply and a plan that changes the highest-traffic surfaces first.
Brand is a margin argument
The romantic case for brand is easy to wave away in a board meeting. The commercial one is harder to argue with. Preference lowers what you pay for attention, shortens what you spend on persuasion, and raises what you can charge at the close.
Which is why we run brand work next to the paid media and the search, measured against the same economics, rather than as a separate exercise that ends in a beautiful document and no change to the numbers.
Where the return turns up
- Lower cost per click and per customer as relevance and recall improve
- Better conversion on the same traffic, because the promise is legible
- Shorter sales cycles with fewer "why you" conversations
- Less discounting, because you are no longer a commodity
- Easier hiring, since good people apply to companies they can describe
How the work runs
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1
Listen
Interviews with customers, prospects, lost deals and your own team, plus a proper look at the competitive set.
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2
Decide
Options developed and tested against evidence, then one direction chosen with the trade-offs written down.
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3
Express
Story, voice and visual system built out of the position rather than decoration looking for a strategy.
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4
Roll out
Site, campaigns, product and sales material, sequenced so the pages carrying the most revenue change first.
What we report on
Targets get agreed before anything starts, and the monthly report is built around them.
- Branded search volume. How many people look for you by name. The cleanest proxy for brand demand there is.
- Competitive win rate. Whether you win the deals where you are compared directly to a named competitor.
- Average discount. Positioning shows up on the invoice long before it shows up in a survey.
- Message consistency. Whether sales, marketing and product describe the company the same way. Measured, not assumed.
Other things we do
Digital marketing
Channels, content, conversion and email run by one team with one set of numbers.
Digital marketingSEO
Search traffic that turns into revenue, built on clean technical work and real expertise.
SEOAdvertising
Paid media built around your margins, with creative doing most of the heavy lifting.
AdvertisingQuestions we get a lot
They are different and mixing them up is expensive. Repositioning changes what you claim and who for. Rebranding changes how it looks and sounds. Most companies need the first far more urgently, and we will tell you which one you are actually buying.
Positioning and messaging usually run four to six weeks. A full identity with rollout runs eight to fourteen, depending on how many surfaces have to change.
Often that is the right answer. If the design is sound and the problem is positioning, we will fix the strategy and the words and leave your visuals alone. Cheaper, faster and less risky for the same commercial result.
With harder numbers than people expect. Branded search volume, direct traffic, win rate against named competitors, average discount, and the trend in cost per customer across paid channels. When positioning works, media gets cheaper.
For products, categories and propositions, including a screen for obvious conflicts. Full company naming with trademark clearance runs with specialist counsel, and we will bring in the right people rather than improvise.
Tell us what isn't working
Half an hour on a call. You describe the situation, we tell you what we would look at first and roughly what it would take. We usually know by the end of the call whether we are the right people for it.