Marketing Strategy & Planning for Growing Brands
We build marketing strategies for founders and executives who have real budget to deploy and no confidence in the plan on the table. This is not a brand workshop with sticky notes. It is a written document you can han...
We build marketing strategies for founders and executives who have real budget to deploy and no confidence in the plan on the table. This is not a brand workshop with sticky notes. It is a written document you can hand to your head of marketing, your agency, or your board, and execute against Monday morning.
The engagement is short, the deliverables are concrete, and the lead is a Google Premier Partner with scar tissue from running growth across North America, Europe, and other global markets.
When you need strategy, not just execution
Most marketing spend is wasted at the strategy layer, not the execution layer. The ads are fine. The website is fine. The problem is that nobody decided what this brand is going after, how, and with what money.
You probably need a strategy engagement if one or more of the following is true.
- You have raised funding and have six to 18 months of runway tied to a growth plan that does not exist yet
- You are spending $30k or more per month across agencies and freelancers with no documented plan tying the spend together
- You are preparing to enter a new geography and the home-market playbook will not copy over cleanly
- You have three agencies pitching you and no framework for choosing between them
- Your last CMO left and you need a plan your interim head of marketing can execute while you hire
- You have product-market fit in one segment and you are about to spend real money to expand into another
If you just need ads launched or content produced, skip this page. We have retainers for that.
What is in a strategy engagement
Every strategy engagement ships with a written document, a workshop, and a 90-day execution plan. Here is what goes in each.
Go-to-market plan
A documented plan covering who you are selling to, what you are selling them, why they should care, and how you are going to reach them. ICP definition at the segment level, buying committee mapping, the specific triggers that put your product on a buyer's desk, and the geographies you are prioritising.
Positioning
A positioning statement your team can actually repeat. Category, who it is for, what it is better at, and what the proof is. We stress-test positioning against your closest three competitors before locking it.
Channel mix
A recommended channel mix for the next 12 months with budget weights. Paid ads (Google, Meta, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn), SEO, content, events, partnerships, PR, outbound sales, and the channels you should explicitly not invest in. Every channel gets a stated objective, a USD budget range, and a KPI.
Measurement plan
The full measurement architecture. What you count, how you count it, where it lives (GA4, CRM, Looker Studio, or a purpose-built dashboard), and who owns each number. We write out the event taxonomy, conversion definitions, and reporting cadence.
Budget allocation
A line-by-line USD budget covering 12 months, broken down by channel, asset type, and quarter. We include agency fees, media spend, tooling, production, and the ten to 15 percent contingency that every marketing plan needs and most plans ignore.
90-day roadmap
A week-by-week execution plan for the first 90 days. What ships when, who owns it, what the dependencies are, and what the success criteria are for each milestone. This is the document your head of marketing will live in.
Case study - Cross-border expansion for a growth-stage fintech
Client name withheld under NDA. Numbers are from the client's internal planning documents and post-engagement review.
The situation
The client was a Series A fintech with roughly 60 percent market penetration in their home segment. They had raised a $14 million Series B with a thesis that included expansion into two new geographies. The founders had a two-page Notion doc they called the GTM plan. Their investors had seen it and pushed back. The board wanted a real plan before any expansion spend went live.
What we did
Six weeks, three workshop days on site at their office, and deep interviews with their sales team, customer success team, and five of their largest customers. We also ran structured interviews with five prospects in the first target market and three in the second to pressure-test the expansion thesis.
We produced a 74-page strategy document covering GTM for the primary target market specifically (the secondary market got deprioritised based on the interviews), positioning adjusted for the new enterprise buyer, a channel mix weighted heavily toward outbound sales and partnerships in year one, paid ads and SEO in year two, a full 12-month USD budget, and a 90-day roadmap for the launch.
We also explicitly recommended they not expand into the secondary market that year. The founders took that seriously, cancelled the hiring plan there, and redirected the budget to the primary market.
The outcome
- Primary-market entry launched in Q2 the following year, three months later than the original plan but with a funded execution plan
- First 12 months in the new market: 34 enterprise customers closed, $3 million in ARR, slightly ahead of plan
- Board signed off on the expansion without a second round of strategy review
- Founders hired a Head of Market in the new geography in month four, executing against the written plan
How a strategy engagement runs
Week 1 - Context
Two half-day sessions (on site or remote). We interview founders, exec team, sales leadership, and where possible, customers. We pull every existing artefact (previous plans, agency proposals, pitch decks, GA4, CRM data) and read it.
Week 2 - Market and competitor work
Desk research on your category, competitor teardowns, customer interviews (we typically conduct five to eight), and initial hypothesis formation.
Weeks 3 to 4 - Drafting
We draft the strategy document in chunks and review each section with you. Positioning first, then GTM, then channel mix, then budget and roadmap.
Week 5 - Workshop
Full-day workshop with your exec team to pressure-test the plan, resolve disagreements, and finalise priorities. You leave with a signed-off plan.
Week 6 - Delivery
Final document delivered, executive summary prepared for the board, handover call with your head of marketing or agency to make sure execution can start Monday.
FAQ
What if we already have a strategy and just need a second opinion?
We offer a Strategy Review for $5,000. Two weeks, one workshop day, written review document covering strengths, weaknesses, and the three to five changes we would make if it were our plan. Most clients who engage us for a review end up running a full Strategy Engagement afterwards, but that is your call, not ours.
Who leads the engagement?
The lead strategist is Ahmad Alshareefi, a Google Premier Partner with over a decade of experience running growth for B2B and consumer brands. You get senior time, not a junior with an Asana board.
Do you work with in-house marketing teams or replace them?
We work alongside in-house teams. A strategy engagement typically makes an in-house marketing team more effective because they finally have a plan to execute against. We do not take over the team, we do not replace the CMO, and we hand off cleanly at the end of week six.
Can the strategy engagement cover international expansion?
Yes. Roughly half of our strategy engagements include a new-market expansion component. We have run customer interviews across multiple geographies and have the operator relationships to do real research, not desk-only work.
What happens after the engagement?
Three options. You execute in-house using the plan. You hire us as an ongoing retainer for paid ads, SEO, and content. You hire us as a fractional CMO at $7,500 per month to help your team execute for the next 90 days. Roughly 60 percent of strategy clients choose one of the latter two.
GET IN TOUCH
Ready to talk
If you are about to commit real money to a marketing plan you do not fully believe in, pause. Book a 30-minute call. We will tell you whether a strategy engagement makes sense for where you are, or whether you are actually ready to execute and just need a good agency.
Book a strategy call with Ahmad, or email ahmad@bigalc.com with a short note on what you are trying to decide.
Serving B2B and consumer brands across North America, Europe, and worldwide. Google Premier Partner.