The same four stages whether the brief is a positioning sprint or a channel build. Below that: the shapes an engagement takes, what we hold ourselves to, and what we say no to.
Why the order matters
Design that is not carrying an argument is decoration, so nothing gets made here before somebody has settled what it is arguing. The studio note that sets out why is on the studio page, signed.
The stages
Each stage has something written at the end of it. If a stage produces only a conversation, it did not happen.
Before anything gets written or designed, we go and find out what is actually true: what you sell, who buys it, what they compared it to, and where the current work is losing them.
Positioning is a decision, not a discovery. We put the options in front of the people who can settle it, argue the trade-offs, and write down what was chosen so the rest of the work has something to be consistent with.
Then the work gets made: the identity, the pages, the collateral, the creative, the sequences. Built as a system with reusable parts, because you will need the twentieth asset as much as the first.
The system goes live on a weekly rhythm and we report what it did, including the parts that did not work. If a channel or a message is not earning its place, we recommend stopping it rather than quietly continuing.
Ways to start, and what they cost
An order of magnitude rather than a quote. Published so you can rule us in or out before spending a meeting finding out, and the questions those figures usually produce are answered in full on the services page.
Ranges in USD, and an order of magnitude rather than a quote. They are published so you can rule us in or out before spending a meeting finding out, which is a different thing from a price list. What moves a piece of work up a range is the number of audiences, the number of products that have to be described, how many people have to agree, and whether there is a build attached.
3 to 4 weeks
$12k to $20k
Interviews, a competitive read, the positioning decision and the message architecture, plus copy for the pages that carry the most weight. You own the output whether or not we do anything else.
6 to 10 weeks
$35k to $75k
Identity, design system, site design and build-ready specification, with the templates for the assets your team makes every week. Engineering can be ours or yours.
Build, then rolling with a 3 month minimum
$6k to $15k per month
One or two channels set up properly with offers, landing pages, creative and measurement, then run and reported weekly. We start narrow on purpose.
Rolling, minimum 3 months
$12k to $22k per month
A small standing team across positioning, design and channels, working to your priorities on a weekly cadence, with everything documented as it is built.
What those figures do not carry:
How we hold ourselves
The people who decide the positioning are the people who write the pages and brief the creative. Work does not get handed to a delivery team that was not in the room, because that is where the message goes soft.
Design that is not carrying an argument is decoration. We settle what you are saying first, and every visual decision after that has something to be right or wrong about.
Source files, ad accounts, sending domains, runbooks and templates are yours from the start. Nothing is held back to make leaving harder.
Including the tests that failed and the channels we would stop. A report designed to protect a retainer is worth less than nothing, because you act on it.
One or two channels, one clear offer, one audience. Running six things at once means none of them get a fair test and you learn nothing you can repeat.
If a number is not measured or a proof point is not real, it does not go in the copy. Marketing that your own sales team has to walk back costs more than it wins.
The honest part
Saying this in public is the cheapest way to make everything above it credible, and it saves both of us a quarter.
If none of that put you off, describe the problem and we will tell you what we think it actually is.
