Please take the time to read the following as it will quickly help to establish if there is a good fit.
The freelancers executing on each channel will report to you directly on whatever frequency you agree with them. We will prepare and update consolidated data dashboards that cover performance across the entire business including channel level data. In addition, we will send you consolidated breakdowns of how things are progressing from our perspective once per month. We also like to have a detailed monthly catchup call with you to discuss progress, blockers and ideas.
As a broad guideline, we provide all round strategy, freelancer recruitment, project management, data analysis, and reporting. The execution is handled by your freelance (or in-house) team, who you’ll have direct contracts with. Our focus is not on long reports since we have a bias for action, and most of our recommendations are short, concise, and only in outline form. We can then expand where that would be helpful.
We generally don't do detailed proposals because that requires a lot of time and effort that we could spend elsewhere. We've spoken to several clients where we invested a lot of time in proposals, only to discover they were not serious or did not have the budget. We will instead spend time answering questions by phone or email to give you a comfort level on how we’ll approach working for you.
We have recently been working with a lot of wellness and beauty brands and this is something we really enjoy. But most importantly, you are willing to invest into growth. Perhaps you’re a startup or you are bringing new products to the market. You might be an established player that wants to reinvigorate your digital presence. You are willing to engage, listen, and then implement with gusto.
Yes, of course. Our standard contract includes mutual NDA clauses.
The first month will be spent gathering information, getting access to everything, analysing data and learning more about your business. From there we will formulate a high-level plan, start building your freelance team, and providing strategic guidance on the campaigns and projects. Low hanging fruits always come first.
In our experience, regular team calls are rarely productive, so we’d rather spend the time working on your growth. We like to have monthly client meetings with a set agenda, additional ad-hoc calls as required, plus regular email comms in between. Since we operate as strategic consultants that don't actively manage your campaigns on day to day basis, this structure tends to work well. The freelancers will report to you directly and you're free to setup any meeting cadence with them. We also speak directly to the freelancers on a regular basis to support them and provide direction.
We are external consultants and while we do act as an extension of your team, we are not a part of your full-time staff and would prefer for that to be clear to all stakeholders.
This depends on your situation, target market, product range, channels, etc. Once we’ve discussed this we can give you a clearer indication.
We are not a panacea. It takes time and we suggest working with us for at least 1 year. The goal is to help you build a lean and sustainable marketing function, address inefficiencies, and share lots of insights along the way, so you gain long-term value.
We promote the freelancer model for several reasons. (1) It removes the typical agency model from the equation and is a lot more cost effective. (2) Stable freelancers tend to be happier due to their better work-life balance, resulting in better outputs for you. (3) You can focus on keeping your core team small, happy and productive. (4) There is great, highly specialised talent all over the world so why limit yourself. (5) They tend to take more personal ownership of their work and offer a more flexible service.
Every contract is between you and the freelancers directly. Things can and will go wrong just like they do with employees or agencies. When this happens, we will jump in to find replacements with minimal disruption to the business.
Time is not the best measure of the value we provide, our focus is on impact and the thinking behind that is hard to quantify. But as a guideline, depending on the service, our time commitment can range anywhere from 16-32 hours a month, with most clients falling somewhere in the middle of that range.
Consider that a f/t CMO costs 150-250K per year and agency daily rates can run to 4 figures. Our services cost a fraction of that with far less commitment. Since we focus on strategy and oversight, we’re able to get a lot done in a short amount of time.
Your existing team or your new freelance team will do most of the heavy lifting, while we help to oversee strategy and provide them with guidance on their work when we see opportunities. You’ll work directly with them on day-to-day tasks, while our emphasis is on growth and performance.
To get the best from our relationship, it’s important that you communicate with us clearly, action requests for any materials, and provide timely feedback. We also ask that you assign 1-2 people as our main points of contact to prevent things getting lost in translation.