The Marketing Diagnostic is where every engagement begins: a senior, foundational read on your business, brand, market, and competitors. It starts with your questions and ends with a recommended roadmap for the work ahead, shaped with you and timed to what your business needs.
Where It Fits
The Marketing Diagnostic won’t answer every question at once. It starts with the questions you bring, shows where your business stands, and surfaces early insights, so together we agree on what’s worth answering next, and in what order.
Setting The Foundation of Support
Your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; your marketplace and competitors; and the brand and business challenges ahead. It ends with a recommended plan for the work to come.
Ongoing support to deliver Growth
Focused outputs from the library, each answering one question in depth, such as a Channel Assessment, Messaging Framework, or Marketing Plan & Budget. The roadmap sets which come first, and when.
How It Unfolds
Typically delivered in a month or less. Timing follows discovery: the sooner the requested business and brand information arrives, the sooner the Marketing Diagnostic is ready.
1
A detailed look at your brand, business, and goals.
2
You share your brand and business information, materials, and data through a secure portal, with follow-up questions until nothing is unclear.
3
We review and assess everything you’ve shared, then layer in additional market, category, and competitive research and data.
4
Delivered and walked through together, then agreed or adjusted before the next phase of work begins.
Sample Marketing Diagnostic
A full sample for a fictional specialty coffee roaster, with illustrative data.
01
What we heard, what we see, and the recommended path.
02
Your business, brand, and marketing, set against your category and competitors, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
03
Early insights, the confidence behind each one, and where our priorities align.
04
The work to do first and what follows, with timing set to your business and each piece drawn from the output library.
05
The measures, baselines, and owners that show the plan is working.
06
Sources, references, and assumptions.
In the sample, the client’s own questions and the Marketing Diagnostic’s assessment pointed to four areas for improvement and further development. Each has a recommended next step, agreed together before any work began.
Nearly half the budget sits in one channel, with costs rising each quarter.
Next step: Channel Assessment & Optimization
Fewer first-time buyers have become subscribers since a platform change, and subscribers are the most valuable customers.
Next step: Subscription Path Review
Platform reports and store orders don’t agree, so budget calls rest on instinct.
Next step: Measurement Framework
The roast-to-order freshness and local café presence rarely show up in the marketing, despite being advantages larger competitors can’t easily copy.
Next step: Creative Exploration & Testing
What It Answers
“
We’re spending, but we don’t know what’s working.
What each channel appears to contribute, where reported results don’t add up, and what needs a closer look.
02 Assessment“
Our costs keep rising, and the reports don’t agree.
An early read on why, from tired creative to over-credited channels, with the confidence behind each finding.
03 Challenge & Marketing Priorities“
We’re not sure how we compare to our competitors.
Who you’re up against, how they show up and spend, and where your brand stands apart.
02 Assessment“
We need to know where the next dollar should go.
Which priorities come first, ranked by expected impact and by what each answer unlocks next.
04 Recommended Roadmap“
Leadership wants a plan, and we need to know it’s the right one.
A recommended roadmap with measures, baselines, and owners, built on your data and an outside view of your category.
05 Determining Success“
We have an agency, and we want an independent read on the plan.
A senior view with no media to sell, one your agency can work from.
01 Executive SummaryInvestment
For Advisor and Executive engagements, the Marketing Diagnostic is the first month, at $3,500. For Essentials, it’s the recommended place to begin. Either way, it reserves senior time for your business and commits both sides to the work ahead, so everything that follows is built on a real understanding of your business, not assumptions. The fee is agreed in writing, with no markups or partner incentives behind any recommendation.
Questions
Usually a month or less. The Marketing Diagnostic is built on the information shared in discovery, so the sooner it arrives, the sooner it’s delivered.
No. It’s a foundational read across the whole business. Where a deeper look is needed, such as a Channel Assessment or Performance Review, the roadmap recommends it and sets when.
The Business Questionnaire, a discovery conversation, and whatever reports and spend data you can share. Gaps are noted, never guessed.
No. The Marketing Diagnostic gives you an independent view your agency can work from.
The roadmap becomes the plan. Ongoing work follows it, with several pieces running at the same time when that serves the plan, at the level of involvement you choose. The Marketing Diagnostic is yours to use either way.
How we help growing businesses →Share a few details about your business, and we’ll reply to confirm fit and next steps.
Senior marketing counsel, without the agency overhead.