Through our fractional model, we help businesses stand up marketing earlier, and integrate it into the organization better.
My roots in consumer strategy frame this approach — not just on paper by finding opportunities for growth, but also in practice, by standing up marketing to reap them alongside other departments.
Get to know your needs, through your people.
Step 1:
You may know exactly what your business needs — a first marketing lead, a new specialty, an intro to consumers — or you may still be feeling it out. Either way, it’s critical to learn more about it, from you directly.
I, Remy, dig in with you upfront to understand the ecosystem of your business, your people, and your consumer. This curiosity about what your consumer needs, and how the organization operates to offer it to them, is invaluable detail to anchor both the work & our relationship.
If you’d like further details on any part of the process, please open the drop-downs that conclude each of these steps.
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As you'd suspect, this starts best as a conversation. No document is better than a human at diving into priorities, or at giving a read on people. The best possible orientation is to hear your point of view, alongside those of the team leaders around you.
From there, I try to ask for anything I can read — audience details, performance metrics, even customer reviews — and to sit across from anyone that I can ask questions to & learn from. I’m good at drinking from firehoses, and there’s no such thing as oversharing. Along the way, I summarize patterns we observe, including our “known unknowns”, and what they suggest for how we’d start taking action together.
Topically, in particular, I’m attentive to who you’re selling to, and how marketing connects to your other teams. Simply, these tend to be the inflection points where marketing drives lasting growth & strong partnerships.
Step 2:
Develop a “growth map”.
After learning about your needs, teams, and consumers, I can start to be a true partner, and Smaller Apple can start to drive your organization’s development.
The touchstone we can use for everyone to work together is a “growth map”, diagramming the shape that marketing can take in your organization. This acts as a visual guide — helping clients clearly & fluidly understand marketing’s impact, and the path ahead towards it. Such plans offer detailed area-by-area plans (for when founders need to lean in), as well as high-level views on progress & impact (for when they need to focus their time elsewhere).
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The output of this process is highly visual, laying out my thinking in a small number of slides & diagrams. I use these to describe the full ideal state of marketing in your organization – opportunities that exist with consumers, how they provide tailwind to existing efforts, and how everything connects to build a brand that powers all teams. I take pride in describing this in a way that's easy for founders to digest & track over time, and that's practical to execute.
Together, we can also use this map to empower other teams in the organization directly. Simply put, partner teams need visibility & input in order to 'buy in' on how marketing’s plans and processes can meet & fuel theirs. I actively seek this type of collaboration, and use this map to help build that relationship, ensuring a marketing structure that is valuable for everyone.
Step 3:
Pull from our toolbelt, and start digging.
Strategy isn’t just an academic exercise — it helps us get our hands into the dirt. After getting all partners informed & onboard, I put marketing strategy into practice, using Smaller Apple’s full set of specialties in marketing communications & beyond.
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Defining your company's key features & critical markets, in a way that consumers and/or team members can understand & act on.
Company purpose
Brand development
Audience segmentation
Consumer research
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Building the constellation of messages & media to surround your brand's "north star". Marketing is much more effective when it can say the right things, at the right times, to the right people.
Full-brand media & communications ecosystems
Go-to-market planning
Creative strategy & briefing
Tentpole campaign planning
Social & digital strategy
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Marketing can't sell what your products, services, and features don't offer. If consumers show a need or desire for extensions to your existing offerings, we recognize this, and lay out what a company can do to successfully engage them.
Product design frameworks
Feature development
Product suite roadmapping
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Designing evergreen programs that generate consistent joy & value for your audiences.
CSR initiatives
Loyalty programs
Targeted outreach (e.g. campus programs)
Customer service principles
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Planning your online presence to facilitate sales, and to communicate your brand & product best.
Website
Social content strategy
SEO & SEM
N.B. We can also build the actual digital sites etc. via these plans, using specialists in our network.
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Across any of these disciplines, it's key that your existing teams & people can also begin to develop capability with these tools. Where applicable, we care greatly about growing the capabilities within our partners’ organizations, particularly with junior talent.
Department leadership
Partner workshops
Team upskilling
…And, for creative needs that come from any of this work, we can tap our network’s many other talents (as listed here).
Our Principles in Action
The devil is, of course, in the details. Beyond these basics, Smaller Apple’s work is bespoke above all. The basic approach above helps us ground our philosophy in action — but, the most central ingredient is the context of your business, and the specific disciplines it needs from anyone on it.
As your partner in leading this pursuit, what you’re buying is my mindset, my curiosity, and my values. Whatever your business may be, and however the work ends up reaching the page — how I show up face-to-face is consistent, and the true driver of a partnership that can grow a business over time.
Nevertheless, topical expertise can matter. If you’d like additional specifics, or examples of work relevant to you, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Coming soon:
Read more of the specifics…
…on our LinkedIn for how we practically apply this.
…on our IG for the farming principles that inspire us.
