Maison Cealus works as a marketing strategy agency inside a house that also makes the work. Line III sets the position, the media plan, the paid tests and the launch order. The same house then carries the plan out, so we judge the strategy by what happens after it is written.
Most strategy fails in the gap between the people who write it and the people who run it. We close that gap by working from inside the business, close enough to see what sells, what customers ask and what they ignore.
What a marketing strategy agency should decide
Line III covers four decisions. We write each one plainly enough that everyone in the business can repeat it.
Positioning
Positioning settles who the brand is for, what it stands for and why someone should choose it over the alternative. A position is finished when you can name the people it is not for. Until then, every piece of content tries to speak to everyone and reaches no one in particular.
Media plan
The media plan sets where the audience spends its time, which channels earn the effort, how the budget is split and how often each channel is fed. Our rule is to do fewer channels properly before adding more. One channel fed every day does more than four channels fed when someone remembers.
Paid testing
Before committing a budget, we test formats against each other with small spends and let the numbers decide which ones get more. For Valeron, a SaaS company, we tested formats, doubled down on the best ones and ran them as ads. Valeron went from $0 to $16K a month in under two months.
Read the Valeron case study, and our journal piece on building a creative testing framework for the method.
Launch sequencing
Sequencing decides what goes out first, what follows and when the money arrives. A launch that releases everything on one day spends its attention in a morning. A sequence lets attention build, with the teaser before the film, the film before the paid push and the story sequence when the audience is ready to buy.
When the audience is wrong
Views only pay when they come from people who buy. For King's Fury, a short-notice fight was about to put them in front of millions, and their edits were pulling the wrong audience. We fixed the strategy, the fight made national news and the campaign did six figures, with 1B+ views in under 60 days.
The lesson reaches well beyond fights. Before you make more content, check who your current content attracts. If the comments, the followers and the enquiries do not look like your buyers, the problem sits in the plan. The King's Fury case study tells the full story.
How the strategy work runs
- Read the business from inside. We look at sales, customers, current content and the audience it attracts.
- Write the position and the plan. Short enough to repeat and specific enough to say no to things.
- Test before committing. We test formats, openings and audiences with small budgets first.
- Sequence the launch. We order the releases so each one builds on the last.
- Move money to what works. We read the numbers, cut what does not perform and put more behind what does.
Signs the problem is strategy
- Views are rising and sales are flat.
- Your followers do not look like your buyers.
- You are on every channel and strong on none.
- Ad spend goes out without a test plan or a clear read on which creative works.
- A launch date is set and nothing is sequenced around it.
- You have just raised, and the first real marketing budget has no plan yet.
If the last one sounds familiar, our guide to marketing after seed funding is a good place to start.
Strategy inside the house
A plan is only as good as the work that carries it. In the house, positioning feeds the name and the voice in Line I, Identity. The plan decides what Line II, Film makes, and Line IV, Residence runs the tests every day and brings the numbers back. If you are weighing a single senior hire against a team, our journal compares a fractional CMO and an agency.
Tell us what is not working
The application asks what is not working in your marketing right now. Answer it plainly, because that answer is where the strategy starts. We keep a short list of houses and reply personally if there is a fit.
Questions
What does a marketing strategy agency do?
It decides who a brand should reach, where to reach them, what to say, how much to spend and in what order. At Maison Cealus that is Line III, covering positioning, the media plan, paid testing and launch sequencing.
Do you run the paid tests yourselves?
Yes. Paid testing is part of Line III, so the house runs the tests, reads the results and puts more money behind the formats that work.
Is a marketing strategy agency the same as a fractional CMO?
They overlap. A fractional CMO is usually one senior person working part-time, while a house like ours brings the strategy and the people who carry it out.
Can pre-launch brands apply?
Yes. Pre-launch is one of the stages on the application, and launch sequencing is part of Line III. The earlier the plan is set, the fewer decisions are made twice.