How long is the document?

About four pages, plus the calendar. The test we hold it to is simple — can a different person read it tomorrow morning and start writing posts that sound like you, without asking us anything. A thirty-page deck full of archetypes and persona illustrations fails that test, gets opened once, and is never opened again.

Do we get actual posts or just a plan?

You get the calendar with every hook written out as real copy rather than a topic label, so each row is something a writer can act on. Full production of the posts is a separate engagement. Where the calendar is the deliverable, thirty or ninety days of it is the normal shape.

We already post constantly. Why do we need this?

Because volume without a decided direction is the expensive version of doing nothing. The usual finding in the audit is that three years of posts fall into one bucket — announcements about the company — and that this is the bucket performing worst. Knowing that changes what next month looks like more than another twenty posts would.

Can you just tell us which platform to be on?

That is part of it, and the answer is usually fewer than you expect. Two platforms run properly beats five run thinly, every time. Which two depends on who buys from you and how they decide, not on which app is currently being talked about.

What do you need from us?

A recorded 45 to 60 minute call, access to your analytics and past posts for the last six to twelve months, and if you have them, your inbox questions and customer reviews. The call is the part that cannot be substituted — almost everything worth publishing is already in your head and filed under obvious.

Why is this sold separately from running the accounts?

Two reasons, one of them slightly uncomfortable. If you take the strategy and go elsewhere, the work still got paid for. And a document somebody paid for gets acted on, while a free one gets skimmed. We would rather you own it either way.

Content, Social & Communications

Content strategy and calendar

The decisions that come before anyone writes a post — who it is for, which three or four topics, on which platforms, how often, and what gets published next month.

From: $400–$3,000
Typical time: 2–4 weeks
Usually bought by: Marketing teams

What this actually solves

Content that is bitty rather than bad is the problem here. Nothing on the account is wrong, exactly. It is just that after three years nobody could look at it and say what these people are for, who they help, or what they believe. Three people inside the company write, and all three sound like different companies. Every month starts with the same question — what should we post — and that question is answered at speed, badly, by whoever has the least on that day.

The other buyer arrives from the opposite direction. They have just ended a relationship with an agency, or hired their first marketing person, and there is nothing to hand over. No decided audience, no topics, no voice rules, no calendar. The new person is capable and has been given a blank page, which is the fastest way to waste six months.

What this produces is a small number of decisions, written down, that stop being relitigated every week. Who it is for. One primary objective rather than three. Three or four pillars with a share each. Two platforms and a cadence that survives a busy month. What we will never say. And then a dated calendar so the first thirty or ninety days are not a fresh decision each morning.

What we do, and in what order

Extraction call, recorded. Forty-five to sixty minutes on twelve questions designed to pull out material rather than opinions — your best customer by name and how they arrived, what buyers are afraid of, a customer you turned away and why, the thing your industry teaches that you think is wrong, a number you know that nobody outside knows, and what people would miss if you closed tomorrow. Then transcribed and mined. One day, including the write-up.
Audit of what already exists. Every post from the last six to twelve months, grouped two ways — by topic and by format — with the numbers attached to each group. Then the five that performed best and the five that performed worst, each with a reason drawn from the post itself rather than a guess. Then five competitor accounts, read for what they cover and, more usefully, what nobody in your category is touching. Three to five days.
Audience and the real questions. One or two buyer types, described by the problem that keeps them up rather than by age bracket. Their actual questions, taken from Reddit threads, review sites, AnswerThePublic or AlsoAsked, your own inbox, and Search Console if there is a site. Everyone as an audience means nobody. Two to three days.
Pillars, platforms, cadence and voice. Three or four pillars, each with a percentage share, and the company-news pillar deliberately capped at around a tenth, because that is the bucket that fills itself when nothing caps it and the one that performs worst. Then the platform decision, the honest cadence, and two pages of voice rules including the words never to use and the claims never to make — legal promises, competitor names, price guarantees. Three to four days.
The calendar. Thirty or ninety days, every row carrying the pillar, the format, the hook written out as real copy rather than a description, the summary, the call to action, and what asset has to be created or shot. Plus a separate shooting and collection list so you know what we need from you. Three to five days.
Presented on a call, not emailed. The document is walked through live, because this is where your objections surface and where the plan gets corrected while it is still cheap to correct. You get the recording and the files afterwards. One hour.

Tools — Google Docs and Sheets or Notion for the documents, Metricool or the platforms' own analytics for the audit, AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked for real search questions, Google Search Console where a site exists, and Claude or ChatGPT for pattern-finding across the export.

What moves the price

How many audiences you are actually serving. A local business selling one thing to one kind of buyer is a genuinely small job at the bottom of the range. A B2B company with three distinct audiences — the specifier, the buyer, the finance approver — needs three message sets, and that is most of the difference between the ends of the range.

Whether the audit is included. Reading and grouping six to twelve months of posts with their numbers attached is real work and it is the part that produces the most uncomfortable findings. Some clients have no meaningful history to audit, in which case it comes out and the price comes down.

Strategy alone, or strategy plus the calendar. The decisions can be delivered without the dated ninety days behind them. The calendar is worth taking, because a strategy without one still leaves you facing a blank Monday.

What usually goes wrong

The document gets decorated instead of finished. Thirty pages, brand archetypes, persona illustrations, a colour system nobody asked for. It looks like value and it is the opposite — it is opened once, admired, and closed. Four pages that somebody can act on tomorrow morning beat thirty that get filed.

Everyone is named as the audience. It feels safe and it removes every specific sentence from every post that follows. The audit almost always shows that the posts which worked were the narrow ones, aimed at somebody in particular with a problem in particular, and the ones that failed were written so that nobody would be excluded.

All three objectives get picked at once. Awareness, consideration and conversion in the same plan, which in practice means the calendar tries to be famous, trusted and transactional in the same week and achieves none of them. One primary objective. The others are consequences, not aims.

See where the site stands before you brief anyone.

If the site is already live, start from what it scores rather than from a guess. The audit reports what it checked, what it found, and — the part most tools leave out — what it could not check, and why.

See the website audit Talk about this work

Questions people ask before they commit.

How long is the document?: About four pages, plus the calendar. The test we hold it to is simple — can a different person read it tomorrow morning and start writing posts that sound like you, without asking us anything. A thirty-page deck full of archetypes and persona illustrations fails that test, gets opened once, and is never opened again.
Do we get actual posts or just a plan?: You get the calendar with every hook written out as real copy rather than a topic label, so each row is something a writer can act on. Full production of the posts is a separate engagement. Where the calendar is the deliverable, thirty or ninety days of it is the normal shape.
We already post constantly. Why do we need this?: Because volume without a decided direction is the expensive version of doing nothing. The usual finding in the audit is that three years of posts fall into one bucket — announcements about the company — and that this is the bucket performing worst. Knowing that changes what next month looks like more than another twenty posts would.
Can you just tell us which platform to be on?: That is part of it, and the answer is usually fewer than you expect. Two platforms run properly beats five run thinly, every time. Which two depends on who buys from you and how they decide, not on which app is currently being talked about.
What do you need from us?: A recorded 45 to 60 minute call, access to your analytics and past posts for the last six to twelve months, and if you have them, your inbox questions and customer reviews. The call is the part that cannot be substituted — almost everything worth publishing is already in your head and filed under obvious.
Why is this sold separately from running the accounts?: Two reasons, one of them slightly uncomfortable. If you take the strategy and go elsewhere, the work still got paid for. And a document somebody paid for gets acted on, while a free one gets skimmed. We would rather you own it either way.

Often taken together.

Start with the brief, not the invoice.

Send what you are trying to achieve. You get a written scope, a price and a date — or an honest “this is not the right service for that”.

Talk about Content strategy & calendar All Content, Social & Communications services