§ Marketing
The locked inputs, three holistic strategies run as one portfolio, and the 90-day plan. Each strategy card expands to its channel plays.
Anchor ICPs
IT-services / implementation boutiques
20–200 people · buyer: Managing Partner / Delivery Lead
Strategy & ops consulting firms
5–200 people · buyer: Founder / Partner
Budget
$2–10k / month paid media (lean)
Success metric
Paid conversions (not vanity signups)
Guardrails
LTV:CAC ≥ 3:1 · CAC payback < 12 months
Proactive scope
Weekly momentum digest + a proactive notification system across People, Growth, and Productivity — stalled items, pending approvals, capacity strain, deals going cold, threshold breaches. Emma surfaces and flags; it never acts autonomously and never prepares meetings.
Run them as one portfolio, not a single bet: a core engine plus two compounding satellites.
Core engine — proves CAC, drives the paid-conversion metric now
Win paying customers efficiently by capturing existing intent, disarming the skeptic, and converting through a value-first funnel. Every dollar is traceable to pipeline. Tone stays calm Sage throughout.
Lead narratives: N3 · Mind the decision-to-action gapN4 · One system for how your firm runsN6 · Explainable, never autonomousN5 · The teammate who keeps an eye on momentum
Three campaign types only: branded defense, conquest / "alternative to" (Kantata / Accelo / Certinia), and problem-aware long-tail. Avoid head terms like "AI project management" (3–5× CPL). Landing offer = research report or 2-minute Follow-Through Scorecard, never "book a demo" first.
Paid Lead Gen Form offering the report/scorecard to Managing Partner / Delivery Lead / COO / Founder / Ops Director at 20–200-person firms. Organic two tracks: founder operator notebook + Sage-polished company carousels showing Emma’s reasoning step-by-step. Cadence 1–2×/week.
Flow A1 — report nurture (5 touches). Flow A2 — Productivity-wedge activation, ending in a paid conversion ask. Compliant value-first cold outbound to the anchor ICP list.
Definition hub + question→answer pages loaded with the report’s statistics. Submit a Bing sitemap (ChatGPT prerequisite); seed authentic Reddit / peer-community answers.
Expected economics
Report-offer CPL realistically ~$25–60 (LinkedIn) / ~$30–70 (Google high-intent). Guardrail every campaign to LTV:CAC ≥ 3:1, payback < 12 mo; pause anything that can’t show pipeline in 4–6 weeks.
Risks
Slowest to feel "exciting"; depends on the hero report existing; conquest terms can draw low-quality clicks — mitigate with tight negatives + form qualification.
Satellite 1 — builds the hero asset that makes A cheaper and seeds GEO authority
Become the most-cited, most-trusted source of truth on follow-through and operational momentum in professional services — then convert that authority into pipeline and a self-reinforcing community. Highest-leverage play for a lean budget.
Lead narratives: N6 · Explainable, never autonomousN3 · Mind the decision-to-action gapN1 · The space before failure
Original benchmark research: "The State of Follow-Through: where decisions die in IT-services & consulting firms." Survey 100–150 ICP operators — doubles as lead-gen and relationship-building. Publish with full methodology and quotable statistics.
The report’s stats and quotations are exactly what GEO rewards (+41% quotations, +32% statistics, +30% citations). Structure as question→answer, attribute every number, submit to Bing, pursue press pickups.
Slice the report into a carousel series ("5 numbers that explain why your projects stall"), founder commentary, and guest takes from surveyed operators. Paid: promote the report to the anchor ICP.
Flow C1 — authority nurture (report → "your firm vs. the benchmark" → findings session → pilot offer). Flow C2 — contributor loop: everyone surveyed gets early findings + a soft pilot invite.
Bid on the problem-aware and conquest terms, but route to the report/benchmark as the offer — highest-converting, lowest-CPL landing experience.
Expected economics
Slower to start (report production ~3–5 weeks), but the cheapest long-run CAC: one asset powers GEO, LinkedIn, email, and Google landing pages simultaneously; community compounds (2.1× revenue growth, $6.40 / $1).
Risks
Requires real research rigor — sloppy data backfires for a Sage brand. Longer time-to-first-citation in LLMs.
Satellite 2 — invitation / concierge layer on best-fit A and C leads; manufactures testimonials + brand search
Manufacture status and belonging. Emma isn’t sold; Emma is joined. Turn the mystique/exclusivity dial to maximum while keeping the composed voice. The bend is intensity and exclusivity, never tone — on-archetype for "the Universe."
Lead narratives: N7 · Make it inevitableN2 · Momentum, not pressureN1 · The space before failure
Invitation, not signup. Replace "Start free" with "Request your place in the first orbit." A waitlist + qualification survey that qualifies hard. Accepted firms get concierge onboarding and a numbered cohort identity ("Orbit 001").
Founder posts as field notes from the edge — composed, editorial, ending in quiet inevitability, never a CTA. Company page: cinematic universe-scale brand films, pure equity. Seed real scarcity signals ("Orbit 001 is closing").
Flow B1 — the Waitlist Ascent (application → "what we look for" → acceptance → concierge booking → first-week ritual). Flow B2 — insider monthly "Field Report" that members feel privileged to forward.
Brand + "Emma Rocket invite / waitlist" only. Everything routes to the invitation page, not a generic signup.
A curated, invitation-based "orbit" (not a noisy public Slack). Rituals: cohort intros, a recurring members’ session, early access to new modules.
Expected economics
Lower direct attribution, higher organic / word-of-mouth and brand-search lift. Measured in waitlist quality, referral rate, brand-search volume — plus premium-converting paid conversions from accepted cohorts.
Risks
Scarcity must be real or it reads as gimmick (forbidden by the brand). Cult-building is slow and founder-time-intensive. Guard hard against drifting into hype/urgency.