Updated
Decide what to do first.
Digital Strategy consulting is a senior independent view on what to fix, build, hire and skip - sequenced into a 90-day roadmap your team can actually run. You have ten things you could do this quarter. I tell you which one matters most, what order to do the rest in, and what to ignore.
The decisions you keep stalling on.
Most teams already know the options. They are stuck on the order. Here are the questions that come up in almost every diagnostic - and the way I answer them.
| The question | What most teams do | What I do instead | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Where do I put next quarter's budget?"SEO, paid, content, AI, hires? | Split it across everything so nothing gets cut. Nothing moves the needle either. | Score each bet on effort and impact. Concentrate budget on the top two. Park the rest. | 5 half-bets→2 real ones |
| "Rebuild this section or rewrite the content?"The classic technical-vs-content fork | Argue about it for three months. Do neither. Lose another quarter of traffic. | Look at the data: crawl signals, index coverage, query intent. Pick the cheaper fix that unblocks the other. | 3 mo debate→2 wk decision |
| "Is this AI tool worth the seats?"£500/mo, fancy demo, unclear ROI | Buy it because everyone else is. Use it for two weeks. Forget about it. | Map it to a real workflow your team runs every week. If it does not collapse hours into minutes, do not buy. | £6k/yr wasted→Bought or skipped |
| "Hire SEO in-house or stay with the agency?"One of the most expensive calls you make | Pick based on the loudest voice in the last meeting. | Cost the agency vs a senior hire on the actual scope. Show where each one breaks down. | Vibes→Numbers |
| "What's the first AI workflow worth automating?"Out of the 12 your team complains about | Pick the most exciting one. Build a demo. Realise it needs your finance team to play ball. | Pick the one with the clearest input, clearest output and lowest blast radius if a draft goes wrong. | Cool demo→Tuesday tool |
| "GEO and AI search - do we even bother yet?"Nobody has the answer in your industry yet | Wait for someone else to figure it out. Lose 18 months of citation lead. | Check whether your category gets cited at all in AI answers today. If yes, start. If not, wait and watch. | "Not yet"→Yes or no, with proof |
Sitting on a different decision? Tell me what is stuck and I will tell you whether a strategy review is the right shape of help.
Strategy is a sorted list of bets.
Every option you are weighing up sits somewhere on this grid. The job is to plot it honestly, then do the top-left first. Hover or tap a dot to see the call.
Diagnose. Score. Sequence.
Three steps. Each one earns the next. Skip any of them and you end up with a roadmap nobody trusts.
Diagnose
I look at where money, traffic and team time actually go today. Crawl data, analytics, ad spend, current tooling, the open tabs you have not closed. The picture is rarely the one in the deck.
Score
Every live option gets two scores: how much effort it costs your team, and how much it shifts the business. No half marks. Each bet ends up in one of four boxes - quick win, big bet, background, or skip.
Sequence
Top bets get plotted into a 90-day plan with owners, dependencies and stop dates. Briefs ready for the first two. The plan is built to be re-ranked when reality changes - and it will.
How it works, with a real example.
Same shape every time. Here is the diagnostic from the case study below - a brand that had everything to do and no idea what first.
Pull the real picture
Two weeks of analytics, search console, crawl data, ad spend, agency reports, and a list of every "we should..." idea sitting in Slack and Notion.
Plot every bet
23 ideas on the table. Each one scored on effort and impact, then plotted on the matrix. 6 quick wins, 4 big bets, 8 background, 5 skipped outright.
Build the 90 days
Quick wins land in the first two weeks. Big bets get owners, briefs and stop dates. Background work gets a Friday slot. The skips get killed - properly, in writing.
Walk the team through it
One session with the leadership group. Everyone leaves knowing what they own, what they stop doing, and what gets re-checked at the 6-week mark.
Same shape works for a 12-person SaaS or a 200-person services firm. The bets change. The discipline does not.
23 ideas, no priorities.
One 90-day plan.
New head of marketing, 12 months into the role. Pages of "we should..." across Slack, Notion and the agency tracker. Every meeting started with "what are we focused on?" and ended without an answer. Pipeline was flat.
We ran the diagnostic in 9 working days. 23 live ideas plotted on the matrix. Two big bets greenlit (a content programme and a CRM clean-up). Four quick wins shipped in the first fortnight. Five things killed - including the rebrand nobody had the appetite for. The agency contract was rescoped, not renewed.
in week 1
From "everything to do" to a plan that fits on one page.
Diagnostic
Two weeks of looking. Analytics, search console, ad spend, the agency tracker, every "we should..." sitting in Slack.
Plot the matrix
23 ideas scored on effort and impact. The output is uncomfortable on purpose - some pet projects ended up in the skip box.
Build the plan
Top bets get owners, dependencies and stop dates. The skips get a one-line rationale so they do not crawl back.
Align the team
One session with leadership. Everyone leaves with their own list. 6-week check-in goes in the diary on the way out.
Best fit.
A quick sanity check before we talk - so you know whether a strategy review is the right shape of help.
Right project for me
- You have too many options on the table and no senior peer to sanity-check the order.
- You want a plan your team can run, not a deck for the board.
- You are happy to kill some things in writing - including a few favourites.
Not the right brief
- You want a brand strategy or positioning workshop.
- You want a vendor to validate a decision you have already made.
- You want a 50-slide deck more than you want a 90-day plan.
Digital strategy FAQ.
How is this different from a marketing strategy deck?
Do you actually deliver the work or just plan it?
Who is this for - founders, marketing leads, ops?
How long does the engagement last?
What if priorities change halfway through?
Stop debating the order. Decide it.
Bring the long list of "we should..." ideas. The first reply tells you whether a strategy review is the right next step.
Book a call