Strategic marketing planning and advice
Clear strategic recommendations, practical plans and senior challenge to help you choose the right direction and priorities.
Strategy & plans →Growth advice for SME owners
Help to grow your business — starting with what to stop.
Senior marketing and business advice for owner-managed SMEs: which market, which offer, which channel, and how you will know in a quarter whether it is working.
A sample of Epitomise customers
The situation
Owners rarely need more ideas. They need fewer, held longer.
By the time an owner asks for help growing the business, the list of possible moves is already long: a new sector, a second product, a website rebuild, an exhibition, a hire. Every one of them is plausible, and running them all at once is the reliable way to make sure none of them compounds.
So the first job is subtraction. Agree what growth means in numbers and by when. Decide which buyers you are actually chasing and which you are letting go. Define the value you sell in words a buyer would recognise. Then pick the few things that move those numbers and give them enough resource to be real.
The second job is holding the line. Plans lose to the day job quietly, so the work runs on a quarterly rhythm with targets, owners and a review that makes drift visible while there is still time to correct it.
Engagements are scoped by outcome, not by hours — a defined piece of work with an agreed target. Start with a narrow scope if you would rather see a result before widening it.
How we can help
Three ways in, and they combine.
Clients engage Epitomise in three complementary ways, choosing one service or combining them as their needs evolve.
Mentoring, coaching and training
Hands-on support that builds confidence, capability and best-practice ways of working across owners, leaders and teams.
Mentoring & training →Campaign delivery and implementation
Agreed marketing campaigns and execution support delivered within the scope, budgets and approvals we set together.
Campaign delivery →The Transform Accelerator
One framework, four stages, run as a quarterly rhythm.
Discover new opportunities in your business and sustainably increase revenue by following a trusted plan — manageable growth that respects today’s challenges and cash-flow constraints.
- 01 · Review
Get a new perspective on your business. Discover its value to guide the transform strategy.
- 02 · Focus
Identify and prioritise new ideas to design a manageable plan of action to transform your business.
- 03 · Implement
Empower your team, build new processes, create assets and deliver through the most effective channels.
- 04 · Optimise
Test and measure performance, optimising often to grow results and improve return on investment.
What clients say
Three clients, in their own words.
Have worked with Epitomise for over six years and very happy with the level of service they provide. Our marketing campaigns are providing more enquiries than we can handle. Luckily, they are always available to help tailor the marketing to suit our budget and month to month requirements.Anton Van Der WattDirector · Digital AV · quoted in 2021
Steve is a pleasure to work with. His extensive knowledge of marketing, and specifically in our sector, is impressive, and his structured and inclusive style worked well in getting us all to focus on what really makes the difference. I’d recommend him to anyone who is looking for real strategic advice and guidance that comes with practical and clear deliverables.Cindy PhillipsHead of Marketing · OGL
Steve clearly knows his stuff – his expertise, enthusiasm, fresh ideas and detailed research have helped take our strategic marketing to the next level. Very happy with the fantastic service from Epitomise.Michelle RobinsonMarketing Manager · Versinetic
- 16
- client engagements published in full, with the work shown
- Four
- sectors, from EV charging design to domiciliary care
- 11
- guides written and published
- 2017
- the year Epitomise was founded
Selected work
Three businesses that started with a plan, not a campaign.
A sample of engagements across IT services, audio-visual technology and architectural design.
IT services · Windows migration
APP Technology
A joint marketing plan, then successive campaign waves — website content, collateral, webinars, search and display — introducing APPtechnology’s new offerings and building a pipeline of new client opportunities.
Read the case study →
Audio, visual and data technology
Digital AV
A three-year business and marketing strategy, two websites — one commercial, one consumer — and a continuing campaign programme: 40 leads in the two months after the November 2018 launch.
Read the case study →
Architectural design
Escape Design
A strategic marketing plan, then website messaging and campaigns targeted service by service and place by place — 148 enquiries in a three-month snapshot.
Read the case study →Common questions
What owners ask before they start.
We are busy and growing slowly. Is that a strategy problem or an execution problem?
Usually it is a priorities problem wearing one of those two costumes. The quickest way to tell is to write down the three things that would most move your numbers this quarter and check how much of last quarter went on them.
How small can the first piece of work be?
Small. A single defined outcome — a market and buyer decision, a value message, a plan for one launch — is a perfectly good place to begin. The scope is agreed up front and priced against the outcome rather than against time.
Do you write the plan and leave?
Not unless that is what you want. A plan nobody stays with tends to become a document in a drawer, so most engagements include involvement while the first cycle runs and a review at the end of it.
Do we have to replace what we already have?
No. Most of the work is deciding what to back and sharpening what already exists. Where an agency, a tool or a channel is earning its place, it stays.
Free guide
26 marketing strategies to grow leads & sales in 2026
Hints, tips and best practices, including the strategies, approaches and tools Epitomise uses with clients.
Related
Related pages.
- Building the capability to grow — the companion page: the team, not the decision.
- A ten-step approach to growth — the method, step by step.
- Problems we solve — the short list of reasons people get in touch.
Not sure which of your growth options to back?
A short discovery call is usually enough to tell. No deck, no pitch.
Book a discovery call