Package 1
One scorecard
Built and live. Improving it afterwards is a separate decision, and it is worth making once real traffic has run through it rather than before.
Funnel optimisation
The version you launch is never the one that earns the most
Every hundred answers tells you something the launch could not: which screen is shedding paid traffic, which band is flattering people, and which follow-up is being ignored. The retainer is someone reading that every month and changing what it says to change.
Not open yet. When it opens it tells you whether you have enough traffic for this to be worth buying.
The monthly loop
- Read what came back
- Pick the one thing costing the most
- Change it
- Report what that was worth
Four weeks, then again. The fourth line is the one most retainers skip.
The problem
Launch day is the least informed anyone will ever be about your buyers
The model was built on what your sales team believed. Then a few hundred people answered, and some of what they believed turned out to be wrong.
That is not a criticism of the build. It is the only way a build can start. You cannot write a scoring model from response data that does not exist yet, so the first version is an argued hypothesis with a number attached.
What happens next decides whether the whole thing earns. Most funnels are launched, celebrated, and then left exactly as they were for two years while the traffic behind them keeps costing the same. The answers pile up in an export nobody opens.
Someone reading those answers on a cycle is worth more than the build was, and it is the part almost every engagement drops.
What actually changes
Six things we watch for, and what each one turns into
None of these are found by staring at a dashboard. They are found by reading answers, which is the part that takes the time.
The signal
One screen sheds a fixed share of every campaign, month after month.
The change
It gets rewritten, moved later, or turned into two easier ones. If it earns its keep in the model it stays and gets softer wording; if it does not, it goes.
The signal
Most respondents land in the same band.
The change
Weighting and thresholds get re-cut. A top band holding half your traffic is not a top band, and your sales team has already stopped believing it.
The signal
High scorers book calls and never buy.
The change
The model is measuring enthusiasm rather than fit. The factors get re-weighted against closed business, which is the only source of truth that matters.
The signal
One answer option is chosen by almost nobody.
The change
Either the option is unrealistic or the question is. Both are fixed the same way, by rewriting the option set around what people actually said in the open fields.
The signal
A whole traffic source finishes at half the rate of the others.
The change
That source gets its own entry page and often its own opening question. A cold visitor and a returning one should not meet the same first screen.
The signal
The report goes out and nothing happens for nine days.
The change
The follow-up gets rewritten against what each band actually answered, and the routing rules get tightened so a top-band lead reaches a person the same day.
Rewriting the questions is the same craft as writing them in the first place. Re-cutting the bands is the scoring model, revisited with evidence the original version did not have.
The first year
The easy wins land early, and the valuable ones land late
A retainer that only cleans up launch mistakes is worth about four months. This is what the rest of the year is for.
The obvious losses
The worst screen, the weakest option set, the follow-up nobody opens. These are visible in the first full month of traffic and they are the largest single return the retainer produces.
Month 1 to 2
The model, against reality
Enough responses have landed to see whether the bands sort anyone. Thresholds move, factors get re-weighted, and the routing rules change with them.
Month 3 to 4
The market underneath
Several hundred answered sets is a survey of your buyers. It reshapes the questions, and usually the sales pitch and the next quarter’s content as well.
Month 5 to 8
A second angle
The first instrument has a ceiling. A second one, aimed at a different stage or a different buyer, is usually worth more by now than another pass at the first.
Month 9 onward
The months are where we would expect each stage to land at moderate volume. Heavy traffic pulls all of it forward. It is a judgement call, and the honest version is that the data arrives when it arrives.
What you have at the end of any month
Four things, and the change log is the one that matters
- A written change log: what was altered each month, why, and what it did to the numbers.
- The current question set and scoring model, versioned, so you can see what changed and roll back.
- Follow-up copy rewritten against what each band answered, live in your own email platform.
- A quarterly read on what the responses say about your market, which is the part clients forward internally.
A retainer you cannot audit is a retainer you cancel in month seven. The change log exists so that the value of this is arguable with evidence rather than defended with adjectives.
Packages
This is the whole of the third package
Separated by scope, not by how many hours anyone bills.
Package 2
The funnel around it
The build, the entry pages and the follow-up. The measurement is in place, so the first month of this retainer starts with numbers rather than opinions.
Package 3
The programme
This work, in full, on a monthly cycle. Someone reads the responses, changes what is not earning its place, and tells you what the change was worth.
Prices go on the pricing page as numbers once they are fixed. Until then the scope is the honest part, and the scope is above.
What is in each packageWhere this is the lead need
Four sectors where a funnel left alone goes stale fastest
Anywhere the benchmark, the market rate or the capability gap moves under you, the instrument has to move with it.
Membership associations
An annual benchmark is only worth joining if this year’s cohort data beats last year’s. The instrument has to be re-cut every cycle or the comparison gets thinner.
Corporate learning and development
Capability gaps move as the workforce moves. A model written against last year’s skills matrix quietly stops predicting who needs the programme.
Dental and veterinary
Peer benchmarks are the draw, and a benchmark is only as good as the last hundred practices that answered. That is a cycle, not a launch.
Recruitment
Salary bands, time to hire and offer acceptance all move with the market. A hiring diagnostic that is 18 months stale gets argued with rather than acted on.
Questions
The five things people ask before they commit to a cycle
No. That is a project on the pages around the instrument, run once, and it ends. This is the instrument itself on a monthly cycle: the questions, the model, the bands and the follow-up. They touch different files and they are bought at different times.
Your turn
Find out whether yours is worth improving or worth rebuilding
The scorecard rates your funnel on the four things that decide whether traffic becomes pipeline, and it is blunt about which of the two answers applies.
Not open yet. The score and the report are yours whether or not we ever speak.