Gray Shadow Consulting.
Los Angeles based Gray Shadow Consulting is a boutique creative think tank that specializes in digital marketing and management consulting.
We are about data driven results. Setting clear expectation and targets with measurable KPIs. Our methods are published openly and field tested; we believe in the sharing of ideas, tools and resources.
Life (like marketing) does not provide easy, neat answers that are black or white. The challenges and subsequent solutions most companies face are nuanced and unique; they are gray.
What your audience sees is the polished front-end of your platform. What they do not see is the hours of effort and expertise that went in behind in the scenes, optimizing JS, A/B testing, keyword research, outreach, etc… What they do not see is the work that happened in the shadows.
“It is in the shadows we work. It is the private hours of discipline, labor and study that eventually reveal the refined action – which seems to effortless.” – Taoist Quote
Fail to plan, plan to fail.
Keep it simple. Marketing should have a scaling budget that has a measurable net positive return on investment.
What prevents you from spending more on marketing?
If a company has a $100,000 marketing budget.
… and that budget is being used well, it should produce a measured return of at least $100,000 to break even. Ideally, there is an understood relationship between any marketing action and the return on investment. i.e. for every dollar spent, we return $1.3, $5, etc at a minimum.
Once a stable marketing system has been tested and established it is time to begin optimizing the budgets while managing the ROI.
Marketing is an investment. The marketing department should be treated like an investment.
It should produce measurable returns.
Those returns or KPIs can be sales, clicks, downloads, installs, emails, data, Lifetime Customer Value(LTCV), etc; you decide what you value and how much you value it.
However, at the end of the day it comes down to profit for every business, not vanity metrics.
Marketing should help increase your profit – If it doesn’t then something needs to change.
Competitive Advantage
Outsource your marketing department.
Tired of working with multiple outside consultants, agencies and suppliers? Or doing the lion’s share of work yourself?
You’re not alone.
The first step is developing a process and a procedure manual based on current best practices, then you can automate marketing functions.
The second step to success is having the correct hiring, training, performance and project management protocols.
Most businesses – from single owner mom and pop shops – to medium and even large corporations are leaving something undone.
There is always more to do and more to improve upon.
The Model
- Audit the available pool of resources.
- Research and define what your best marketing actions would be based on those resources.
- Value engineer.
- Implement process.
- Monitor and Adjust.
Tailored Solutions
Each client or business is unique, they operate in different industries, with different budgets, goals and levels of experience. While there are some standards across most industries, the value for any company is developing the best strategy for that business.
Your first goal is to get a clear understanding of who you are, the context of your business, goals and industry and develop a solution that will fit best for that, based on the available resources and tools.
Who We Are & Why We Do What We Do
Gray Shadow Consulting was started as a collective of like minded individuals with unique skills sets in marketing and technology to develop internal projects, case studies and share resources within the community. We are passionate about digital marketing.
What We Do
We provide resources, education and tools for you to implement.
Our goal is to make marketing as effortless for you as possible.
We do not seek to work with private clients. – Why?
- Because time is a precious resource and we would rather focus it on internal projects, which are generally more rewarding, challenging and exciting than following a templated model that most agencies implement for their clients.
- Working on these projects allows us to take risks that we wouldn’t necessarily want to do with clients. An analysis of the results can refined into best practices models and distributed to a larger audience rather than just a handful of clients.
Visit our digital Marketing Toolkit to see what’s up in 2020.
Visit our Articles section to see our current thoughts, tips and tricks.
Connect with us on Social Media, we don’t only publish our own content but share what other experts are doing.
Be well, we wish you success with your goals. – GSC
