01 Discover what your customers actually search for.
AI side: Sora (search lead) + Echo (pain-point researcher) · Week 1
You write copy for the customer you imagined. Then you read the reviews and the customer who actually shows up uses completely different words for what you sell.
- Read your existing reviews and three competitors' reviews to find the exact phrases customers use (not marketing language)
- Search Reddit, Quora and niche forums for the unanswered questions in your space
- Group the phrases by what people are trying to do: learning, buying, finding their way around, comparing
- Hand a curated keyword set and intent map to Verity on our team
Proof point Every keyword in the brief cites its search volume, the type of intent behind it, and the forum thread where the customer language came from.
You land on: Customers who fit your business.
02 Map where you sit vs the competition.
AI side: Renno (search-position tracker) + Crit (competitor research) · Week 1 (in parallel)
You name three competitors on the call. The actual ranking data names eight businesses ahead of you — half of which you've never heard of. You can't beat what you can't see.
- Check your current Google and Bing search positions for every keyword we care about
- Pull your top three competitors' search footprints — what they rank for that you don't
- Surface content gaps and the formats that are winning in your niche
- Hand a content-gap report + competitor map to Forge on our team
Proof point Every search position stamped with the date, device, and location it was measured on. Gaps cross-checked against Acuity's market-gap analysis.
You land on: Outrank them while you run the shop.
03 Test whether AI answer engines name you.
AI side: Anya (answer-engine specialist) · Week 2
Someone asks Google's AI for what you sell. You don't appear in the answer. The customer never finds out you exist — and you never find out they were looking.
- Ask Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, Perplexity and Phind your priority customer questions
- Record who they name and who they don't — and work out why (missing structured data, no Q&A on the page, missing connections to known sources)
- Diagnose the fix per page: structured data, FAQ format, internal-linking pattern
Proof point AI-naming rate tracked weekly. Fix recommendations come with a realistic lift range and the underlying gap explained.
You land on: Be named when they ask AI.
04 Test whether the big AI chats name you.
AI side: Geno (Ultra Studio only) · Week 2 (Ultra Studio)
Your name doesn't come up in ChatGPT's answer. You can't fix what you can't see, and right now you can't see what the AI is telling people who ask about your category.
- Ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions you should be in the answer for
- Record brand mentions and how they shift week to week
- Recommend moves that disambiguate you (Wikidata, niche directories, press mentions, encyclopaedia entries)
Proof point AI-mention rate tracked per question and per AI tool. The drift report feeds into the Brand profile each refresh.
You land on: Be named when they ask AI.
05 Brief the work — so nobody starts from a blank page.
AI side: Sage (content strategist) → Our team: Dax (brief writer) · Week 3
Last time a freelancer asked for a brief, you wrote two paragraphs and hoped. The work came back vaguely on-message and entirely off-strategy. Now it's live and you're stuck with it.
- Sage takes the work from stages 1-4 and writes one brief per priority keyword
- Each brief: target keyword + intent + how to beat competitors + real customer quotes + structure + structured data + word count
- Dax adds your regulator's rules + the voice from your declared Brand Voice — so the brief is ready to write against
- Hand the brief to the vetted freelancer panel; nobody starts from a blank page
Proof point Every brief carries a clear, testable goal with a predicted lift and a measurement plan. The brief is the contract.
You land on: A brand that gets remembered.
06 Produce and ship the work.
Our team: Glyph (visual director) + the vetted freelancer panel · Weeks 3-4 (rolling)
The brief went in. Three weeks passed. Whatever shipped didn't sound like you, and the version that's now live can't be quietly unwound. The work happens while you're not looking — and you don't trust what you're not watching.
- Long-form articles with structured data, optimised images, internal links
- Short-form video + Reels from the same source material (Apex+)
- Email sequences + landing pages when your tier scope reaches them
- Knox checks every claim against your regulator's rules before anything is published
- Cinch routes every external asset through human approval — yours and ours
Proof point Every external asset traces back to the brief it came from, the freelancer who shipped it, and the human (you + Cinch) who approved it. The trail is permanent.
You land on: Win customers while you work.
07 Measure and report.
Our team: Pulse + Helio + Loop (economics, paid, lifecycle) · Monthly (weekly + daily on Apex+)
The monthly report says "engagement is up 23%". Up from what? Measured how? You stop asking by the third quarter — the answers never land in a form you could repeat to anyone else.
- Change in ranking per keyword + AI-naming rate + (Ultra) AI-chat mention rate
- Performance per channel: organic, paid, social, email + tracking health
- Channel-contribution analysis from Thrive; full causal evidence from Apex
- What worked, what didn't, where next month's brief shifts focus
- A monthly business briefing you can read in 15 minutes
Proof point Every number on the dashboard says where it came from, when, and how confident we are. Compass writes the quarterly "what actually caused the lift" report from Apex.
You land on: Know what works. Do more of it.
08 Quarterly business review.
Our team: Aria + Vega + you · Quarterly (Apex+) / Half-yearly (lower tiers)
Last quarter looked like the quarter before. Same channels, same approval queue, same vague sense of motion. You can't tell whether the engagement is building anywhere or just running its loops.
- Refresh of the 90-day rolling content calendar
- Tier fit review — do the deliverables match the channel mix that's actually moving your numbers?
- Anonymised cross-niche learnings — what's working for similar businesses in your space
- Focus for the next quarter, with budget allocation
- Brand archetype + voice-drift review (Lyric + Aurelia)
Proof point Output: an updated written Strategy. The previous version is preserved with the chain of changes so you can see exactly what changed and why.
You land on: The simplest growth you've had.