The four phases
Monitor · understand the market
Competitors, customers, channels, communication, conversations, news, your own materials. It is the fact base, each fact with its source and date, that everything else rests on.
Analyze · decide the strategy
The strategy tools work on the facts from Monitor: SWOT, positioning, identity, value proposition, journey, scenarios. They don’t start from a blank page, and they don’t stop at the snapshot: they let you explore different routes.
Prove · put it to the test
Before spending, the strategy goes in front of synthetic personas built on market data and, in B2B, the client’s buying committee. Weak assumptions get discarded while it’s still cheap.
Scale · turn it into work
Ideas, campaigns, content — posts, emails, pages, videos, presentations — consistent with the brand and the chosen strategy, ready for client approval.
Why the order matters
- A strategy without Monitor rests on opinions.
- A campaign without Analyze is creativity without direction.
- A launch without Prove discovers its problems when they cost the most.
- An analysis without Scale stays in a slide deck.
The order isn’t rigid: you go back when a test disproves an assumption, or when the market changes. But every step forward builds on the ones taken before.
One protocol, different profiles
The phases are the same for a consumer brand, a B2B company, a startup or a retailer; what changes is what you look for within each phase. In B2B, Monitor looks at decision-makers, trade shows and sales channels; for a startup, research starts from the founder’s materials and looks outward to put them to the test.
The mistakes the protocol prevents
- Skipping phases in a hurry, and paying for it later.
- Losing the thread from one step to the next, across different tools and documents.
- Deciding without memory: six months on, no longer knowing why a choice was made.
