Three Types of Strategists ??

?? If you’re thinking about freelancing it’s important to understand the three types of strategists that exist.?

The strategy doer, the strategy fixer and the pure play strategist. It all has to do with the size of the clients marketing budget to work out what type of strategist that you are after.?

Based on the budgets I’m used to seeing in America a client will expect different things from a strategist.?

???? As a rough rule if your client’s marketing budget is under $100,000 a year, you will probably be expected to be a strategy doer.?

? Strategy Doer

This is someone who does strategy but also does some of the doing, a number of graphic designers who are putting their hand up to help do the brand strategy for their client as well. This makes a lot of sense as when your budget is this small you dont have enough money to just pay for the strategy you need to see something for your money as well.

This is the equivalent of your friends starting a business and asking for strategy help, if you have a service that you can offer them as well like copywriting or graphic design then it is going to be an easier sell for them.?

? Strategy Fixer

The next level is the strategy fixer, we usually see this type of strategist on accounts that are $100,000 to $1 million dollars in budget. The strategy fixer is someone who will do the strategy documents maybe a brand strategy and a creative brief but they will be expected to do something else within the business as well, so we often see strategists who are also the account manager.

???? The problem here is that the brand doesn’t have enough money to hire a full-time strategist but they love the added value that they bring to the project.?

? Pure Play Strategist

Then finally there is the pure play strategist who are dealing with account that have a $1 million plus marketing budget, there are the big creative agencies in town with national and global clients. Within this the strategist is expected to just do strategy, they have a creative team and an account team that they support but they’re not expected to do these other parts of the job.?

Depending on the size of the company, you will have strategists in specific disciplines as well within marketing for instance you might have a shopper strategist, social strategist, brand strategist and engagement strategist working on your account.?

???? Understanding what the client’s budget is and what they expect of you is really important especially if you are a freelancer as this will help you understand what type of work is expected of you and whether you have the skill set to deliver it.

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