Strategy partner for marketing agencies in the Dominican Republic

Dominican marketing agencies have creative and production capacity. They know how to run campaigns, manage channels and produce assets. The client, however, is asking for more. They want to know which segment to target, how to launch a product, how to organize their sales team or how to measure what they invest.

The agency has three options, and none of them is good:

• Say no. The client looks for that layer elsewhere and sometimes takes the account with them.
• Improvise it. A plan written by someone who doesn't do this for a living shows in the first meeting with leadership.
• Hire a senior strategist. It is an expensive role, hard to fill and hard to keep busy every month.

There is a fourth option: having that layer without having it on the payroll.

We work as a white label strategy partner. We contract with the agency, not with its client. The client remains the agency's. Our brand doesn't appear and the case is never cited. Trabajamos a lo callao (we work quietly, behind the scenes).

In practice we cover three kinds of need:

Answering what the client asks for

Marketing plans (planes de mercadeo, as Dominican clients call them) with a strategic thesis, product launch plans, go-to-market strategies, sales narratives, demo design, sales team training and commercial playbooks.

Support on pitches and proposals

The strategic part of a proposal to a new client: preliminary diagnostic, thesis, plan structure and measurement logic. The agency presents; we prepare the substance.

Strategic direction of the account

For accounts where the client needs an ongoing strategy layer: periodic review, a steering committee with the client's leadership and replanning. Always under the agency's brand.

It is the Strategy partner for agencies product within the outsourced strategic direction practice area.

We follow our three-phase method, adapted to the relationship with the agency:

1. Diagnostic and Strategy. Market assessment, segmentation, decision-makers, positioning, thesis and baseline for the agency's client. Deliverable: a strategy document and a presentation to leadership, under the agency's brand.
2. Playbook. Action sheets with owner, cost, KPI and date, dashboard and execution budget, including the actions the agency itself will execute.
3. Strategic direction. Periodic review and steering committee, when the account needs it.

Each phase is contracted separately. We can come in for a single project, such as a launch plan or a pitch, or support an account on an ongoing basis.

How we coordinate

We work remotely with the agency's team, on an agreed cadence. If the agency decides so, we join meetings with its client as part of its team. If it prefers we stay out of sight, we prepare the material and the agency presents it.

These are requests that reach any marketing agency with mid-sized or large clients, and they fit our work:

• A mass consumer goods client wants to launch a new SKU and needs to know which channel to enter through and how to win over the distributor.
• A services client wants an annual marketing plan that leadership can approve, with KPIs and budget by period.
• A client asks for its sales force to be trained on a new sales narrative.
• A tourism client in Punta Cana wants to organize its proposition by segment.
• A client from the Cibao (the northern region) wants to grow in Santo Domingo and doesn't know where to start.

In every one of these cases the agency can answer with a complete proposal: we prepare the strategy and the agency does the execution.

• It answers strategic requests it currently turns down or improvises.
• It raises the level of conversation with its clients' leadership.
• It wins pitches with a strategic thesis behind them.
• It generates more execution work, with better briefs.
• It doesn't add a fixed role to its structure.

The practice is led by partners Marcos Castaño and Mario Pérez Lianes, both strategy consultants. We work directly on every project ourselves. More on the model in agencies and on how we work in Santo Domingo.

1. You book a diagnostic call through Cal.com from contact.
2. In the first meeting you tell us what your clients are asking for, which accounts you have in mind and how your team works.
3. If it is a fit, we send you a Phase 1 proposal for a specific client, or a collaboration model for several.
4. Everything is covered by confidentiality from the first conversation.