Prepared for: Valentine Dautricourt
Prepared by: Klyne Maharaj, Baobab Labs
August 2026
Dear Valentine,
Thanks for the time earlier this week, and thanks to Joris for the introduction. Here is what we took from it.
What you are after
- A partner who owns the marketing, rather than a hire who has to be "chased" constantly
- A rhythm on LinkedIn, packaged so it lands with both key audiences: potential clients and talent
- Clearer positioning in market so what you do and its value is immediately obvious
- Leads arriving through the brand, not only through the directors' networks
What is in the way
- The whole function sat with one person, so it left when she did
- Your current/ex marketing function expected content ideas to come from the snr team
- Nothing runs to a regular plan, so output depends on who has time that week
- The positioning underneath all of it is not yet settled
Scope
RETAINER SCOPE
ONE LINKEDIN PAGE, NOT TWO
You currently run a BrightWolves HQ page and a South Africa page. Unless the split is there for language reasons, one page almost always performs better: one audience, one body of content, and the full weight of reach behind every post. Localised company pages are becoming rare for this reason. We have costed for one page. Something for us to discuss.
Ten workstreams across four channels: social, website, email and events. LinkedIn matters most, but the point is a steady rhythm across all four rather than a spike on one.
Positioning
- A working session with you and the partners
- Summary of key messages: what you do, who for, and why you rather than the firm next door
- Applied to the website copy, across the homepage and service pages
- Once, in month one
Marketing calendar
- A plan every month, delivered before the month starts
- What is live in the business, and which market moments are worth commenting on
- Built for both audiences (clients and talent)
- One per month
Twelve posts a month, written and designed.
The page
- 12 posts a month, copy and design
- Published to schedule
- Event recaps come out of the twelve, not on top of them
Your people
- Individuals outperform company pages, because people engage with people rather than logos
- We will not promise to run their profiles. Ghostwritten posts either read generic or stop going out
- We work with your senior people to generate content ideas, then produce the supporting assets i.e. rewrites of their ideas and graphics
Website
- Publishing new pieces
- Running the insights page
- Building and updating event pages
- Keeping careers and team bios current
- Revising service page copy
- Two update blocks a month, half a day each
Events
- Event page built and managed, on Luma or your own site
- Event graphic, invitation, reminder and recap artwork
- One a month
- Guest lists, outreach, venues and suppliers stay with you
Think pieces
- We draft them, your team does not
- We interview a partner and write it in their voice
- Graphics, publishing, and a post series off the back of it
- One a month
Custom collateral
- Pitch decks, brochures, proposal documents, service one-pagers
- One a month
Case studies
- Your client work, turned into something you can show
- We interview the team, write it, design it and publish it
- Feeds the calendar, the collateral and the sales conversation
- One a quarter
Newsletter
- Designed, built and scheduled in your own sender
- You steer the content, the list stays with you
- One a quarter
Reporting and scope review
- How the page and your individuals performed
- Email performance
- Everything delivered against everything scoped
- One a quarter
Assumptions
Assumptions
Our proposal is built on the following assumptions:
Approach
How we work
A plan before the month starts.
Every month we build the marketing grid: what BrightWolves should be saying, to which audience, and when. It comes from the positioning plus whatever is live in the business that month.
We take ownership.
We bring the plan, make the calls on execution, and keep it moving. You approve rather than direct.
We still need you.
We own strategy, writing and design. We cannot invent the substance. Half an hour with a partner behind a piece, client stories and permissions, photography from Belgium, and approvals. When those arrive on time the machine runs. When they do not, everything bottlenecks.
Weekly status call.
Thirty minutes. What went out, what is going out, what we need.
We are direct.
If an idea is wrong for the brand, we say so.
Where the line sits
We are a service partner, not a hire. In practice we will feel like an extension of your business, but we work to a defined scope and rhythm, and that structure is what ensures you are getting the best value for our time.
We deal with 1-2 point contacts in your business, not across the business
We plan weeks or months in advance, not days.
We handle strategy, writing, design and publishing, not the admin that collects around marketing: list maintenance, guest lists, applicant tracking, supplier chasing
When something falls outside scope we tell you what it costs rather than absorbing it
That is what stops us becoming what the in-house role became: a resource pulled into whatever is urgent that week, never reaching the work where we make the biggest impact.
Options
RETAINER OPTIONS
Monthly output
What a month could look like
The workstreams run every month. What flexes is where the time goes inside them. Three examples on Option 2.
Scenario A
A quiet month
Summer, no events, the priority is presence.
Calendar and plan. 12 posts, weighted toward hiring while clients are away. Ideas and assets out to your senior people. Service copy rewritten off the positioning. One think piece. A company overview deck. No event, so that time goes to the insights page.
Scenario B
An events month
Two events, and the priority is getting them into the market.
Calendar and plan. 12 posts, including recaps for both events. Two events set up: pages, graphics, invitations, reminders, recaps. Events page built, careers page refreshed. One think piece. Collateral time absorbed by the second event.
Scenario C
A business development month
Two proposals in flight, and the priority is looking sharp in the room.
Calendar and plan. 12 posts. A client pitch deck. A case study published and a service page revised. One think piece. No event, so that time goes to the second proposal document.
Out of scope
What we do not do
Paid media
PR and media relations
Email lists and contact databases
Event guest lists, outreach, venues and suppliers
Recruitment operations
How we start
How we start
What we need from you
- One or two point people who approve the plan and unlock input from the rest of the business
- Admin access to the LinkedIn page, the Wix site and your email sender
- Senior people who will post. We work with them to generate content ideas, and then produce supporting assets
- Input on time. Permissions, photographs, testimonials, sign offs. We will tell you what we need weeks ahead
The first month
- 01
Kickoff call and access handover
- 02
Positioning session with you and the partners
- 03
Written positioning summary, and the first month's plan built from it
- 04
Website messaging pass drafted off the positioning
- 05
A short session with your senior people on how the individual posting works
- 06
Plan approved, assets designed, publishing starts
Investment
Trial period and scope review
Three months, then a scope review. We ask for this with every new retainer, for both our sakes.
By month three we will know whether the scope is right, and so will you. We produce a written review: everything delivered against everything scoped, how it performed, and a recommendation. If we underscoped, we ask for more. If we overscoped, the price comes down.
About Labs
About Baobab Labs
Born out of a decade of backing and taking early-stage technology companies to market across Africa, Baobab Labs became a dedicated studio in 2024 when Baobab Network acquired Reflector and brought specialist strategy and branding in-house, an approach now refined across +80 companies in global markets, with a team that has worked on the world's biggest brands.
Selected companies
Klyne Maharaj
Head of Baobab Labs
klyne@thebaobabnetwork.com
+27 82 727 8279
A division of The Baobab Network