HOW A STRATEGIC DIAGNOSIS IDENTIFIED NEARLY $60K IN UNNECESSARY MARKETING SPEND
CASE STUDY / STRATEGIC DIAGNOSIS + ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT
CONTEXT //
An established organization brought us in to review its marketing. On the surface, the work seemed straightforward.
But the deeper issue wasn’t attracting enough people. It was what happened after they said yes.
The diagnostic process revealed that the organization’s real challenges involved retention, stakeholder experience, mission interpretation, communication, internal alignment, and brand structure.
As the real issues came into focus, nearly $60K in unnecessary annual marketing spend was identified and cut.
THE APPARENT PROBLEM: MARKETING
The organization had already invested heavily in marketing. Radio advertising had run. Promotional videos were nearing completion. Print collateral was being redesigned.
We were brought in to review the work and help determine what should happen next.
The marketing itself wasn’t the first thing that concerned us. The bigger question was:
What problem was all of this marketing supposed to solve?
The organization did not have a serious lead-generation problem. People were already saying yes. The more important issue was that some students, families, and employees were not staying.
THE QUESTION BENEATH THE QUESTION
Spending more money to replace people would not solve the underlying problem. So the assignment widened.
Instead of asking only: How do we improve the marketing?
We needed to ask: Why are people leaving after they’ve already bought into the organization?
That shift changed the direction of the engagement. A three-phase process was created around:
Discovery + Research
Findings + Board-Level Decisions
Recommended Solutions + Implementation Priorities
THE WORK: LOOK BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
This was not a surface-level marketing audit.
The work included stakeholder interviews, employee and exit feedback, competitive and market context, existing messaging, organizational history, founding materials, speeches, and other evidence that could help explain the gap between what people expected and what they experienced.
The evidence pointed to a larger pattern:
The written mission had remained intact, but its interpretation and day-to-day expression had shifted over time.
People were buying into one expectation. Once inside the organization, some were experiencing something different.
That helped explain why initial buy-in could remain strong while retention suffered.
WHAT THE DIAGNOSIS REVEALED
1/ Marketing was being treated as the primary need.
But no one had clearly established what problem the marketing was supposed to solve or how success would be measured.
Major expenditures lacked meaningful KPIs and clear ROI expectations.
2/ Retention was being treated largely as a marketing and communications problem.
But acquisition wasn’t the core issue. People were already saying yes.
The more important question was why some stakeholders were not staying.
3/ The organization operated under two separate brand identities.
The structure made sense internally, but created confusion externally and duplicated costs and effort. Many people did not understand that the two identities belonged to the same organization.
WHAT CHANGED
The findings gave leadership a clearer set of decisions.
The Board chose to return to the original intent behind the organization’s mission.
The work also led to several concrete changes:
Nearly $60K in unnecessary annual marketing spend was identified and cut.
The employee-feedback process was redesigned to produce more useful input.
The marketing function received clearer operating direction.
And the Board approved consolidation from two separate identities into one clearer brand structure.
BEFORE / THE BLIND SPOT / AFTER
ONE//
BEFORE
Marketing was viewed as the primary need. Money was going into radio advertising, video, and other promotional efforts.
THE BLIND SPOT
No one had clearly established what problem the marketing was supposed to solve, or how success would be measured. Major expenditures lacked meaningful KPIs and clear ROI expectations.
AFTER
Nearly $60K in unnecessary annual marketing spend was identified and cut.
Resources could be redirected toward issues the evidence showed actually mattered.
TWO//
BEFORE
Retention was being treated largely as a marketing and communications problem.
THE BLIND SPOT
Acquisition wasn’t the core issue.
People were already saying yes. The unanswered question was why some students, families, and employees weren’t staying.
AFTER
The organization shifted from trying to replace people to understanding why they were leaving.
Research surfaced deeper issues involving stakeholder experience, mission interpretation, communication, and internal alignment.
THREE//
BEFORE
The organization operated under two separate brand identities.
THE BLIND SPOT
The structure made sense internally, but created confusion in the market and duplicated costs and effort.
AFTER
The Board approved consolidation under one identity, creating a clearer, more unified brand structure.
STRATEGIC TAKEAWAY
SOMETIMES MORE MARKETING IS JUST A VERY EXPENSIVE WAY TO SOLVE THE WRONG PROBLEM.
A business can have good marketing and still have a growth problem.
If people are already saying yes but aren’t staying, the answer may not be more leads, more advertising, or a sharper campaign.
Sometimes the most valuable move is to stop optimizing the visible symptom long enough to identify what is actually getting in the way.
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A NOTE ABOUT THIS WORK
This engagement predates The Advantage Code™. It is included here because it demonstrates a recurring pattern in Wendy Van Ryn’s strategic work: challenging the problem as presented, looking for the issue beneath the obvious one, and helping leaders make better decisions once the situation is clearer.
NEED A CLEARER READ ON WHAT’S ACTUALLY GETTING IN THE WAY?
If you’ve built something real but the next move isn’t obvious, the problem may not be the one that first appears on the surface.