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StacksThree Month Rule Case Study
Case Study 2019– Agency · Retainer-free growth marketing
THREE MONTH RULE
Dom
revenue lift, one quarter
13%
weeks, closed scope
12
retainers, ever
0
Overview
Dom’s retainer-free marketing agency. One twelve-week project: no retainers, no scope creep, and the work lands on the date set on day one. Growth marketing for ambitious brands — the edge is finding the one insight that sets a clear position in a crowded market, then doing the work to make it move.
Most agency relationships drift: open-ended retainers, moving deadlines, diluted focus. Three Month Rule exists as the counter-model — a scope agreed on day one, a deadline that doesn’t move, and a senior team that does the actual work.
What was built
- ✓Discovery → Build → Handover → Ship, in twelve weeks flat
- ✓Insight-led growth work that lifted City Cave revenue 13% in a single quarter
- ✓Snapchat × GBRF reef-conservation campaign
- ✓Brand and enrolment growth for Samford Valley Steiner School
Approach & Tools
Key decisions
- Twelve weeks, because the deadline is the strategyAn open-ended retainer rewards activity. A fixed end date forces choices: what actually moves the number, and what just fills the invoice. Scope is agreed on day one and the date does not move. Constraint is the feature.
- One engagement at a timeNo account teams, no juniors learning on the client's budget. The person in the room does the work, and does one client's work at a time. Senior attention is the product; splitting it is diluting it.
- The insight before the activityEvery engagement starts by finding the one position a crowded market has left open, then building everything to occupy it. City Cave: a single insight about who was actually buying, and revenue lifted 13 percent in a quarter.
What the client said
“We’d been burned by agencies before, and this was completely different. Trusting, efficient and so effective.”
Margot A. Head of Development, Samford Valley Steiner School
Inside look
Next case
City Cave
