Marketing support for enterprise programmes
Give each business in your programme the marketing support it actually needs.
Qallann assesses the marketing needs of the businesses you support, designs the support each one needs, and delivers it within your programme’s budget and your founders’ capacity. Your team gets the reasoning behind every recommendation.
For enterprise support organisations, accelerators, incubators, and SME & supplier development programmes.
Are the businesses you support getting the marketing help they need?
Most founders describe their marketing problem by the part they can see. Sales are slow, so they ask for social media. Enquiries are thin, so they ask for a website. The team is stretched, so they ask for help with execution. The requests are sincere. They usually describe a symptom.
Programmes respond to what founders ask for. A founder who asks for social media is paired with a mentor who knows social media. A founder who needs more hands gets an intern on a stipend, fresh from university. Workshops, branding support and website packages follow the same logic. The support is delivered: the mentoring sessions happen, the posts go out, the intern starts. Months later the business is selling at much the same rate, and it is hard to say why.
The cause often sits somewhere the founder did not look. A business with slow sales may be speaking to buyers who cannot purchase, or offering something those buyers do not yet understand. A founder asking for an intern may need someone senior to decide what the marketing is for. The visible problem was real, and it started further back.
Four businesses we have worked with, and the gap between what each asked for and what it needed first.
Gender systems consultancy
Asked for: help shaping a consulting offer and brand.
Needed first: the founder’s methodology documented and named, and a way in that matched how buyers actually buy.
Financial technology platform
Asked for: a fractional CMO to drive sign-ups, paid conversions and revenue.
Needed first: the growth assumptions inside the brief tested before more execution was added.
Service provider marketplace
Asked for: social media support.
Needed first: a product name that attracted the right users, and conversion on the side of the marketplace that paid.
NGO founded by two specialists
Asked for: a website and social media training.
Needed first: a plan built for a two-person team with a finite grant, starting with a funding pipeline.
Finding where the problem started comes before any support is allocated. A founder’s view is important. It is not automatically a diagnosis.
What changes for your programme
Support you can defend to funders
Every recommendation is tied to evidence, and we show what is known, indicated, assumed and still unknown. Your team can explain each allocation to funders, boards and partners.
Support matched to the actual gap
We separate strategic leadership, management, specialist expertise and execution capacity. One business gets a fractional marketing lead, another a specialist, a third a workshop. Some need no marketing support until another constraint is resolved.
Support in the right order
Some interventions depend on others. A business may need to validate its market before a go-to-market strategy, or resolve fulfilment before generating more demand. We set out what comes first, so budget goes to work the business is ready to use.
Designed around your constraints
Recommendations fit your programme’s budget, timelines and reporting, and what each founder has the time and capacity to act on.
Same programme, different needs
A typical example shows how this changes the support.
A climate-tech business asking for visibility
A climate-tech company has developed solar-powered cold storage for smallholder farmers. Sales are slow, and the founder asks the programme for help with visibility: social media, some press, perhaps an event.
An assessment looks at how a sale actually happens. Farmers who need cold storage rarely buy it on their own. Purchases tend to go through cooperatives, county programmes and agribusinesses, each with its own budget cycle and procurement process. The founder does not yet know who signs off, who pays or how long a decision takes.
More visibility would reach more farmers. They would like the product and still be unable to buy it. The constraint is the route to the buyer.
So the recommendation changes the order: first, find out who holds the budget and how they decide; then build a go-to-market plan around that route; then add visibility aimed at the people who can say yes. The programme spends the same budget, in the order the business can use it.
How organisations can work with Qallann
There are four ways to work with us. Most programmes start with a Portfolio Support Review. Where the need is already clear, you can go straight to an assessment, a technical assistance plan or delivery.
Portfolio Support Review
Understand the needs across your portfolio before allocating technical assistance.
We review what you know about your portfolio, the support businesses have asked for and the interventions you are planning. The review shows where needs are shared, where a standard intervention will not fit, and which businesses need a closer look.
You receive:
- A portfolio overview
- A preliminary marketing needs and constraints map
- Recommendations on where group interventions may be appropriate
- Recommendations on where individual assessment or specialist support is needed
- Priorities to inform the next technical assistance cycle
Business Assessment
Establish what a particular business needs before commissioning support.
For a specific business, or an agreed group, we examine commercial objectives, market context, marketing performance, constraints and internal capability. Where a decision involves significant investment, the assessment can go deeper as a full Marketing Diagnostic.
You receive:
- An individual assessment for each business
- A prioritised constraint and evidence assessment
- A profile of the relevant capability and resource gaps
- A recommended intervention, including the level of expertise and delivery model
- Dependencies and suggested next decisions
Technical Assistance Design
Translate identified needs into support that can be commissioned.
For programmes that already know their portfolio’s needs and want them turned into a plan the team can commission.
We help define:
- Which interventions should be prioritised
- What expertise each intervention requires
- Whether support should be delivered individually or collectively
- Whether the appropriate model is advisory, specialist consultancy, embedded expertise, implementation or capability development
- What should happen first and what depends on other work
- What a provider's scope of work should include
We can also draft the scope of work for each intervention.
Delivery
Put the recommended support into the businesses.
Qallann delivers the marketing interventions it recommends:Â
Start with the support decision you need to make
You may be planning the next technical assistance cycle, reviewing support that is not landing, or deciding how to spread a limited budget across a mixed portfolio.
Tell us the decision you need to make, what you know and where you are unsure. We will recommend where to start.
Common questions from programmes
What kinds of programmes do you work with?
Enterprise support organisations, accelerators, incubators, SME and supplier development programmes, donor-funded enterprise programmes, and sector-specific programmes.
Can you work across a portfolio that spans several sectors?
Yes. Mixed portfolios are where matching support to each business matters most.
Do we have to commission an assessment of the whole portfolio?
No. You can start with one cohort, or a small group of businesses.
Can Qallann deliver the support it recommends?
Yes. You can commission delivery alongside the assessment, or use our scopes of work to brief other providers.
How do you price programme work?
Each engagement is quoted after a first conversation. The price depends on the number of businesses, whether we work from your programme records or interview each business, and whether delivery is included.
Can you respond to a formal procurement process?
Yes. We can respond to an expression of interest, a request for proposals or a tender, and provide our company profile and registration documents.
How is the businesses' information handled?
Each business’s details stay confidential. Your programme receives the recommendations and an anonymised view across the portfolio. Anything more specific is shared only with the business’s agreement.
Do you work with programmes outside Kenya?
Yes. We work with programmes across the world, and most of the work is delivered remotely.
Talk to us about your programme
Tell us about your programme and what you would like help with. We will reply within two working days.