THE SCANSARAYAN DIGITAL GROWTH SERIES — PART II
INTELLIGENCE. STRATEGY. EXECUTION.
The State of Africa’s Creator Economy in 2026
A business can spend money on digital marketing every month and still be unclear about what that investment is accomplishing.
Content is published. Meetings are held. Reports are delivered. Campaigns continue. Yet the underlying questions remain unanswered: Is the business reaching the right audience? Is its positioning strong enough to differentiate it? Are digital channels generating meaningful commercial opportunities? And what should change next?
The problem is not necessarily the agency, the consultant or the monthly retainer.
The problem is that ongoing activity can become a substitute for deliberate progress.
For businesses navigating tighter budgets, chaproject-based digital strategy
digital strategy for business growth onging customer behaviour and increasing digital competition, the question is not simply how much to spend on digital strategy. It is how to structure that investment around the problem that actually needs solving.
Sometimes the answer is an ongoing partnership. Sometimes it is a defined strategic project. And sometimes the most sensible arrangement combines both.
The distinction matters because businesses should not commit to a payment structure before understanding the work, the expected outputs and the capacity required to turn recommendations into results.
1. The Retainer Is a Commercial Model, Not a Strategy
A retainer is a legitimate way to secure ongoing access to expertise, execution and support. It can provide continuity, institutional knowledge and room to adjust as business conditions change.
For activities that require consistent attention—such as search optimisation, paid media management, content operations and community management—continuity can be essential.
But a recurring invoice does not, by itself, demonstrate recurring value.
A business may need a complete repositioning exercise, a digital presence audit or a clearer customer acquisition strategy. Those are identifiable strategic problems. They deserve a defined scope of work, a decision-making process and a clear point at which the business can assess what has been delivered.
Putting every problem inside a monthly retainer can obscure the distinction between ongoing execution and a discrete strategic intervention.
The question should therefore not be, “Should we stop paying retainers?”
It should be: What are we paying for, and why is this the right structure for the work?
2. Activity Is Not the Same as Progress
One of the most expensive mistakes a business can make is confusing visible activity with meaningful advancement.
A calendar filled with content does not automatically produce stronger positioning. A redesigned website does not guarantee qualified enquiries. A campaign reaching thousands of people does not prove that it reached the right people or influenced purchasing decisions.
These activities can contribute to growth. But their value depends on the problem they are designed to solve and the evidence used to evaluate them.
Consider a Nairobi-based business whose social media presence attracts attention but generates few serious enquiries.
It might immediately increase its monthly content budget.
Yet the underlying issue could be unclear positioning, an undifferentiated offer, weak calls to action, poor landing-page experience or a mismatch between the audience and the product.
More content could simply amplify the existing problem.
A defined strategic engagement could first examine the customer journey, assess competing businesses, identify conversion barriers and prioritise corrective action. Once the business understands what needs to change, it can decide whether to execute internally, commission a separate implementation project or establish an ongoing partnership.
The sequence matters: diagnose the problem before expanding the activity.
3. Where Project-Based Digital Strategy Makes Sense
Project-based strategy works best when a business has a specific problem that can be investigated, addressed and evaluated within a defined period.
The scope, deliverables, responsibilities and fee are agreed in advance, subject to a clear process for handling changes.
For example:
Digital presence audit. Assess the website, search visibility, social channels, customer journey and conversion barriers. Deliver a prioritised set of findings and recommendations.
Brand positioning. Clarify the target audience, competitive differentiation, value proposition and market narrative.
Website and SEO strategy. Establish the website’s purpose, information architecture, search priorities, content structure and conversion pathways before investing in further development.
Campaign strategy. Define the audience, proposition, channels, budget logic, success measures and execution plan for a particular launch or commercial objective.
Market-entry planning. Evaluate a target market, customer segments, competitors, potential partners and the digital requirements of entering that market.
Digital growth roadmap. Identify the most important gaps, sequence investments and establish measurable priorities for the next 90 days.
In each case, the business is purchasing a defined piece of strategic work rather than an indefinite promise of continued activity.
However, the distinction between a deliverable and a business outcome must remain explicit.
A consultant can commit to producing a rigorous audit, a positioning framework or a growth roadmap. They cannot honestly guarantee increased revenue solely because that document has been delivered. Commercial results also depend on implementation, budget, product-market fit, internal capability and external conditions.
A good project makes the next decision clearer. A strong project also makes it easier to evaluate what happens after that decision.
4. When a Retainer Is the Better Investment
There are problems that cannot be solved responsibly through a single intervention.
Search visibility develops over time. Paid campaigns require ongoing monitoring and optimisation. Customer communities need consistent management. Content operations require planning, production, distribution and learning from performance.
Businesses operating in changing markets may also need regular strategic advice as new information emerges.
In these circumstances, a retainer can provide continuity and reduce the friction of repeatedly commissioning separate assignments.
The important distinction is that an ongoing engagement should have a defined operating rhythm, agreed responsibilities, meaningful reporting and a process for changing priorities.
A retainer should not be judged merely by how much work appears to have been completed. It should be evaluated against the purpose of the engagement.
If the objective is to improve qualified enquiries, for example, the reporting should go beyond the number of posts published. Depending on the business and available data, it might examine enquiry quality, conversion rates, acquisition costs and the progression of prospects through the sales process.
Not every indicator will improve immediately. Some strategic investments take time to produce measurable effects. But the business should understand what is being monitored, what the evidence suggests and what decisions follow from it.
Continuity is valuable when it enables learning, adaptation and better execution—not simply because the contract renews.
5. The Strongest Model May Be a Combination
The choice between a project and a retainer is not always an either-or decision.
A business could begin with a defined diagnostic engagement, use the findings to establish priorities, and then commission ongoing support for the work that genuinely requires continuity.
The sequence might look like this:
Stage 1 — Diagnose. Establish the current position, identify constraints and determine which problems deserve attention first.
Stage 2 — Design. Develop the positioning, strategy, roadmap or campaign architecture required to address the priority problem.
Stage 3 — Implement. Assign responsibilities, allocate resources and execute the agreed interventions.
Stage 4 — Evaluate. Review the evidence, identify what is working and adjust the approach.
Stage 5 — Continue where justified. Retain ongoing support where the business needs continued execution, specialist oversight or repeated optimisation.
This approach gives the business a chance to establish what it needs before committing to a broader relationship.
It also gives both parties a clearer basis for defining the next phase of work. An implementation requirement can be priced separately when it falls outside the original scope, rather than being quietly absorbed into an arrangement that was never designed to cover it.
The model should remain flexible enough to reflect the actual work. A business with an urgent, continuous operational requirement may reasonably need an ongoing partner from the beginning.
The objective is not to make every client start with a project. It is to make every engagement commercially defensible.
6. Five Questions to Ask Before Committing Budget
Before signing a strategic consulting or digital services agreement, a business should be able to answer five questions.
1. What problem are we solving?
Describe the problem in specific business terms. “We need more visibility” is a starting point, not a complete brief. Visibility among which audience, for what purpose and leading toward which action?
2. What will be delivered?
Identify the actual outputs, such as an audit, a positioning framework, a campaign plan, implementation support or ongoing optimisation. Clarify what is excluded.
3. How will progress be assessed?
Establish a baseline where possible, define relevant indicators and agree when the work will be reviewed. Separate deliverables the provider controls from business outcomes influenced by several factors.
4. Who is responsible for implementation?
A strategy without an owner is vulnerable to becoming an unused document. Identify who will make decisions, approve work, allocate resources and execute the recommendations.
5. What would justify continuing, changing or ending the engagement?
Define the review points. An engagement should have a rationale for continuation, not simply a renewal date.
These questions protect the client and the service provider. They reduce ambiguity, surface unrealistic expectations and make it easier to identify when the original scope no longer matches the business’s needs.
7. What This Means for African Businesses
Across African markets, businesses operate with different budgets, internal capabilities, customer behaviours and levels of digital maturity. There is no single engagement structure that suits them all.
A founder-led business may need strategic clarity before it can justify an ongoing agency relationship. A more established company may already have an internal marketing team and require specialist support for a defined initiative. Another business may need a long-term partner because it lacks the capacity to manage execution independently.
These businesses should not be pushed into the same commercial arrangement simply because it is familiar to a service provider.
For businesses with constrained resources, the priority is not always to spend less. It is to avoid spending without a clear rationale.
That means identifying the highest-value problem, choosing the appropriate expertise, defining what the engagement must produce and ensuring the business has the capacity to act on the work.
It also means recognising the limitations of strategy. No proposal, audit or roadmap can substitute for implementation. No engagement model can compensate for an offer customers do not want, poor internal decision-making or an unwillingness to act on evidence.
Digital investment becomes more defensible when the business understands both the opportunity and the work required to pursue it.
8. The Scansarayan Perspective: Buy the Intervention, Not the Habit
The debate about retainers and projects is ultimately a debate about how businesses organise expertise, execution and accountability.
A monthly relationship can create substantial value when the work is continuous and the partnership keeps improving. A project can create substantial value when the problem is defined and the intervention gives the business a better direction.
Neither model deserves automatic preference.
The stronger approach begins by identifying the business problem, then selecting the engagement structure that fits its scope, complexity, urgency and implementation requirements.
That is a more demanding way to purchase digital strategy. It requires better questions, clearer agreements and a willingness to evaluate the work honestly.
It also changes what businesses should expect from strategic partners. They should expect more than a list of activities. They should expect a clear rationale for the work, an understanding of the commercial objective and transparency about what success can—and cannot—be guaranteed to mean.
At Scansarayan, the principle is straightforward: digital strategy should connect attention to positioning, positioning to infrastructure, infrastructure to conversion, and conversion to sustainable growth.
That progression requires judgement. It requires execution. And it requires evidence.
Strategy should create movement. Execution should create evidence. Investment should have a purpose.
INTELLIGENCE. STRATEGY. EXECUTION.
The Scansarayan Digital Growth Series — Part II
Leave a Reply