At the time of Rem’s collaboration, our client was looking to expand their restaurant hours to dinner times. However, considering that this new business came into existence during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to conceptualize how to best employ a growth strategy. Primarily, our client was looking to increase guest acquisition and awareness via social media campaigns, especially for marketing dinner times. There was also an interest in increasing customer interest by improving readability and design of websites and menu offerings. Our client was also concerned that their menu prices and staffing schedules were lagging behind competitors and industry standards, and were looking to improve operational efficiency.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive shift from in-person to online sales in the bookstore industry. This means a strong digital presence is paramount in order to survive and thrive. The client contacted REM to help tighten up several areas of their digital presence. These included:

- Inventory synchronization between in-person POS and online sales system

- Creating a cohesive and emotionally impactful website experience

- Digital marketing strategies

Most notably, the client wanted to prioritize creating an in-depth marketing strategy for a new monthly book subscription service they are offering to grow his business and create a more reliable stream of income amid sales volatility caused by the pandemic.

As pilates studios and customers alike have adapted to COVID-19 safety precautions, their habits around exercise have changed. The COVID-19 crisis has kept the studio’s regular clientele at home and has posed an obstacle to maintaining a reliable customer base and revenue flow. To mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, the studio began offering online livestream classes, which temporarily relieved pressure on the business. Engagement within the community faltered, however, in the longer term, once the studio reopened for in-person classes.

Without a foundational social media marketing strategy or promotion scheme in place, the studio lost momentum and new traffic to its website and social media pages.

The client is a small business that creates social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum materials for children ages kindergarten through 12th Grade to help develop their social and emotional learning.

The client is a for-profit business that generates revenue by selling curriculum materials, professional coaching, and student assemblies to schools and other educational organizations.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, our client was having difficulty marketing, retaining its volunteers, and attracting new donors. Due to the numerous duties and responsibilities of running a nonprofit organization, the client was overburdened and many aspects of the nonprofit's operations were being neglected. Our goal was therefore to alleviate this stress by providing an actionable plan to manage the workload. Aside from COVID-19, this nonprofit recently suffered a flood that destroyed most of their supplies and lost tons of paperwork from the years 2016 to 2018 that was stored in filing cabinets. Therefore, they were looking for the best ways to keep track of files, and more generally organize internal operations.

When Rem came on board, the company was looking for feasible means of expansion. They wanted to figure out how to spread their business into new consumer groups. The other major goal was to figure out new forms of funding. Our client recognized that the current forms of marketing and social media use were not as efficient as they could be in terms of reaching new audiences as well.

Despite leveraging marketing strategies such as influencer collaborations, email campaigns, and Facebook Ads, our client faced persistent challenges in effectively reaching their target audience – millennial women. Recognizing the need to broaden their outreach and modernize their social media presence, the client sought ways to enhance and scale their business strategies.

Our client is looking to raise more funding in their next growth phase. This would involve being able to articulate their value propositions to potential investors and partners, as well as maximizing their visibility on existing social media platforms and reaching new customer bases.

The client has been successful in the sense that it has opened four locations in the Brooklyn, New York area over the past decade. However, due to the rapid expansion of the company, there was a need for operational improvements. Furthermore, the discontinuity of process documentation caused difficulties when constructing an investor pitch deck. In addition to inefficient business processes, the company also needed to reposition its brand so that it would attract more investors.

It is challenging for small businesses to find a pricing structure that supports them during a pandemic while also attracting customers. Small businesses may feel pressured to work with their customers on a case-by-case basis, to figure out prices that work for them, rather than sticking to a fixed pricing model under the financial stress of the pandemic. Long-term, this is not a sustainable way to price goods and services

In COVID-19, the maker studio's profitability remained relatively stable due to its long-term leases. COVID-19, however, negatively affected both the retail and workshop components of the client's business, since the client only offered in-person shopping. In addition to COVID-19-related challenges, their subleasing business model had a poor track record of profitability for many years and could use improvement.

When Rem joined the nonprofit organization, we identified that there were untapped marketing opportunities that could help the organization enter a new growth phase. The client acknowledged the need for effective marketing and outreach strategies to better engage with their target audience. One of their major concerns was the redesign of their website and intake process to cater specifically to student needs and abilities. Understanding the importance of student-centric design, our team embarked on developing a comprehensive strategy that focused on enhancing the organization's marketing efforts and creating a user-friendly website and intake process that would effectively address the client's concerns.

As part of our client's growth plan, the transition from a small non-profit organization to a small LLC presents an opportunity to explore for-profit aspects of their existing services and target the populations that can benefit the most from them. However, the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted their ability to organize in-person speaker engagements and educational programs for students. To adapt to the current situation and make the most of their relocation to Florida, our client needs to explore new customer markets and make necessary modifications to their services to align with the needs and preferences of the local population.