There were many obstacles to overcome in creating a business plan for the construction of a new entity of our client. The most important initial decisions involved determining a target university and adapting branding and operations plans to be in tune with the time of COVID-19. Additionally, our client needed to ensure the creation of a profitable enterprise.

The primary challenge of this project was to give the client, a sole CEO and founder, the basic tools for social media, analytics, branding, and PR such that they would be effective yet low-maintenance for long-term use. As a former designer, the client had a strong artistic and visual sense, however, needed help aligning this with actionable business goals and e-commerce tools for small businesses. The client tasked Rem and Company with strengthening branding and storytelling, leveraging marketing analytics and social media, and creating a press kit for public relations.

Due to the onset of COVID-19, our client was forced to shut down its in person meditation studio and move its operations online. Our client had two major customer segments: individuals who pay for group meditation classes and companies who pay for meditation workshops for their employees. Our client wanted to know which segment to focus on and how to grow this segment in a digital world.

COVID-19 delayed our client’s initial launch and they wanted to adapt to changing needs of its customer base in the wake of a pandemic. Our client wanted to redesign the UX of their current website, create an ambassador program to create excitement for their launch and develop a strategy centering around pre-sale membership prior to their launch. Our approach to rehauling the fitness studio’s launch strategy was affected by the sweeping evolution that the fitness industry was undergoing in the midst of the pandemic and evaluating what market trends were effective to employ.

In light of recent events regarding issues of social justice in the United States, our client was motivated to make a concerted effort to recruit a more diverse workforce in their yoga studio. The yoga industry struggles with this diversity problem as a whole, as it is largely dominated by white females, and industry leaders are working to make the necessary changes along with our client.

The St. Louis-based non-profit holds an annual Golf Classic and Charity Auction to finance its equipment donations to underserved youth athletic groups in the St. Louis area. However, the client was uncertain how best to plan and operate its annual charity fundraiser amid the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social-distancing restrictions.

Like many other small business owners, our client was greatly impacted by COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, she thrived on in-person events with face-to-face interaction with consumers inside of a number of boutique retailers. Our client had a narrow consumer base, mostly targeting female sailors (with a few male products). Our client has an incredible story, and we felt that if we could share her unique experiences as a woman in a male-dominated industry with her overall commitment to environmentally friendly practices and social justice initiatives, it would increase brand awareness and generate overall traffic on her sites. She also needed help with organization, so our strategy needed to be thoroughly accessible.

This nonprofit relies on an annual golf fundraising event and gala to fund their mission. Due to the global pandemic, they shifted their fundraising to an online auction to raise money for SCI (spinal cord injury) rehab.

Developing a community engagement strategy can be daunting and seemingly insignificant for small nonprofits. However, especially during the time of Covid-19, consistent communication with beneficiaries and the broader community is essential. Our client understood that better communication would help them reach more individuals and garner more donations, and wanted to improve her overall communication.

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.