First, I get to know you and your business. Every brand identity is bespoke. The tools you receive and the process by which we create them is personalized to give you the simplest path to meeting your goals. However lean or robust, every strong brand needs a platform. We will create yours or refine what you have.
From your platform, we create a marketing plan. Your outreach should be strategic, realistic and trackable. Every effort moves you closer to your goals, or we don’t do it.
Here is where your brand begins to shine! Site copy, taglines, email campaigns, social media, events, beer koozies. These communications reflect your brand and bring you toward your goals by connecting with your audience.
Courtesy of Applied Storytelling, Inc.
Process with a Purpose
Nectar Essences was established in 2010 by Jenny Pao, a holistic healer. By 2019, Pao wanted to totally revamp the identity. In the ten years that had passed, their business model had moved away from wholesale and the essential oil industry had become far more mainstream. The brand felt too clinical, staid and apologetic for the moment.
Though the brand was established, we started at the very beginning with a new vision and mission, a new brand platform and a new strategic plan. With direct-to-consumer online sales, the brand needed to shift but so did the expectations for what is possible. Strategy led the design and writing process and the result is a cohesive site, social media presence and sales effort.
The transformed brand gave Pao a reason to reach out to established contacts and grow wholesale business and it created a platform to begin talking to the public, booking events and becoming a recognized expert in her field. When Covid-19 shut the spa sector off completely, her online sales grew exponentially and have carried the enterprise.
A New Direction The Butcher’s Guild is a trade organization that had become a 501c3, after ten years as a for-profit. They had also formed a new alliance with the World Butchers Challenge, the Olympics of meatcutting. Along with fresh motivators, they needed to widen their audience and rebuild trust with their current members, who mostly felt disconnected from the brand. The rebrand needed to feel in integrity and thrilling.
Brand strategy and business strategy can get very intertwined. The Butcher’s Guild was moving forward in some exciting ways but stagnant in their membership relations. The membership had been the core of their for-profit model but did not have a clear place in their NGO. We started by having honest conversations with members, leaders and outside observers about what is and what could be. The development of a vision, mission and identity became the driver of a more cohesive and inspiring organization- not just for the outside audience but for the team, as well. Once we solved seemingly intractable organizational challenges, everyone was free to start thinking big.
When the mission coalesced around promoting honest conversations in the meat business, we were able to develop a brand that was frank, transparent and bold. This strategy and personality was both in integrity and thrilling. It gave past members a space to transform their relationship and new members a reason to connect. From stagnation to a popular new podcast, a revitalized membership, partnerships with trusted allies and a new standing in the food world.
