By The Alkimie Collective

When we face challenges in our businesses, our first instinct is to find a marketing solution. But, in reality, what our businesses actually need is the right strategic brand support.

At the Alkimie Collective, it’s not uncommon for us to hear the following for our clients:

•       I need a new logo
•       I need a new website
•       I need better messaging on my website
•       My marketing isn’t working—what’s wrong?

And, as strategists, we know that there is something much larger at play here. So once we start diving deeper with clients, we start to hear what’s going on beneath the surface:

•     My ideal clients aren’t finding my website
•     My ideal clients are coming to my website, but they’re not converting or investing
•     My branding is old, even outdated, and I don’t want to show anyone my website
•     My audience doesn’t understand what I do

At the end of the day, these are all strategy problems, and having a new website or logo is actually the end result of the strategic work that businesses need to do first. All this to say, when you’re able to correctly identify the challenge that you’re facing, the sooner you can figure out the solution you need to find the right path forward for your brand and business.

To help illustrate what we’re getting at, here are some of the most common business and marketing challenges we’ve seen to date that actually point to a strategy problem, and how implementing the right strategy can help you get what you need, and so much more. 

The Messaging on Your Website 

A therapist came to us wanting help with the messaging on her website. She had identified that her website was hard to navigate, and visitors weren’t sure what she did or how to find their way around when they landed on her site. Moreover, her main business offering had evolved, and that change was not reflected on her current website. What she needed was more than website tweaking—she needed a strategic reset, and we were there to help.

This client needed to think about her current audience, what they wanted from working with her, and what she was providing them. Once she’d done this strategic thinking, we could then create new messaging and craft new copy for her website. Today, we’re proud to say that her website clearly communicates what she does and who she serves, and clients can easily find what they need now—making it much easier for clients to book her services.

Your Logo and Visual Branding

A functional nutritionist came to us when she no longer felt connected to her logo and that it wasn’t working for her business. When we delved deeper into her story, we learned that her original logo had been created by a friend (for free). The brand palette was based on her personal favorite colors, which she never felt that confident about to begin with. She didn’t think her logo communicated anything about her business; it was just the “least worst option” among all of the options that were presented to her. 

Now, let’s talk about visual branding for a minute because a logo is not a brand.

The purpose of visual branding is to communicate the business’s identity—what it stands for and who it serves. The problem here was that this business’s visual brand needed to be seen as a way to communicate the brand’s identity to its audience rather than be a reflection of the personal preferences of the business owner, who is ultimately an audience of one.

This client needed to revisit her audience to understand who they were and what they wanted, and why she was in this business for them. Once we had articulated her brand identity, we could then express it visually using colors, graphic elements, and a logo that would appeal to her target audience, reflecting her business values and offerings in a compelling way. Today, she has a logo and visual brand that truly reflects what she offers and instills confidence in her audience, making it easier to attract the right clients to her business. 

Lead Generation for Your Business

We had a client come to us who was struggling to get new leads, and she was spending money on paid Google ads and social media with little to no results. The problem was that she didn’t really know who she was talking to and where her audience was online, so she was taking action without a plan in place. While she was very clear on who she was and what she offered, when we asked her to identify her audience, she replied, “everyone.” 

This brings us to something very important in business (get out the notebook here!)—if you’re speaking to everyone in business, then you’re actually speaking to no one.

After finding this out, we took a deep dive into who her ideal clients were so that she could get clear on who she wanted to work with and ensure that her true audience wasn’t missing out on what she had to offer. This strategy work helped to improve her communication with her audience, and in identifying who they were, it helped us to determine where they were and how to reach them. Now, she is able to focus her marketing dollars on activities she knows will reach the right people for her business.

If you’re at a point in your business where you feel like specific parts of your marketing simply aren’t working, we invite you to pop open the hood and take a deeper look. In some cases, it might be a marketing problem, but most of the time, it’s actually a strategy problem that needs specific support. And that’s what we’re in the business of doing—helping businesses get rooted in the who, why, and what so they can get the answers they need at every stage of business and move forward with a strategy-informed approach. Because it’s time for: 

•       Your brand to be as bold as your ambition
•       You to put your unique perspective front and center
•       You to zoom out and have the elevated approach you’re looking for

Our role is to guide businesses toward a better way of being so they can show up and make the kind of impact they desire in the world, whether that’s becoming the brand that turns the industry on its head or being the brand that does the work to build real connections first. 

You know your business best, and we’re here to support your business in becoming the best-branded version of itself on the way to achieving every one of its business goals.

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