Behind the Scenes of My Rebrand
As marketing professionals, I sometimes think we can fall into the trap of getting away with a lot. In other words, we pile a lot onto our own plate. Ever since I launched my own consulting business in 2019, I have been DIY-ing my own branding, website, social media templates, and marketing collateral. And for a while, that totally served me. But about a year ago I started feeling overwhelmed with the brand upkeep and content production. Plus, I knew I had outgrown the simple templates my own limited design capacity could create. I didn't have enough options and to be honest, the brand image I was portraying didn't feel 100% aligned with the quality and style I require for my client's projects.
DIY-ing just wasn't going to cut it anymore. So this time I aimed to work smarter, not harder.
For the past few months, I have been working behind the scenes to not only update my visual look but to review and re-do my messaging, services, and perhaps most importantly, internal systems for my client's experience. Today, I'm pulling back the curtain to give you a little sneak peek of it all. A case study example of myself! So here we go, the journey of taking my own business through a rebrand…
January through March 2023:
I started this year knowing I wanted to change up my approach to creating marketing content. I decided the most important and interesting channels, for me, were as follows:
1. Monthly newsletters
(To go a little deeper and be more vulnerable with my most engaged audience.)
2. Blog posts
(For SEO, yes, but mostly so people can get a taste of my style and philosophies about brand marketing.)
3. Instagram
(Because this is the platform my target audience hangs on out the most, and also it's the one I prefer to share on.)
I focused on these three main channels and amped up my value-based content. The way I did this was by 1) theming out my months to focus on one macro topic at a time (eg. January = copywriting for emails, February = brand messaging) and 2) I hired a marketing assistant to help me upload the new content.
Also in January, I reviewed my past year of projects, income, inquiries, leads that weren't a fit, the timing of each of my projects, and also my own personal business goals. I used the framework of Karen Lum's "Roadmap to Success" annual planning guide and realized that while a large percentage of my 2022 projects revolved around creating social media content, what I actually wanted to be doing was more Brand Message work. And I've been pivoting my marketing ever since.
In February, I enlisted the help of a wonderful web designer (Foxtail Tech) to help me audit my website and lead me through the proper redesign I know it needed. At this time, I also updated all of my website copy.
April through June 2023:
In April, life happened. I needed to take a little break to focus on my own life, squeeze in some travel, and work on a month of bigger client projects. I also adjusted the frequency of my blog posts. Because, well, life.
In May, I scheduled time to dive into my systems and customer experience. (Things that are definitely not in my zone of genius!) So I welcomed in Lexi of Collective Twenty-Two to help streamline my proposals, invoices, and client workflows. Now I finally understand Dubsado, the client system I switched to after getting fed up with HoneyBook - all the way back in December!
And finally, I was ready for my brand redesign! Last month, Gossack Creative led me through her Design Intensive process. I've worked with Serena on many, many branding projects but it was a treat to be on the receiving end this time. I absolutely adore the fonts and graphic icons she created and immediately wanted to use them on my website and on social media.
As a final step, I asked Design by Zoe to help me design a new service guide (which you can view here) plus a few social media templates so that I can easily put this new branding to use!
While this entire process certainly was a lot of work, it was made easeful thanks to a talented team that I am very grateful to have had the ability to work with. I know that depending on things like budgets, phases of business, or timelines, it's not always possible to bring in outside expertise. But whenever you can, even if it's just a teenie bit of a stretch, I promise it pays off. So a huge thank you goes out to Hailey, Rosa, Serena, Lexi, and Zoe for all of your help!
And as a final, final note, I will share that I let this whole timeline unfold fairly organically. Because I'm so intimately aware of the branding and launch process, I felt comfortable doing this. I also didn't want to put myself under too much pressure because I knew I wasn't going to take time off to do it - it all needed to happen in tandem with keeping up with my regular client workload. Suffice it to say, I didn't have an official target launch in mind as I typically would with my clients. My rebranding unfolded in the time that it needed to, and this was VERY much possible because I had people guiding me and keeping me accountable along the way.