Some branding projects can start off with such ease, where I know exactly what to do for my client. Their vision is clear, their objective is simple and their business is relatively easy to comprehend. My clients are usually sleep coaches are belong in a similar field. The Motherhood Alliance was slightly adjacent to sleep coaching in a very complex way.
In my definition, the Motherhood Alliance is the tie that connects the mothers and families to their local support system. They are the ones allowing mothers to find help that is vetted and trusted. They are also the ones providing a community, a hub, for local businesses to have a platform to market their business.
My role was to create a brand experience that didn't just speak to providing help for mothers and families, it also needed to show the concept of connecting this interloping of services and communication between the families and their support systems.
Needless to say, it was a large task.
Now where do we start?! Here are some things I like to keep in mind before I start creating brand ideas.
Goals: What is the goal of The Motherhood Alliance (MA)? Are they going to stay in the Northeast part of Wisconsin or do they want to branch out into new territory.
Answer: The long term plan is to branch out eventually into new geographical areas. The branding should not reflect anything related to Wisconsin or anything that ties to it since their goals will expand.
Feelings: Branding isn't just about colors and fonts. We want to create feelings and experiences. The people who use MA or interact with MA should be left feeling a certain way. Those feelings create strong connections and associations.
Answer: The owners of MA wanted to convey feelings like: happy, trustworthy, supporting, warm professional, fun, casual.
They also wanted to make sure that the brand didn't just look like it was advertising to mother in particular but also made space for the dads and other caregivers as well. We also wanted to respect the idea that MA is for all of the local businesses as well. The brand needed to be inclusive enough to fit well with other businesses as not to compete with those businesses.
Competition: It's important to have a good idea of what other companies are doing and what that looks like for them. Are those businesses offering the same services? Is their target audience the same? How are they marketing themselves? What personality and branding are they presenting themselves as?
Answer: Fortunately, MA is very unique in how it serves its customers and how they are partnering with their local businesses. There isn't much competition when it comes to what they, in particular, provide. There were a few businesses that offer similar services, or services that were dedicated towards helping mother's in their post-partum journey in motherhood. We wanted to make sure that their branding and messaging was completely different to what we were doing.
Now comes the brand ideas:
I wish I could say that I got the branding right in the first attempt, but that rarely happens. And in this project, we went through quite a few rounds of ideas. Here are some of the concepts that didn't make it to the final round.
These were just a few. There were more.
But that's okay! Sometimes you have to go through ideas that don't work until you get to that final idea. The idea that finally makes sense and checks all of those boxes for what you are hoping to accomplish with your brand. The final brand suite included everything we hoped to accomplish, and more.
The final brand
The Supporting Marketing Materials
In most cases, it is extremely helpful to have supporting marketing materials designed and ready to promote for your new business. What good is a brand if you can't effectively market yourself?
Luckily, the MA team decided to get some extra help with their marketing. They chose to have us design a trifold brochure, handout sheet, 10 social media templates, a stand-up banner, and a business card. An entire suite of marketing materials to help them get the word out about the MA business.
Get a peek at the Instagram templates.
Here is the stand-up banner so MA can promote their business at in-person events.
If you are in the Northeast Wisconsin area, you should find The Motherhood Alliance on social media.
@motherhoodalliance or go to www.motherhoodalliance.com
I hope you enjoyed seeing the journey of our branding project with The Motherhood Alliance!
If you are interested in creating a memorable brand for your own business, send us an inquiry here.
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