There’s nothing I love more than helping clients to develop their brands and build their businesses.

Of course, I enjoy working with established brands, too, but there’s something special about working on a brand from its inception.

It’s one thing to work with a well-known brand to improve upon what they already have, but being able to play a key role in the success of a burgeoning brand is much more satisfying.

Not only is it incredibly challenging, but it also allows me to mentor budding business owners who may feel very overwhelmed, and need someone to guide them.

I find great joy in working with entrepreneurs through the process of building a brand, from ideation to launch day, not to mention all the nitty gritty that comes with building their website, creating their marketing materials, and managing their online presence.

Projects like this offer a greater sense of fulfillment, and a deeper connection with the client, and these experiences are a big part of why I still do what I do.

At the same time, the perseverance, patience, and people skills required to take on these kinds of daunting projects are part of what set us apart from other marketing agencies.

We’re not afraid to take on these kinds of clients, as some marketers might be. On the contrary, this is the sort of thing we live for.

And if there’s one client who can best exemplify what makes us different, it’s Dayton ICU Consulting.

How We Took Nothing But a Client’s Idea and Helped Them Turn it into a Reputable Brand and a Thriving Business

Late last year, Kali Dayton came to us with nothing but an idea for a business.

Kali had been attempting to launch the business under a different name, but things weren’t really working out, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about her branding.

To make matters worse, she’d already had a previous website that ended up getting hijacked by her developer, and as a result, she lost the entire website and had to start again from scratch.

Luckily, she was already somewhat established, at least in terms of the intensive care unit community, who knew Kali from her podcast, Walking Home From The ICU.

Now, before I go into any more detail, it’s important to clarify what Kali does, and why she does it.

Kali is a critical care nurse practitioner who started her career in a rather unorthodox intensive care unit, which she calls the “Awake and Walking ICU”.

You see, in conventional ICUs, patients who are on mechanical ventilators are usually heavily sedated, and made to lie in bed and remain immobile, often for weeks at a time.

Despite this being standard practice in most ICUs, research shows that these practices are not based on the latest evidence, and they can actually increase the risk of death, delirium, and many other ICU-related ailments that these patients face.

Simultaneously, these practices tend to drive up healthcare costs and make conditions worse for those who work in the ICU.

But in the “Awake and Walking ICU”, they follow evidence-based practices for ventilated patients, like avoiding sedation and allowing the patients to be awake and mobile while on the ventilator.

This reduces the risks ventilated patients face, and makes them more likely to survive and have a better quality of life after they leave the hospital.

So, after going from the “Awake and Walking ICU” to a conventional ICU, Kali saw how different the standards of care were, and witnessed the effect this was having on patients, and clinicians, so she vowed to do something about it.

Ever since then, Kali has been on a mission to spread awareness of these issues, and offer consulting services to any hospital that wants to implement these evidence-based practices.

Admittedly, what Kali does is pretty complex, but it’s a noble cause, we have respect for what she does, and we are thrilled to have been able to help her build her business.

Through my consulting, and the hard work of the eVision Media team, we were able to create Kali’s brand from scratch.

Among other things, we defined her brand positioning, identified her target audiences, designed her logo, built her website, and even helped her to come up with the name of her business – Dayton ICU Consulting.

In addition, we’ve helped her with all of her marketing, including her articles, newsletters, and social media presence. We even worked with Kali on her lead generation by helping her create an e-book.

Needless to say, we’re very proud of the work we’ve done for Kali, and we wanted to take this opportunity to showcase several aspects of it.

So, if you’d like to learn more about what we’ve been able to create for Kali, then keep reading.

Branding

As I said above, we developed Kali’s brand from the ground up, creating every last part of it.

Naturally, as we always do, we started by doing a brand analysis to get to the bottom of what Kali’s brand is all about.

Among other things, this involved defining her brand’s values, unique selling position, and the message she wanted her brand to convey, along with identifying her main competitors, and ideal customers.

This is the first thing we do with most of our clients, as it’s used to inform every last part of their marketing and branding, ensuring it remains consistent and effective.

But for Kali, the nature of her business made it considerably more complex.

How do we turn what Kali’s offering into something that’s easily explained?

How do we target such specific audiences as ICU clinicians, hospital directors, and people whose family members have been put on mechanical ventilators in the intensive care unit?

And how do we market Kali’s services in a way that does justice to the seriousness of the situations she’s describing, and pays proper respect to the people involved?

These are just a few of the questions that were running through our heads as we began to develop Kali’s brand and dig into her marketing.

But we’re not the kind of people who run away from this sort of challenge, so once the brand analysis was complete, we got straight to work on her style guide, which is shown below.

This defines every last part of Kali’s visual brand, including her logo, and several other elements, such as the fonts and colours to be used in all of her branding and marketing.

As you can see from the examples below, we applied this across all of Kali’s visual branding, including her website, email signature, newsletter header, banners for her social media accounts, and more.

The quality of the graphic design, and the consistency with which it’s applied across all aspects of Kali’s branding and marketing, coupled with all the non-visual aspects of her brand, has allowed Kali to build trust with potential clients and positioned her as an authority in her industry.

And in a niche like ICU consulting, being seen as a trustworthy, authoritative professional couldn’t be more important.

Of course, none of that would be possible without some stellar copywriting.

Copywriting

As mentioned, Kali’s offer is quite complex.

She consults with stakeholders regarding one specific kind of care for a highly specialized section of the healthcare industry, with two very specific target audiences, which is tough in and of itself.

On top of that, although what she’s saying is true, it contradicts the status quo in most intensive care units today, so everything has to be very carefully worded to avoid causing too much controversy or hurting her reputation.

Truth be told, the copywriter assigned to this project (kudos to Alex) was actually pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing, mainly because of the possibility of portraying Kali in the wrong way, not to mention all the medical jargon and scientific studies involved.

But by concentrating on the non-visual aspects of her brand, like its values, messaging, and target audiences, and putting a focus on potential clients and their pain points, he was able to pull off some solid writing, breaking down Kali’s intricate and unique vision into copy that’s manageable and easy to understand.

For example, if you scroll down below the fold on Kali’s website, you’ll find this section, which clearly and concisely addresses her two target audiences – ICU clinicians and family members of those who’ve been admitted to the ICU.

Notice how it puts the focus on members of these audiences, speaking from their perspective and addressing their problems, and positions Dayton ICU Consulting as their guide, with a list of the benefits Kali’s business can provide taking a back seat below, and a strong call to action underneath.

It also does a great job of briefly and intelligibly explaining what Dayton ICU Consulting does, and how it can help potential clients, using as few words as possible.

And if you look at the screenshot of Kali’s home page below, you can see that the copy above the fold follows the same tried and true formula.

It puts the focus on potential clients by addressing them with a question: “Interested in improving your ICU, but not sure where to begin?”

Then, it frames them as the hero and addresses their pain points by saying, “You’re dedicated to the survival of your patients and the safety of your staff, but trying to change deep-rooted mentalities and methods can be daunting.”

Finally, it takes Dayton ICU Consulting out of the spotlight and positions it as the guide by saying, “Our team will work with you to improve ICU patient care by applying current research and implementing cost-effective, evidence-based practices.”

All things considered, the copywriting we did for Kali’s website offers a perfect example of our ability to take a complex offer and communicate it to potential customers in a way that’s succinct and straightforward.

Lead Generation

In addition to the custom website design and development, SEO and SEM marketing, social media marketing and management, logo and graphic design, copywriting, content writing, email marketing, and strategy consulting we provided for Kali, we also helped her with lead generation.

This took the form of an e-book that visitors to her website can download for free in exchange for subscribing to her newsletter.

The graphic designer who worked on it did an amazing job, creating a design that not only looked beautiful, but did justice to the seriousness of the subject matter, paying it the respect it deserves.

And as you can see from the page below, even in this free giveaway, we made sure her branding remained consistent, adhering to the style guide just as we did for all the other elements of Kali’s branding.

Now, this is pretty standard stuff in terms of building up an email list, but Kali’s free giveaway was anything but normal.

In addition to dealing with the same complex and controversial subject matter that you’ll find on her website, blog, and podcasts, her e-book contains dozens of in-text citations that refer to a sizeable reference list, which was quite a mess when it was dumped on our copywriter’s desk.

Besides having to go through every single citation to make sure it was referring to the right link in the reference list, the list had yet to be properly formatted, and our copywriter had to ensure that all the links to the source material worked. Several of them didn’t, requiring him to find alternative links to the studies in question, which was no small feat.

This e-book follows the same strategy as the rest of the textual content we’ve created for Kali, which is to offer value to the user by linking to the studies and other source material she references, allowing readers to verify the claims she’s making and look at the research for themselves.

All in all, the e-book turned out great, and creating it was an incredibly rewarding experience, despite being one of the most challenging lead generation projects we’ve ever worked on.

Content Marketing

With the success of her e-book, we were able to help Kali build up quite a long list of subscribers.

So, the natural next step was to start sending a newsletter to Kali’s subscribers to showcase her articles and podcasts, and promote her upcoming speaking engagements.

And considering how much content Kali has, creating a newsletter for her was a no-brainer.

Throughout her time in the “Awake and Walking ICU”, and all the other ICUs Kali’s worked in as a travel nurse, she’s been busy documenting the conditions in these intensive care units, and the stories of the patients who’ve been admitted to them.

This has given us more than enough content to work with in terms of writing her articles, not to mention the dozens of podcast episodes she’s recorded.

The articles offer links to the scientific studies Kali references, along with episodes of her podcasts, where she speaks to clinicians and ICU survivors, highlighting not only the evidence that’s available to back up what she’s saying, but also providing a snapshot of what she’s witnessed over the years, and giving a voice to those who’ve lived through the situations she describes.

All of this works to put what she’s saying into perspective, and show her passion and dedication for what she does, which helps to build further trust with her audience, and generate interest in her services.

As you can see from the examples below, Kali’s articles follow the same style as the rest of her branding and marketing, ensuring consistency is maintained.

In addition, they work to establish an emotional connection with Kali’s audience by telling heartwarming and tragic stories of both ICU survivors, and those who haven’t been so lucky.

When all is said and done, we couldn’t have asked for Kali’s content marketing to turn out any better. Her mastery of the subject matter combined with our marketing expertise has made for truly amazing content, which is helping to build her brand and connect her with potential clients.

Google Ads

The massive success of Kali’s brand probably wouldn’t have been possible without the search engine marketing (SEM) we’ve done for her with Google Ads.

Despite working with a very modest budget, since launching her website, we’ve seen some pretty impressive statistics.

As of the time we published this case study, the number of visitors to her website is up by 83 percent, her page views have increased by 48 percent, and she’s also seen a 91 percent increase in sessions.

At the same time, Kali’s “Consulting for Families” page has seen the largest page growth in her website’s history, with the number of visitors growing by a whopping 3,000 percent.

As for her newsletter, within the last three months, her subscribers have increased by about 250 percent.

Of course, neither we nor Google can take all the credit for this, as I’m sure word of mouth within the ICU community has brought a ton of visitors to her site.

That being said, these statistics are pretty spectacular, and they show how powerful a proper SEM campaign can be for driving traffic to your website.

At the end of the day, we pride ourselves on building mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with clients, and delivering the results that are required to nurture those relationships.

We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done and continue to do for Kali, and I think she shares that same sentiment. When we asked her for some feedback, here’s what she had to say:

“The eVision Media team has been a dream. Susan really dove deep to investigate my business, services, and aspirations, and captured the big picture of where I wanted and needed to go with it all. Marketing and design are daunting fields for me, but she kept me involved while infusing her expertise throughout the process. I love the final product and feel confident sharing my website and services with others on a large scale. It has helped bring reputability to my business and provided my audience with resources that are leading them to seek out my services. I am grateful to have found eVision Media and am excited and hopeful for the future of my business.”

If you’re looking for someone to help you build your brand, or are in need of any of our other services, like copywriting, lead generation, or something else entirely, you should reach out and see what we have to offer. For more than 20 years, we’ve been helping people build their businesses from the ground up, and we’d love to help you, too.

About the Author, Susan Friesen

Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of British Columbia’s premiere boutique web development and digital marketing agency, eVision Media.

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, she is an expert in helping businesses establish their online presence and create a strong brand identity.

Her passion for empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners to succeed in the digital world has earned her a reputation as a leading authority in the branding and marketing industry.

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