Brand Strategy

“Working with Sue/Brand Strong Marketing has been essential to the growth and transition of the business. In the three years we’ve worked together, she has helped to focus our internal and external brand message, consistency of marketing efforts, and most recently the planning involved in a brand shift.

Her knowledge, skill and professionalism always amaze me. Her ability to keep me focused on both plans for the future strategy and execution of current initiatives has been instrumental to our organization’s success thus far.”

– Cara Lindell, Founder & CEO, Kinetic Konnections

“We decided to spin off one of our fastest growing business units into it’s own company. Brand Strong Marketing was so valuable in helping us. She created the brand name, defined our ideal target markets and their pain points, and crafted the brand messaging that would stand out and attract them to our services. Not only did she create the Go-to-Market strategy for us to successfully launch the new business, but she developed all of the marketing material we would need in a 7 week time frame to be ready to showcase our brand at several industry conferences.

Sue was easy to work with and we were thrilled to receive so much positive feedback on the launch. I would highly recommend working with Sue on any kind of brand launch.”

– Phil Graf, Founder and Owner, Graf Tree Care and Great Lakes Urban Forestry Management 

Recruiter Brand Strategy

“I wanted to say thank you again for your diligence in helping us with our employee brand strategy. I love the new slogan and also am very excited that we are finally defining our core values. This exercise was certainly worth the time. Thank you again for doing a great job.”

– Drake Kelly, President, Valley Insurance Group

“Brand Strong Marketing was instrumental in helping us identify our Employer Brand Strategy and Recruiter Marketing Plan. To grow the business, we needed to add more employees quickly. After interviewing our entire team and leading a brainstorm session with management to identify what differentiates Graf Tree Care as an employer, we were able to clearly articulate why and how someone should work here.

Sue also identified the best tactics to get our brand message in front of more people to increase our number of job candidates. I was able to assign different tactics to my Managers and employees so everyone now has ownership over recruiting.”

– Phil Graf, Founder and Owner, Graf Tree Care and Great Lakes Urban Forestry Management

Social Media Marketing

“Along with all the strategic branding work she has done for Oaklee’s, Sue is also the voice behind our social media pages. She knows what our audience wants from us and has done a fantastic job engaging them and growing our online presence. If you’re smart, you’ll tap into her amazing marketing expertise.”

– Nancy Stevens, Owner, Oaklee’s Family Guide

“We first contacted Sue to help build a social media strategy for our startup company, and she did an outstanding job advising on the right mix of content, placement, frequency and interaction to help us build brand awareness and engagement. At that point we had a solid plan in place, but, as a boot-strapped startup, we lacked internal resources to execute on that plan. Hiring a full-time resource hasn’t been in the budget, so we’ve continued working with Sue in order to begin building our social presence and community.

One of the great many things about working with Sue and her team is their ability to scale their involvement up or down based on our needs. For example, when our startup recently launched both our product and our company at an event attracting key influencers in the Dad market, Sue played a critical role by constantly posting our content, re-posting influencers’ content, and replying to direct contact to draw attendees to our booth and create engagement with our brand online. There is no way we could have kept on top of our social presence as quickly, comprehensively, or engagingly as Sue did since we were all-consumed just managing our presence onsite during the event.”

– Nancy Desmond, Chief Memory Officer, MemoryWeb

“Sue keeps up to date with the ever-changing world of social media so that she can market her clients in the most effective way. She is also an excellent speaker and educator on the subject of social media. I was recently at one of her presentations where she clearly explained best practices for the different social media platforms. The entire audience was engaged and impressed with her knowledge about the subject. I would recommend Sue as both a speaker and as a social marketing consultant.”

– Dona Blunt, Newport Promotions, Inc.

“Sue was an excellent consultant to work with! Our group recently rebranded and we needed support in sharing our new name and about our work with a wide variety of audiences. Sue was very thorough as she walked us through a process of identifying our audience and developed a solid strategy for social media. Sue is an expert in social media and always shared helpful tips for getting the most out of each medium. To complete our work with Sue, she led a training for our team of 14 people. Now we are all comfortable and excited about using social media to promote our work and share our message.”

– Sarah Rand, Outlier Research & Evaluation

Speaking

– Kyra Cavanaugh, President, 15 Be, Inc.

 
“Dear Sue,

I just wanted to tell you what a great job you did when you presented to the Women’s Business Initiative members on Social Media.  There was a very different level of social media sophistication in the room and you were able to answer everyone’s questions and present the material in a way that was very easy for everyone to understand.

As a small, woman business owner yourself, you offered valuable tips and a decision making framework to save time and do more with less, which is important for time starved entrepreneurs.  You even addressed the importance of branding and blogging for small business owners to position themselves as experts in their field.

Your knowledge of social media marketing was superb, your enthusiasm was contagious and we will definitely have you speak for our organization again. Thank you for a wonderful, engaging presentation.”

– Diane Middlebrooks, Women’s Initiative Coordinator. Itasca Bank & Trust Co.

“I have had the pleasurable experience of attending several presentations by  Sue Kirchner of Brand Strong Marketing.  Her relevant content and tangible steps in business development have propelled me to make impactful changes in my business.  Sue has a wealth of knowledge and she shares her expertise in a collaborative manner that allows her clients to feel empowered and supported.”

– Janine Smith, R.N., President, Elder Bridge

“Sue did a great job presenting “How to Use LinkedIn like a Pro” to our sales, marketing, customer service, and underwriter team members. We learned a lot about how to make our personal LinkedIn profiles stand out, as well as how we can all act as brand ambassadors to communicate and build deeper relationships with our customers and brokers. She is a very engaging speaker and could easily answer all of our questions on how to get started.”

– Brent Kruze, Regional Vice President, Philadelphia Insurance Companies

“Sue, I want to thank you for presenting How to Market Your Business with Pinterest for our patrons at the Downers Grove Public Library. You were wonderful! Using Pinterest, or any social media, to market a business was a new concept for some of the attendees, and you answered their questions fully and clearly. You are certainly knowledgeable on using Pinterest and how to use it for business opportunities.

On my end, you were an ideal presenter to work with. So knowledgeable, organized, and enthusiastic! You provided me with your presentation descriptions in a professional, timely manner and you were flexible when we had to add an additional date because the presentation had sold out. You’re the best!

I look forward to your next presentation on Pinterest 101.”

– Melissa Doornbos, Public Relations Manager, Downers Grove Public Library