Northwoods

Brand Strategy

At Northwoods (that’s us!), you'll find a true digital partner — a digital best friend — who's focused on your ultimate success and happiness. Since 1997, more than 900 B2B and B2C companies worldwide have trusted us to lead, develop and execute more than 5,000 digital strategies, digital marketing and advertising initiatives, websites and software projects.

Northwoods Leverages Its Proven Brand Strategy Process to Define Identity & Position for Long-Term Success 

Despite our decades-long history of success in software development, digital strategy, digital marketing, and web design and development, the day had finally arrived: the day we finally acknowledged that we did indeed, despite all previous denials, have an identity crisis.

How did we know? Over the years, we had consistently added descriptors to our name in an effort to help customers and potential customers (and, to be perfectly honest, ourselves) understand exactly what it is we do. But just as quickly as we adopted these descriptors, we abandoned them almost as fast — or, worse, sometimes used them in tandem. So, we did what any smart agency in the same situation would do: we took the exact same advice we’d give to a client — we needed to conduct a formal brand strategy. We got to work, leveraging our internal brand and marketing expertise to guide the way, and the results have been nothing short of phenomenal.

The Situation

• Descriptors like Northwoods Web Development, Northwoods Software, Northwoods Software Development, Northwoods Strategic Web Solutions, and Northwoods Web Solutions had been added to our name over the years (you may even remember some of them!). But just as quickly as we adopted them, we abandoned them almost as fast. To make matters worse, we sometimes used more than one at the same time. Nothing stuck.
• Nothing stuck because none of them solved our core problem: we didn’t know how to position ourselves, what truly differentiated us in the market, and how to effectively message that and our value to our customers and prospects. If we didn’t understand who we were, how could our stakeholders?
• We had an identity crisis.

The Solution

• Following our own five-phase brand strategy process, we started with discovery to understand current brand perceptions — what makes us unique, what customers, employees, partners and other key stakeholders think we do well and what we don’t, emotional descriptors, and how well they understood our mission and vision. We also completed a competitive analysis to better understand the marketplace.
• Once we had a solid understanding of our current brand perception and the competitive landscape, we were able to clearly see how we fit into it and the unique value that we offer.
• We defined key brand strategy elements: our brand essence, brand promise, brand personality, and we created a new tagline — letting the research steer the way.
• And then we were ready to let our brand strategy guide the development of a new brand identity — our logo, fonts, color palette, imagery, iconography, and other elements that visually exemplify who we are and how we want to be perceived. We honed our brand voice and tone.
• We had finally defined who we were, how to articulate our unique value, and how to message it effectively. We had solved our identity crisis!

The Outcome

• Our new brand launched on May 13, 2020 — with a new website as the centerpiece — all while working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. (And let us tell you, that was quite a feat. Good thing we’re a digital company!)
• We’re now known simply as Northwoods. No descriptors, no qualifiers. Our research showed that they aren’t needed. Our new tagline says it all: creating peace of (digital) mind.
• We really leaned into the whole “northwoods” concept for our new brand identity — our experts are “trailguides,” meetings are “campfires.” Our visual identity is nature-based, down-to-earth, laid back, warm, resourceful and fun — all traits that exemplify our personality and capture our unique spirit.
• The Northwoods logo got a slight update to better reflect our personality, too, and we switched our old domain from northwoodsoft.com to nwsdigital.com to help eliminate an outdated perception that all we do is software development.
• Marketing messaging got a bit of an overhaul and our marketing and sales collateral were redesigned, as well.
• Our employees now clearly understand our vision and have rallied around our brand promise of being our customers’ digital best friend.
• We’ve been busier than ever. And with website traffic, social media engagement, referrals and lead generation having all increased since the launch — along with a continued strong client retention rate —, we think some of that has just a little bit to do with brand strategy.