The Importance of Intentionality in Your Marketing

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the owner and Creative Director of Viim, Steph Hilfer.

Steph shares that what Viim does is tied to the meaning of its name. For one thing, ‘vim’ is an English word that means ‘enthusiasm, high-spirited, and vitality’. Viim’s company name is also an acronym – Visual Intentional Integrated Marketing. Steph explains that before you can begin marketing, you need to have a solid foundation. Your visuals, your intentions, and how you integrate those aspects through your marketing are what create that solid foundation.

Viim works with a variety of different types of businesses as their clientele. Their vim comes from your vim, Steph says. Collaboration is very important to the Viim team and combining the best aspects of your creative ideas and theirs is key. You have to continuously nurture your intentionality with your business and brand. Keep yourself in alignment with your mission in order for your messaging to make an impact.

Intentionality means changing your perspective on how you show up in the world. Viim and their team offer a one-day-long discovery call for their new clients that aligns their vision, their business’s vision, and their team’s vision. This time for discovery outlines what their client is already doing and why – you’d be surprised with how many businesses really don’t fully grasp what they do. (If your consumer is confused about what you do, that’s probably rooted in your confusion about what you do.) This discovery call brings all the power players within a business into the same room, which is what drives team alignment. 

Consumers will always notice if you’re confused about your own brand alignment. This is usually a subconscious realization most of the time, Steph explains. Unless you’re in sales and marketing professionally, you don’t typically catch what makes you uncomfortable with a brand. It’s all about the consumer experience and how it affects the consumer subconsciously. They may not know what about the brand makes them uncomfortable, but they feel that discomfort and will steer clear. The worst part is that, to begin with, consumers will usually start by blaming themselves and think that their misunderstanding of your brand is their fault. NO brand should ever sit idly if their consumers are feeling this way – and a confused mind will not buy (and if they do, they may feel buyer’s remorse.)