Empowering Communities to Be Well: Village Yoga Case Study
The Ask:
Cath, a co-founder of Village Yoga, came to us seeking support to get to the root of her brand’s mission and values, and how to use that as a foundation to storytell across their marketing platforms. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to combine our Strategic Consulting and Marketing & Storytelling offerings, allowing us to complete a discovery & auditing process that resulted in a clear brand position that we could use to develop an adaptable storytelling strategy.
Project Approach:
Phase 1: Brand Audit - We set the groundwork for our collaboration by surveying the Village Yoga team and learning more about their lived experiences, and the values they hold near and dear. This support included 1:1 coaching sessions to synthesize what was unearthed during the survey period, with support, tying it back to the brand’s larger impact journey.
Phase 2: Strategic Consulting - We educated the team about how to put the ideas uncovered during Phase 1 into action responsibly and sustainably via storytelling and digital marketing with social media top of mind. The team walked away with a Values One-Sheet that clearly defined their values and how to activate them tangibly, along with a Digital Storytelling Brand Book that outlined how to showcase those values on digital platforms.
Learnings:
During Phase 1, a fresh position rooted in Cath and her husband’s lived experiences, and that of the communities they serve revealed itself. We used this as a foundation to create a digital marketing strategy that was developed using tried and true best practices but is adaptable enough for them to build upon as their studio and community continue to grow and blossom.
The project journey was a beautiful one.
We walked away with three key learnings that we’ll be applying to future projects:
Your lived experiences are central to your brand ➡️ Understanding who you are, where you’ve been, and what life experiences you’ve journeyed through is a great lens to develop your brand position.
There’s wellness in diversity ➡️ To create wellness for your community, consider their diverse needs, wants, and dreams.
Co-design for the business you wish to create ➡️ Lean on your community to co-design a brand that allows them to belong genuinely, and authentically.
Word from the Client:
“Working with Backstory gave me a better sense of connection and understanding about how our brand's actual mission, vision, and values impact the lived experience of our community AND folks who might not yet be a part of it. It helped to contextualize why we do our work, crystallize how we want to be of service, and help us align our business decisions - big and small - with that framework. [The project process] helped me understand what we're up to in a more consistent way. The work [we completed] lends itself to helping simplify decision-making strategies because [we] have a clear reference point and lens through which to move."
Follow Village Yoga here.
And if you’d like to book a project with a similar scope, learn more here.