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HI, I'm Kaitlin

Brand Strategist / Professional Hype-Gal / Creative marketer / Pop-Culture Anthropologist

I’ve always been a little too interested in why people do what they do. The movie that changes how everyone decorates their house, the slogan that somehow joins common vernacular, the meme that quietly rewires a generation’s sense of humor. I tend to notice those things and wonder what they tell us about the people who made them, loved them, and lived alongside them.

I’ve never been particularly good at picking one lane, either. Psychology, culture, storytelling, design, the internet, human behavior, whatever has caught my attention that week. Somehow, it all comes back to the same question: why does this work?

That question has followed me through recruiting, marketing, brand strategy, creative direction, content, and web design. These days, I bring all of those pieces together to help brands (& the humans behind them) uncover what makes them special and the rest of us a reason to care.

CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER CULTURE CRAFTER

"Kaitlin leads with creativity & compassion. She's an old soul with a new vision for what it means to be an all-encompassing artist."

Dolly Parton

"Kaitlin leads with creativity & compassion. She's an old soul with a new vision for what it means to be an all-encompassing artist."

Dolly Parton

"Kaitlin leads with creativity & compassion. She's an old soul with a new vision for what it means to be an all-encompassing artist."

Dolly Parton

MY Approach

Same as with my friends, I skip the small talk & ask the one question that gets you talking.

(Because the real answer rarely resides in the tidy version.)

You can't solve a problem with a fuzzy picture of what's actually going on. Before jumping into solutions, I want to understand what’s actually happening: what’s changed, what people are responding to, what they’re saying, and what keeps catching their attention. From there, I look beneath the obvious answer to find the pattern, disconnect, or opportunity hiding underneath it and then test my findings ideas against the real world.

Sometimes the answer is a sharper message. Sometimes it’s a new page, a different experience, or a completely different direction than we expected. The point is to stop guessing and see what actually gets a reaction. Because a good idea isn’t particularly useful if it only works in a conference room.

Once something clicks, the rest of the experience needs to agree with it. The positioning, words, visuals, and behavior should all be telling the same story, without feeling like they were assembled by five different departments on five different Tuesdays.

The goal isn’t to optimize everything. It’s to know what’s worth optimizing in the first place.

Knowing what’s working, what isn’t, and where to put your energy next is.

STYLE & STANDARDS

VALUE

Making sure what you get out of the work is worth what you put into it, and that the outcome lives up to what was promised.

PRINCIPLE

Making decisions you can stand behind, even when the easier option is sitting right there.

RESOURCEFULNESS

Knowing how to make progress with what’s available, improvise when necessary, and find another route when the first one goes nowhere.

PERSEVERANCE

Sticking with something through the false starts, dead ends, revisions, and occasional well, shit moments until there’s something worth keeping.

STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS

Communicating clearly, giving honest answers, and saying what needs to be said without burying the useful part under unnecessary jargon, posturing, or bullshit.

THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSONA

✦ A Non-Exhaustive Overview ✦

Back to Basics

I miss BuzzFeed quizzes, so I made my own.

Finding my way involved A bit of wandering

Here's what winging it, dabbling, and trying things on for size looked like for me over the years.

(Think: an over-the-top wardrobe montage, but for artistic pursuits.)

Age 01-02

Budding Artist Season

The first time I put pen to paper, circa 1995 - starting off strong with a family portrait.

Age 05

Humble Thy-Self Season

What happens when you mix creative confidence with technical incompetence a week before school picture day?

A learning opportunity, several emergency trips to the salon, and an ear-length bob.

Age 6-12

Performer Season

Tap dancing lessons, school musicals, orchestra, piano, violin, and pretty much any opportunity to perform. I loved the physicality of practicing something until it became muscle memory, but especially the magic of watching a bunch of seemingly insignificant little parts become something much bigger when everyone played their part.

Age 13-14

Myspace Season

In my early teens, my creative expression became extremely technical. I was part of a small but significant subculture of teenagers who accidentally became expert HTML coders while pushing Myspace's editor to its limits. For the first time, I found a creative medium where I could make exactly what I pictured. & as you'll see, that stuck with me.

Age 12 - 18

Writer Season

Poetry, essays, presentations, storytelling, and one English teacher who secretly submitted a poem of mine for publication without telling me until it was accepted. What stayed with me wasn’t being published, but realizing something I’d written had moved someone enough to act on it. I was beginning to understand that words could do more than express an idea. They could motivate behavior.

Age 16-21

Service Season

Even when the job was just the job, I couldn't help caring about how the whole thing came together. I cared about how the products looked, how they were merchandised, and what would make someone want them. I designed all promotional signage and handled Starbucks' seasonal merchandising rollouts, too. A starving artist has to find a little art wherever they can, especially when Frappuccino Happy Hours™️ exists.

Age 20-23

Research Season

I studied Psychology without intending to become a psychologist. Research, analysis, statistics, and the study of human behavior gave me a whole new way to understand people and communicate ideas.

AGE 24

Matchmaker Season

After graduating with my BA, I spent about a year in recruiting. Which is essentially professional matchmaking, if you strip away the corporate lingo.

I learned to ask better questions, listen for what mattered, and understand what made a fit actually fit.

Age 25

Marketing Season

Then came marketing, where suddenly a bunch of the things I'd been messing around with for years had a place to call home and someone paying me to keep messing around with them.

Age 26 - Now

Current Season

The latest iteration of me is less interested in inventing a personality than figuring out the one that's already there.

From strategy and storytelling to design, content, and whatever else the idea calls for, I'm figuring out what's worth saying, how to say it, and how to make people care.

SOME OF MY

(semi)

HUMBLE

OPINIONS

There is immense value in knowing what you don't want.

Sometimes the fastest route to the right idea is a healthy pile of “absolutely nots.”

We can test the obvious thing, reject the almost-right thing, and keep pulling at the thread until something actually feels like you.

Knowing what you don’t want isn’t indecision. It’s data.

You can engineer a moment you can't engineer staying power.

Strategy can get you attention. It can put you in front of the right people, sharpen your message, and give good ideas a bigger stage. But if you have to constantly optimize, reinvent, and perform to keep that attention, eventually the strategy becomes the thing holding everything up.

I’d rather build brands with enough personality and substance that people want to stick around, even after the algorithm changes its mind.

Generic corporate buzzwords are crimes against the English Language.

I believe the brands with staying power are consistent, make people feel seen, leave little room for misguided assumptions, and feel like real people solving real problems for other real people.

A big part of my job is finding the language that actually sounds like you and then having the good sense to leave it alone.

Bees don't waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than sh*t.

FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures FAQs & Figures

I Keep My RECEIPTS

After almost a decade in brand strategy, creative direction, marketing & communications, I've got a lot to show for it.

Thankfully, for you and my imposter syndrome, I also have the data to back it up.

8+

YEARS

Of experience across the full marketing lifecycle.

10+

Partner INDUSTRIES

Staffing, SaaS, education, finance, transportation, hospitality, law, and at minimum, three others.

>600

PREMIUM CONTENT & RESOURCES

Developed for multiple industries, supporting every customer journey possible.

FUNNEL

full

EXPERIENCE

Brand, strategy, content, campaigns, CRM, lifecycle, digital, web, SEO, and communications.

HI, I'm Kaitlin

Brand Strategist / Professional Hype-Gal / Creative marketer / Pop-Culture Anthropologist

MY Approach

More content, more polish, more ideas, more everything isn’t necessarily more effective.

Knowing what’s working, what isn’t, and where to put your energy next is.

STYLE & STANDARDS

✦ A Non-Exhaustive Overview ✦

Back to Basics

Finding my way involved A bit of wandering

Here's what winging it, dabbling, and trying things on for size looked like for me over the years.

(Think: an over-the-top wardrobe montage, but for artistic pursuits.)

Budding Artist Season

Humble Thy-Self Season

Performer Season

Myspace Season

Writer Season

Service Season

Research Season

Matchmaker Season

Marketing Season

Current Season

SOME OF MY

(semi)

HUMBLE

OPINIONS

There is immense value in knowing what you don't want.

You can engineer a moment you can't engineer staying power.

Generic corporate buzzwords are crimes against the English Language.

Bees don't waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than sh*t.

I Keep My RECEIPTS

8+

10+

>600

FUNNEL

full

YOU WANT MORE, I'LL GIVE YOU MORE

See My Work

Read My Thoughts

Say Hi