20 years of business, just like that

Heather Graves

Staff

April 16, 2024

APPLETON – According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, coalesce means to grow together.

For the past two decades, the team at Coalesce Marketing and Design has strived to do that with its client base.

“The idea of Coalesce was to grow together with our employees, our clients and our community,”Lisa Piikkila, owner and creative director of Coalesce, said. “It’s a definition of the name, and it’s how we like to conduct business.”

The Appleton-based marketing and design firm (823 W. College Ave., Suite C) opened its doors March 4, 2004, and though the industry itself has changed since then, Piikkila said Coalesce’s focus on providing solid marketing and design solutions hasn’t.

“I still am a little baffled at how 20 years went by so fast,” she said. “It’s like watching your child grow up. You start this thing, and then all of a sudden, 20 years later, you’re like, ‘I don’t even know where the time went.'”

Starting out
Piikkila said Coalesce started by working with clients in the paper industry before evolving into the paper towel and tissue industries.

“Being in the heart of Paper Valley here, it’s a given it’s a great opportunity,” she said. “We’ve evolved into other B2B-focused companies, working a lot in the manufacturing area.”

Eventually, Piikkila said Coalesce began working with some B2C companies as well – driving traffic to e-commerce sites and helping launch new product lines.

Today, the marketing and design firm, she said, specializes in brand strategy, integrated marketing, digital marketing and website design for a varied group of B2B and B2C clients – from global giants to small firms to nonprofits.

Piikkila said Coalesce has many repeat clients – including the company’s first.

“We have a client that has been with us since we opened the doors and several others that are on the heels of that who we’ve established long-standing relationships with,” she said. “And then having new clients come in and mix the two of them and see we can produce great results for all of them. It’s been rewarding.”

Piikkila said Coalesce got its start in a less than 900-square-foot space in the CDW building at 4321 W. College Ave. near the Fox River Mall.

“You could turn around and almost touch the four walls we were within,” she said.

Coalesce Marketing and Design moved into its 823 W. College Ave., Suite C location in summer 2022. Submitted Photo

In summer 2022, the firm moved down College Avenue to the Block 800 building, and though the new space “isn’t huge,” Piikkila said it’s “energetic and open.”

“We got to design our whole new space,” she said. “From a visual standpoint, you can feel the difference in the space. It’s rewarding to see where we came from to where we are now.”

A lot has changed, stayed the same
Working in a marketing firm, Piikkila said, has always been fast-paced, “but I feel like it’s picked up even more so.”

“Twenty years ago, we were fighting the deadlines at FedEx to make sure we got something in the mail so a client could approve something by the next day or the day after,” she said. “Now, because it’s all virtual, the turnaround times have been bumped up exponentially.”

Though marketing output has changed significantly over the years, Piikkila said there is a place for both traditional and digital marketing – depending on the needs and wants of the client.

“Traditional marketing has not gone away,” she said. “Digital has become more impactful for the speed of getting things out. For us, we looked at a layered approach. We’re not just focusing on traditional, we’re not just focusing on digital marketing – but rather combine the two to figure out where the target audience is for clients and how we can best find them to produce better results.”

Mixed marketing solutions
At its core, Piikkila said Coalesce provides its clients with mixed marketing solutions.

When meeting with a client, she said it’s important to understand their foundation and get a strong understanding of what they are about.

“We take a look at where they’re standing right now, evaluate their foundational marketing and make sure that’s optimized and in place and successful, and then from there, growing into other executions for marketing and design.”

Above all, Piikkila said authenticity is the key to any successful marketing approach.

“Whether it’s traditional marketing, whether it’s digital marketing – the most important thing we tell our clients is to be authentic to their brand and who they are,” she said.

With its varying clientele across industries and budgets, Piikkila said meeting clients where they are at is critical – which includes being cognizant of the dollars they have to spend.

“We want to make sure we can produce the best results within the budget they have allotted,” she said. “It’s really a partnership – we want them to trust us and vice versa.”

A team effort
The Coalesce team has evolved as well, Piikkila said – at one point being as many as 12.

“We’re at about six and a half right now, and I think we’ll be looking to hire soon,” she said.

One of the things that sets Coalesce apart, Pikkila said, is its all-hands-on-deck approach to clients.

Lisa Piikkila, owner and creative director of Coalesce, said the firm’s open space provides opportunities for team project collaboration. Submitted Photo

“We don’t work on teams with certain accounts – everybody is involved with every client at any given time,” she said. “So, if someone is out, like on vacation, everyone else knows what’s going on and can pick up where you left off. They may have to check in with one another and follow up on things, but it’s not like you’re coming in blind to a client.”

This approach, Piikkila said, allows the firm to be nimble and efficient in its work with clients.

“Six and a half employees may not sound like a big team, but it works well for us because we are so efficient internally,” she said. “I think it’s amazing how much work we get done in any given week.”

In terms of skill sets, Piikkila said the team is made up of an account management side and a creative side.

“On the account management side, there are people who are specialized in different areas, whether it’s email or digital strategy or direct mail or whatever that might be,” she said. “And on the creative side, we have people who have design capabilities and education, but then on top of that, they may be specialized in web and web programming or in photography and things like that.”

With a background in design, Piikkila said she enjoys helping clients with the creative aspect of the process.

“In addition to that, I love working with the clients and developing those relationships – understanding their industry, understanding them and how they work and the challenges and opportunities that they have in their daily life,” she said. “The better we know and understand that, the better we can produce (marketing solutions) for them.”

A proud moment
Piikkila said looking back at how Coalesce has evolved in the last 20 years “has been crazy to watch.”

“We survived a recession,” she said. “We survived the COVID-19 pandemic – thankfully the partnerships we had in place helped us stay strong (through that). We are thankful for the clients we have and the employees we have and the community we live in. (The last 20 years) have been wonderful and rewarding.”

Check out coalescemarketing.com for more information.