We’re Rooted Brand House, a Kansas City brand studio run by Nicolette and David. We started out as journalists. Nicolette spent 10+ years leading brand, marketing, and creative at Minted, a global e-commerce company, and City Lifestyle, a luxury magazine franchise in 200+ markets. David spent 15+ years in digital marketing across travel, insurance, and pharmacy, and writes Inside the Crown, a Royals newsletter Kansas City fans know well. Between us, we watched marketing turn into a machine: more content, more noise, more automation.
But the businesses people love grow a different way. Someone knows your name, remembers your order, and tells their friends about you. We built Rooted for small, impact-first businesses that want to grow like that. We start with who you are and why you do the work. Then we turn it into a brand, a website, and a marketing plan people can actually feel.
You’ve grown. Your work is better, your clients are better, and your brand still looks and sounds like the version of you from three years ago.
The logo, the colors, the website, the posting schedule. All of it is checked off, and none of it captures what makes you good at this. That usually means the work was built from the outside in.
Your clients love you. They just have a hard time telling their friends why, because you haven’t found the words yet either. Finding them is my favorite part of the job.
Customers can feel it when a team is stretched thin, when the owner is running on empty, or when nobody’s quite sure what the business stands for. It shows up in a rushed reply, a website that promises one thing while the experience delivers another, a team doing its best without any real direction. No amount of marketing covers that up for long.
So our work doesn’t stop at the logo or the website. We look at how your team talks about the business, how decisions get made, and what a customer actually experiences from first click to follow-up. When the inside is clear, your front desk tells the same story your website does, and new clients walk in already knowing why they picked you. Your people become your best marketing, and customers stay longer and talk about you more.
We start by listening to you, your team, and the clients who already love you. Then we put it into words: audits, positioning, messaging, and a plan you can explain in one breath.
Everything people see, made to look like the person they’ll meet. Logos, visual identity, brand guidelines, templates, and creative direction that still feels like you a year from now.
Everywhere people find you, written like a real person is on the other end. Websites, content, email, social, and campaigns, built around where your clients actually are.
Someone in your corner long after launch. A monthly partnership, coaching and brand education for your team, or do-it-yourself tools when you’d rather run with it.
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Brands we've worked with along the way
So we don’t sell you more posts. We sit down with you, and usually your team, and figure out why people come back to you. Then we build from there: the words, the look, the website, and a way of showing up you can actually keep up with. You work with Nicolette and David directly, start to finish.
Most marketing starts with the audience and works backward. We start with you: why you opened the doors, what your team is proud of, and what your best clients say about you when you’re not in the room. No competitor can copy that. Then we make sure it shows up everywhere, from your website to the way the room feels when someone walks in.
You don’t need everyone. You need the right people to feel seen, come back, and bring a friend. Think about the last place you recommended to someone. You didn’t quote their tagline. You mentioned a person, a small detail, the way they made you feel. That’s what we help you build more of.
Growth that costs you your evenings isn’t worth it. You don’t have to be on every platform or post every day. We’ll figure out where your clients actually spend their time and help you show up there well, with a plan you and your team can keep up with on a busy Tuesday.
