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A Quarter Century of Excellence
What We’ve Learned About Growth
Much has changed in marketing over the last 25 years. We’ve watched search engines evolve, social platforms change and automation tools redefine how teams work. Through it all, one thing has been constant: growth comes from putting people first, from your team to your audience.
At Kuno Creative, we’ve had the privilege of helping brands of all shapes and sizes adapt, innovate and thrive. Along the way, we’ve collected lessons that keep proving themselves time and again.
Here are 25 lessons from 25 years, principles we believe will continue to power results.
25 Takeaways From Our 25 Years in Brand Growth Excellence
1. Prioritize SEO for Long-Term Growth
SEO is the slow burn that keeps paying off. For instance, building pillar pages around big industry topics or consistently updating evergreen content creates compounding visibility.
Inspirus partnered with Kuno to launch a pillar-cluster content strategy that boosted their organic sessions by 13.7X in less than five months, demonstrating the compounding power of organized, authoritative content.
2. Align Sales and Marketing Teams
When teams move in sync, everything works better. Think shared dashboards, agreed-upon definitions of “qualified” and weekly check-ins where both sides bring insights to the table.
When sales and marketing speak the same language and share the same tools, they create a strong, more collaborative process that the buyer ultimately feels."
Bridget Cunningham
3. If You Can’t Explain It Simply, You Can’t Sell It Repeatedly
Clarity is currency. Use analogies, visuals or short explainer videos to break down what you do in a way anyone can repeat back.
Kuno helped e2Companies simplify complex energy solutions into clear, visual stories, fueling a 135% year-over-year increase in website traffic and more than 400 qualified leads from a single trade show.
4. Keep the Human Element at the Center
Behind every click is a person. Show faces in your brand, tell real stories and write like you’re talking to someone at the table versus an algorithm.
Remington-Davis amplified trust and engagement by showcasing the real people behind clinical research through a series of videos featuring physicians, staff and patients.
5. Use Content To Educate, Not Just Sell
Teaching builds trust. That could mean publishing explainer blogs, creating a glossary of industry terms or producing guides that demystify a complex process.
Not every piece of content you create needs to lead the customer to purchase something. Sometimes, your audience doesn’t yet know they are in need of what you’re offering.
By developing explainer resources, visual diagrams, and a whitepaper on industrial heat pumps, Skyven Technologies was able to demystify its solution for manufacturers, build credibility and generate 370 marketing-qualified leads in its first year.
6. Stay Agile To Outpace Change
Markets shift fast. Quarterly planning cycles, regular retrospectives and the ability to pivot mid-campaign fast keep you relevant when the unexpected happens.
B2B buyers aren’t just evaluating solutions. They’re assessing how well your business understands the latest industry news and trends, with an expectation that you’ll engage in these conversations.”
Bridget Cunningham
7. Listen Closely to Customers
Your customers are your best strategists. Pay attention to FAQs, customer support tickets and LinkedIn comments. Those can be the seeds for your next blog, video or resource.
Marketers need to drill down even further into individual website experiences to identify the types of content they want to see and experiences they want to have. In other words, when website users 'talk', it’s important to listen.”
Bridget Cunningham
8. Make Your Website Your Strongest Sales Tool
Your website should guide, not frustrate. Clean navigation, interactive tools like ROI calculators and clear ‘next step’ CTAs make it easy for visitors to act.
Creating valuable content that attracts and nurtures leads starts with a nuanced understanding of your target audience, their pain points and their goals. From there, keep visitors within your company’s gravitational pull and naturally draw them toward the deal with an optimized lead capture and conversion strategy that’s built into every part of your website.”
Clare Hennig
Kuno’s design philosophy turns sites into powerful sales tools. See what we mean by exploring examples of our work with clients.
9. Closed-Lost Is Not Closed Forever
A “no” today doesn’t mean “no” forever. Retargeting past prospects with new offers or re-engaging them when priorities shift can breathe new life into old conversations.
One industrial client revived a closed-lost opportunity through targeted re-engagement, ultimately closing a $30,000 deal that would have otherwise been left on the table.
10. Content Wins When It Mirrors Real Questions
The best-performing content usually answers what people are already searching for. Consider keyword-driven “how do I…?” posts, solution comparisons or “pros and cons” breakdowns.
Big Bolt turned keyword-driven content into authority, ranking on page one and owning two 'People Also Ask' answers for the search term 'bolt failure.'
11. Let Data Drive More Personalized Experiences
Treat data as fuel for relevance. You can use it to shape content by persona, tailor follow-ups to the buyer’s journey and make every touchpoint feel personal, not generic.
Reaching out to a customer who has recently watched a video or visited a product page is like fishing with a spear instead of casting a wide net of leads and then spending hours sorting through them.”
Annie Zelm
12. Authority Accrues With Consistency
Thought leadership isn’t built in a single post. Keep showing up with insights, from quarterly webinars to monthly newsletters, and you’ll earn trust over time.
IMARC built long-term authority through consistent content marketing, influencing more than 27,000 contacts and helping achieve the highest revenue in its 19-year history.
13. Build Authority With Pillar Content
Think of pillar pages as your content hub. Organizing your expertise into a central guide with linked subtopics helps both your audience and search engines navigate what you know best.
While it's still important to attract Google’s attention with well-researched, optimized target keywords and pillar pages or content clusters that answer questions about a specific topic, you’ll increase your chances of being recommended to your ideal customer when you write for humans and keep human behavior top of mind in your content strategies.”
14. Make Video Part of the Story
Video makes ideas stick. Quick product walkthroughs, customer spotlights and even behind-the-scenes clips add a human dimension to your brand.
Video’s dynamic nature allows companies to communicate complex ideas in an understandable and engaging way, which is crucial in the B2B space.”
Annie Zelm
Through video storytelling, e2Companies showcased its role in shaping a new energy future, making its vision accessible and memorable.
Meanwhile, Remington-Davis used video storytelling to spotlight the human side of clinical research, while giving sponsors and participants a glimpse inside their facility.
15. Build a Community, Not a Contact List
Communities create loyalty. That could look like hosting LinkedIn Live sessions, building user groups or creating social spaces where people share ideas with each other.
The key is to be helpful, not promotional when contributing in these environments. This is not the place to promote your latest blog post or broadcast a new product announcement. Always think about the greater good.”
Annie Zelm
16. Balance Compliance With Creativity
Regulated industries can still stand out. For instance, turn policy-heavy updates into customer-friendly explainers or translate technical jargon into simple, relatable stories.
A healthcare client increased organic traffic 700% in one quarter by publishing accessible blog content that patients could find without sifting through medical journals.
17. Brand Is a Growth Multiplier
A clear brand amplifies every channel. Consistent visuals, messaging frameworks and tone of voice make ads perform better and sales conversations smoother.
Creating an omnichannel experience means treating your website as the hub of your entire digital ecosystem. Every other touchpoint should tie back to it, reinforce its value and work together to move buyers confidently toward a decision.”
Bridget Cunningham
18. Invest in Your Team
The strongest campaigns come from strong teams. Training, mentorship and clear career paths pay off in better work and longer-lasting relationships.
As an ESOP company, every Kuno team member is an owner. That shared investment drives collaboration and accountability.
19. Measure What Moves the Business
Likes and clicks feel good, but revenue and pipeline tell the real story. Build dashboards that tie marketing efforts to business outcomes for more meaningful conversations with the C-Suite.
With the right data and framework, marketers can tell stories just as powerful in the boardroom as they do in the market.”
20. Be Ready To Pivot in Real Time
Relevance is about timing. Watch for cultural moments, industry news and trending conversations you can join authentically, and be ready to adapt.
Speed to market isn’t always about getting a new or refreshed brand out there for public consumption, or facilitating a successful product debut. It can be about sparks of creativity in the moment and capitalizing on timely opportunities.”
Brent Sirvio
21. Turn Customers Into Advocates
Some of your best salespeople are happy customers. Showcase them in testimonials, highlight them on social, or invite them to co-host webinars with you.
By leaning on customer case studies as part of 200+ thought leadership pieces of content, a professional services client with Kuno generated 972 MQLs, $209M in open opportunities and 55 closed deals.
22. Optimize for Mobile First
Many users will meet you through a phone. Design pages, emails and forms with thumbs in mind: short copy, tappable buttons and fast load speeds.
Part of effective lead generation is meeting your audience where they are at and, in this case, that means on mobile devices.”
Clare Hennig
23. Play the Long Game and Win the Short Ones
Lasting growth comes from compounding strategies like thoughtful SEO and establishing a clear brand identity. Quick wins like a targeted paid campaign keep momentum alive while the long game builds.
White Cup balanced quick wins from targeted paid campaigns, which ultimately led to 10 closed deals, with long-term SEO gains that lifted website sessions 47% year-over-year.
24. Tell Stories That Stick
Stats are useful, but stories are memorable. Case studies, employee features and customer testimonials turn numbers into narratives people actually share.
One landscaping company worked with Kuno to develop a recruitment video to attract new talent, capturing team members’ own words about what they love most about working there.
25. AI Is an Accelerant, Not a Replacement
AI can help draft, analyze or scale, but it can’t replace human creativity and empathy. Think of it as your intern, not your CMO.
Having creative minds at the center of your content marketing efforts — and empowering them with AI tools — is the best path to sustainable success at scale.”
Looking Back, Leaning Forward
25 years in, we know this much: every challenge holds a lesson, and every lesson shapes what comes next. The fundamentals of growth will always matter, but so will the curiosity and courage to keep learning.
We’re thankful for the journey so far and energized by what lies ahead.
If you’re looking for a partner to put these lessons to work and discover new ones as we go, let’s start your next chapter together.