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Frequently asked questions
Most PR agencies focus exclusively on media relations, branding or web design. We use PR as the foundation of an integrated brand marketing strategy that connects PR, brand design, website design, SEO, content, and video - because in today's world PR, branding and web design alone doesn't drive the sustained growth most businesses need. Every service amplifies the others.
We understand the need to tell brand stories through the lens of brand and experience combined with content for long-term search and discovery.
We offer big-agency strategy at boutique scale, with veteran professionals on every account.
Yes - while we are located in the Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana areas, we
serve clients across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and globally. As a virtual agency, we've mastered remote collaboration. Our client map spans dozens of states and multiple countries, and our process is built to work remotely without losing any of the high-touch strategic depth we're known for.
We specialize in startups, growth-stage small businesses, and small enterprises - companies that need serious marketing firepower but don't have the budget for a large agency.
Our services are flexible by menu, but real impact comes from our Cascade360 model.
For those companies who want to really get to know us before hiring us for projects, we offer the Cascade Compass program. It allows us to do all of the onboarding, discovery and audits to build a strategy that meets your objectives. Then we collaborate to finalize the strategy before executing the plan.
Some results, like media coverage from a strong pitch, can happen within weeks but PR is an ongoing long play. Not a one off. Our job is to ensure your company, leadership and experts stay in the media to build credibility.
SEO and content results typically compound over 3–6 months. We set realistic expectations at the start and build campaigns designed for both quick wins and long-term growth.
Our website clients have seen immediate spikes in traffic and engagement within the first month.
No reputable agency can guarantee specific placements. If they do, it means that they are buying the placement and charging you for it in return. This is no longer authentic "earned" media but paid. We know that consumers and customers prefer and engage more with earned media and owned content (i.e. articles, blogs).
Other factors come into play with PR:
Editorial decisions are beyond our control
We can control media like we can the weather
Editors and producers are here today, and can be gone tomorrow
Freelance writers, which are a majority of journalistic roles today, can be interested but need to get the okay from outlets and editors they work with at various media.
What we do know and will never change: A strong, compelling and timely story told with a journalistic perspective always gets coverage. That's why having former journalists on your team is a competitive advantage.
What we guarantee is strategic, experienced pitching built on 25+ years of story development, media pitching and relationships and a track record of 20+ cover stories and thousands of feature stories across in-market and major national outlets.
Our founder has said, "There are few industries we haven't played in" — and 25+ years of client work backs that up.
Cascade's core competencies are in consumer products, tech, food and beverage, lifestyle, B2B services, nonprofits, pet products, outdoor and recreation, arts and entertainment and special events.
However, we are emerging experts in businesses going through transition either generational hand offs or acquisitions by new owners. We assist in refreshing or revitalizing brand identities, package design (et al), website design and content, and helping leadership become experts in their industry.
Cascade Compass is our strategic brand navigation program for businesses at pivotal moments. Whether launching, growing, rebranding post-acquisition, hand off or navigating a leadership transition. It starts with a deep brand audit and delivers a clear strategic roadmap for exactly what needs to happen next.
For many companies dipping their toe into marketing services and working with an agency for the first time, or those looking for a more positive experience, Cascade Compass allows us all the opportunity to build a tight client/agency relationship, show our five-star experience and develop a winning strategy for execution.
You receive a complete, written deliverable — a brand audit, competitive analysis, and prioritized growth roadmap — specific to your business, your market, and your goals. Depending on your tier, this may also include a messaging framework, a leadership transition narrative, an audience map, or a formal executive presentation.
The Compass is a real strategic document, not a slide deck of generalizations. Every finding is sourced. Every recommendation is sequenced and prioritized. You'll know what to do first, what to do next, and what you can defer — and why.
A free consultation is an introduction — a conversation about what you might do. The Compass is a paid engagement that produces a real strategic deliverable: competitive research, a brand audit, a messaging analysis, and a prioritized roadmap built specifically for your business.
Free consultations are designed to sell you something. The Compass is designed to tell you the truth — including if there are investments you shouldn't make right now. It's valuable whether or not you ever work with Cascade beyond it.
The right tier depends on the complexity of your business, the scope of analysis needed, and what you're preparing to build. A startup with a clear product and early-stage brand needs a Launchpad Compass. A family business navigating succession or an owner stepping into a legacy needs a Legacy Compass. A scaling small enterprise with multiple service lines and a competitive market needs a Market Compass.
We're also happy to talk through which tier makes sense for your specific situation before you commit to anything. The first conversation is always free.
No. The Compass is a standalone engagement with its own deliverable and its own value. You are not obligated to do anything after it. Take the roadmap and execute it with your own team, a different agency, or come back to Cascade when you're ready — entirely your call.
That said, most businesses that complete a Compass want to build what it maps out. When they're ready, Cascade is designed to carry them through every phase of execution — brand, web, PR, SEO, content — with the same strategic precision the Compass was built on.
The engagement begins with a deep discovery conversation — a structured session designed to surface the history, the goals, the challenges, and the competitive context that will shape everything else. From there, Cascade conducts independent research: competitive analysis, digital audits, brand and messaging assessments, and market positioning review.
Midway through the engagement, we'll have a check-in to share preliminary findings and confirm we're focused on the right priorities. The engagement closes with delivery of your complete Compass — and, depending on your tier, a presentation to walk through the findings and roadmap together.
The Legacy Compass is the only tier designed specifically for businesses navigating ownership or generational transition. It includes everything the other tiers deliver — competitive analysis, brand audit, market positioning, growth roadmap — but adds three elements unique to transition:
a heritage assessment that identifies what the brand has earned and what needs to evolve
a generational gap analysis that maps where the brand has drifted from the current market
a leadership transition narrative that gives you the language to communicate the change to customers, employees, and the market at exactly the right moment
If you've inherited a legacy or acquired a business, the brand question is more complex than it is for most companies — and the Legacy Compass was built to honor that complexity.
Once a Compass engagement is confirmed, we can typically begin within one to two weeks. The process is structured to move efficiently — most businesses find the 30 to 60-day timeline feels appropriately focused without being rushed.
If you have a specific milestone in mind — a board presentation, an ownership announcement, a product launch, or a fiscal-year planning cycle — let us know early. We'll build a timeline that gets you what you need when you need it.
Yes. Cascade is based in Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana and serves clients throughout the region — but the Compass process is fully designed to work remotely without losing any of the high-touch, strategic depth the engagement is known for.
The challenges the Compass addresses — unclear positioning, outdated brand presence, unfocused marketing investment, generational transition — are not local problems. They happen everywhere, and we're built to meet them wherever they are.
A brand succession requires thoughtfulness and consideration to the legacy and heritage and it can have many parts.
Rebranding a family business means more than updating a logo. It means taking an honest look at what and who the business is now — not who founded it — and making sure every customer touchpoint reflects that.
We start with a deep discovery process: understanding the legacy, identifying what's worth carrying forward, defining the vision that the next generation or new leadership wants to build toward
Next, we compile competitive analysis that shows us opportunities for the business in brand story positioning on all marketing fronts. This where we can build a strategy and approach.
From there, everything — brand identity, messaging, website, PR content — is built to serve that story.
This is the central tension of every generational or acquisitional transition, and it's one we specialize in. The answer is almost never "erase everything" or "change nothing." It's about identifying what the brand has earned — the trust, the reputation, the values — and translating that into a visual and verbal identity that speaks to where the business is going.
A brand or company name that has recognition shouldn't be changed because of new ownership. Instead it should be carried through and revived through a brand refresh, complimentary website and, for many for the first time, deploying new ways to market and build thought leadership with customers and the industry.
Customers need to feel continuity and confidence at the same time. We know how to hold both.
Faster than most new owners realize.
Every day the brand stays as-is, especially if it feels dated, it's telling the wrong story — to customers, to employees, and to the market. That said, speed without strategy creates new problems.
We recommend beginning the brand strategy process within the first 90 days of acquisition, so that by the time you're ready to go public with the new direction, the identity, messaging, and digital presence are ready to support it. Momentum is everything in the early days of ownership, and a strong brand gives you that.
It depends on how much has changed — in leadership, customers needs, audience, company ambition, and in the market and industry. Additional factors may include the cost to update trucks, promotional materials, etc.
A brand refresh updates and modernizes what exists but doesn't have to change it 100%: a refined logo, updated colors, a new website, sharpened messaging can make a huge difference in carrying the company into the next generation.
A full rebrand builds a new identity from the ground up. We assess both options during discovery and give you an honest recommendation based on what works within your budget and will actually move the needle for your business — not what's most profitable for us.
We offer a fully integrated 360-degree approach specifically designed for businesses navigating generational change or new ownership. That includes brand identity design, website design and development, PR and media relations, SEO strategy, and ongoing content — all built together, not handed off to separate vendors.
We believe that these services are at the core of business success. We also have trusted partners and sources for videography, photography, digital ads, affiliates and influencers and more.
For a businesses in transition, that integration matters: every piece of your brand should tell the same story where your customers are, and ours do.
A full brand transformation — identity, website, messaging strategy, SEO and launch — typically takes 90 to 120 days depending on the scope, size of website and how quickly decisions can be made. A focused brand refresh can move faster.
We work at the pace that serves your business, and we're transparent about timelines from day one. If you have a specific launch date or milestone — an anniversary, an ownership announcement, a product launch — we build the timeline to meet it or help you make better decisions to ensure that everything you, and we, do is to the highest quality possible.
This is where our integrated model becomes especially valuable. Most branding agencies hand you a new logo and wish you luck. Others only do PR and miss the mark on customer journey and experience. We're also a PR agency, which means we can help you craft and place the story of your transition — in regional business media, trade publications, and other desired media outlets — at exactly the right moment. A well-timed press story about new ownership or a next-generation leader taking the helm can generate the kind of credibility, authority and visibility that advertising can't buy.
We know how to frame that story so it lands with confidence, not uncertainty.
Yes. While we're based in Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana with clients in the region, however we work with, and have the capacity to serve, clients across the U.S. and internationally.
Generational transformation and post-acquisition rebranding are not local challenges — they happen everywhere, and our process is designed to work remotely without losing any of the high-touch, strategic depth we're known for.
Most agencies specialize in one thing — either brand design, PR, digital branding, digital marketing or SEO. We do all five disciplines in-house and build them to work together from the start through a thoughtful strategy.
For a business in transition, that matters more than at any other moment: you can't afford a logo that says one thing and a press release and website that say another. Beyond that, our founder has 25+ years of experience with both Fortune 1000 brands, household names and founder-led businesses, which means we bring enterprise-level strategic thinking to companies that deserve it but rarely have access to it.
Investment varies based on scope, but here's an honest framework. A focused brand refresh — updated identity, new website, core messaging — typically starts in the low to mid-five figures. A full brand transformation including PR strategy, SEO architecture, and ongoing content is a larger investment, sized to the complexity and ambitions of the business.
What we can tell you is that for a business in transition, an underfunded rebrand is more expensive than the right one — because getting it wrong at this moment costs you customers, credibility, and time you don't have. We're transparent about investment from the very first conversation, and we build scopes that match real business budgets.
A few reliable signals.
Customers are confused about who runs the business now or what it stands for.
Your website still features the previous owner's name, photo, or story more prominently than your own.
Messaging and brand story feel disjointed and confusing
Your brand identity and website feel dated and the brand story no longer matches the current state of the business
You feel the brand and story won't have longevity in the next generation of the company
You're winning work despite your brand, not because of it.
You feel you are losing work and business because competitors look more modern, even if your operation is stronger.
Competition is more present in local, national or industry media, even though your company and team are more experienced or your product/service is better
Or — most commonly — your brand simply makes you feel like you're representing someone else's business every time you hand someone a card.
If any of those sound familiar, a conversation with us is worth your time.
With a lot of care and experience. Resistance to brand change in a family business or ownership transition is completely normal — and when it's not managed well, it can derail an otherwise excellent rebrand. Our Onboarding and process is designed to bring key stakeholders into the story, not steamroll them. We help leadership communicate the why behind the change in a way that honors what came before while making the case for what comes next. When employees and longtime customers feel seen in the new brand rather than replaced by it, resistance becomes buy-in.
And our five-star experience, that only large corporations typically receive, creates trust in the process that naturally gets people excited.
Clarity first — internally and externally. When leadership, employees, and customers all understand who the business is now and where it's headed, everything moves faster. Beyond that, a well-executed brand transformation typically generates stronger inbound interest, better conversion on proposals and pitches, improved ability to attract talent, and a digital presence that ranks and performs. These aren't overnight results — brand equity builds over months, not days — but the businesses we work with consistently report that the investment paid for itself in the first year through better positioning, brand storytelling, new relationships, interest and opportunities they wouldn't have been considered for before.
This is the constant question. Brand investment is harder to measure with immediate results than a paid ad campaign — and any agency that pretends otherwise isn't being straight with you. That said, there are real, trackable indicators that tell you whether a brand transformation is working. We help clients watch a combination of leading indicators — things that move early(i.e. sentiment and engagement ) — and lagging indicators that reflect longer-term brand equity (i.e. increased business queries, product sales, opportunities)
Leading indicators to track in the first 90 days:
direct website traffic and time on site (signals that people are seeking you out, not just finding you)
inbound inquiry quality (are the right people reaching out?)
proposal win rate (are you converting at a higher rate than before?)
and social engagement on brand content
Lagging indicators to track at six and twelve months:
revenue growth in target segments
customer acquisition cost
media mentions and share of voice
search ranking for priority keywords
and repeat business or referral rate — which is one of the most honest reflections of brand trust there is
The KPIs we always recommend anchoring to first:
are you winning business and having opportunities you weren't being considered for before?
are you receiving positive feedback on the brand and marketing campaign that feels like momentum is building?
Those two questions, answered honestly, tells you more than any dashboard.
PR is the piece of the marketing mix that business owners most often struggle to quantify — and the piece that, when done right during a transition, delivers disproportionate returns. Here's how we think about it.
In the short term, we track coverage volume, outlet authority, message pull-through (did the story land the way we intended?), and direct referral web traffic or calls from earned media. These are real, reportable numbers.
In the medium term — three to six months — we track whether coverage is generating inbound inquiries, partnership conversations, or speaking opportunities. We also look at whether your search rankings improve in the wake of authoritative coverage, because they typically do: a feature in a respected regional or trade outlet creates backlinks and signals to Google that your business is credible, thus raising your visibility.
The longer view is brand equity — how your business is perceived relative to competitors in your market and within the industry. This is harder to put a number on, but easier to feel: it shows up in the conversations you're having, the clients who come to you already sold, the awards you win, the perception as an industry leader, and the ones who reference something they read about you before you ever spoke. That last one is what PR is really building toward, and it's what makes the investment compound over time rather than expire like a paid placement.
Brand succession is the strategic process of evolving a business's brand identity, story, and market presence when leadership changes hands - whether through a family transition, an acquisition, or a new generation stepping into ownership - yet maintaining the brand's legacy.
Most businesses treat a leadership change as an operational event. The right people sign the right documents, and the business continues. What gets overlooked is that the brand - the visual identity, messaging, website and story - was built by and for the previous leadership. It reflects their era, their voice, their vision.
Brand succession addresses that gap intentionally. It's not about erasing what came before. It's about ensuring that the brand the world sees accurately reflects the new leadership, the ambition that now drives it, company direction and the customers it now needs to reach.
Done well, brand succession turns a moment of change into a moment of momentum. It signals to customers, employees, partners, and competitors alike that this business isn't just continuing — it's evolving. And that distinction, at the moment of transition, is often the difference between a business that simply survives a handoff and one that emerges from it stronger than before.
Yes, and we consider those relationships one of the most important parts of what we do.
CPAs, estate attorneys, business brokers, CEPAs, and financial advisors are often the first people a business owner turns to when a transition is on the horizon. They're trusted. They're already in the room. And they're frequently the ones who recognize that a client's brand and marketing haven't kept pace with where the business is headed.
We work alongside transition advisors as a specialized brand and marketing partner — someone they can refer a client to with confidence, knowing that the work will be handled with the same level of professionalism, discretion, and strategic depth they bring to their own work.
If you're an advisor working with a family business, a successor, or a new owner who needs to evolve their brand at the moment of transition, we'd welcome a conversation. We understand the sensitivity of these moments, we know how to work within the broader advisory team, and we know how to get the brand story right without adding chaos to an already complex process.
Referral conversations are always welcome at jennifer@cascadecomms.com or by calling us directly at 773-991-8109.
48 Hour Film Festival
A&A Ballet
Big Creek Productions – Halloween Bash and New Year’s
"Budrus" - independent film
"Fancypants" Humble Pie Films
"From Here to There" documentary & Off the Edge Parkour Tour 2015
Joe’s Bar Concert Series
National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Chicago Chapter - Regional GRAMMY nominees, Celebrity Honors Awards, GRAMMY Foundation
New York Times Best Selling Author Robert Edsel
Siegel's Cottonwood Farm & The BARN at COTTONWOOD
StarEvents Summer Music Street Festivals
Talking Pictures Film Festival
"Thee Trinity" - Royal George
A& Ballet
All American Recycling "Save the Cans" Drive
American Diabetes Association - Chicago, Care-to-Cure Brunch with Lovie Smith
Chicago Children’s Museum
College of American Pathologists
Democratic National Committee – “Something New” Chicago
Illinois Commission on Diversity & Human Relations (ICDHR)
Kids Caring 4 Kids
Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northern Illinois
- - Mardi Gras Madness with 10,000 MANIACS and The Samples
National Veterans Art Museum
Northwestern Memorial Foundation – Prentice Women’s Hospital/Chicago Maternity Center
Renaissance Social Services, Inc.
United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Chicago – Gambol Black Tie
Unity Temple Restoration Foundation
Angel Soft – Angels in Action Awards
Harley-Davidson – 100th Anniversary
Jim Beam Brands’ DeKuyper® Pucker™ Schnapps and Hot Damn! Cinnamon Schnapps
Kraft
Maytag – Gemini Oven Introduction, Repairman
Milk – Got Milk?
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The US Army
Washburn International
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Arvist.ai
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C2 Energy
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Cemex Ventures
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DrawNames.com
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GenesisAI
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Kansas Regenerative Institute
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Massage Envy
MyClean
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Noopl
nutriLUX
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Pocket Literacy
Rakot75
Seedary Startup Incubator
Shvasa Yoga
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Watch Our Own
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