Learning the Marketing Strategy Ropes With Natalie Kimmel | Brafton

When you think of marketing, you might picture the pop-up ads that appear on your favorite website, the emails you consistently receive from a local clothing store or even the big, bright screens in Times Square. While these are all examples of marketing and advertising in the wild, these methods don’t work without standing on a firm strategic foundation. 

Have you ever wondered where marketing strategy comes from? Good ideas don’t just appear out of thin air — they’re brought to life by talented and detail-oriented people working behind the scenes. At Brafton, these professionals are our secret weapon.

As a Senior Content Marketing Strategist, Natalie Kimmel helps steer the ship in the right direction, guiding creative projects toward our clients’ end goals. And in the present landscape of loud competition and high customer expectations, having Natalie on your team ensures initiatives are met in the most ingenious and effective way possible — all while having a ton of fun.

Where Natalie Caught the Marketing Bug

As an ambitious person who loves a challenge, Natalie completed both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Dayton in just five years through an accelerated program. During her senior year, she landed a graduate assistantship with UD Magazine. While in this role, she got hands-on experience in editorial content creation and creative storytelling. She wrote feature stories, conducted interviews and learned how to craft narratives that would engage alumni, current students and the broader university community. 

“It turned out to be an accurate preview of what I’d be doing throughout my career — helping organizations tell their stories in ways that truly resonate with their audiences,” she said. 

While she enjoyed letting her creativity run wild with editorials and interviews, what really interested her was the psychology of understanding people and their motivations. “I love trying to get inside their heads, understand their challenges and know what questions they’re asking themselves at two a.m.,” she said. 

This motivated her to explore a career in the marketing field. She got her first gig as a content strategist at The Learning House, which was an online program management company for higher education. While she wasn’t familiar with this area of marketing when she started, she quickly found her stride. She fell in love with the idea that she could attract people by being genuinely helpful and showing up where they’re naturally searching for answers, rather than being pushy or interrupting them with traditional advertising. 

“This approach felt so much more authentic and valuable than the in-your-face advertising tactics people often associate with marketing,” she added. 

She delved deeper into the world of higher education later on as a content marketing manager at Wiley, working specifically with their university services division. In this position, she oversaw the digital content experience for around 20 college and university partners, each with different audiences, brand personalities and competitive landscapes. She was also responsible for creating microsites to host each partner’s online programs. 

One key moment for Natalie happened during these website builds. Before kicking off each project, she would have a formal sit-down with professors and department heads. These people were experts in their field, but often were challenged to clearly communicate why their degree programs mattered to prospective students. This process caused a ripple effect that has impacted her work long after leaving this job. 

“Through these conversations, I learned how to ask the right questions to uncover real value propositions and competitive advantages that weren’t immediately obvious,” she said. 

The skills she gained from these interviews helped train her to effectively kick off new clients at Brafton today. With that experience under her belt, she has mastered the art of translating client technical expertise or industry insights into actionable strategies that drive real impact and support overarching business goals. 

Bringing Her Expertise to Brafton

Natalie started working at Brafton in 2022 as a content marketing strategist, then was quickly promoted to a senior CMS — reflecting her hard work and dedication to meeting client needs. 

While there isn’t necessarily a typical day in the life of a strategist, her workload consists of planning, creating and executing content strategies that will be relevant and valuable to client audiences. Rather than just throw a bunch of ideas on a blog and see what sticks, Natalie gets into the weeds of each and every brand she partners with, looking closely at target audience demographics, SEO optimization opportunities, competitor analysis and performance tracking. These insights then guide her project recommendations, making her a vital resource for our team. 

While the CMS role is critical, Brafton’s content couldn’t deliver positive results without all positions working together like spokes on a wheel, moving in the right direction. And Natalie loves collaborating with such a diverse team of talented individuals. “We work with people all over the world, and I think that’s a really amazing part of what we do,” she said. 

Our account teams are made up of individuals across the globe, from UX strategists in Canada, designers located in Brazil and project managers based in London. This international collaboration brings together diverse perspectives and innovative ideas, fueling creative solutions for our clients.

“Despite the distance, I’m constantly amazed by our ability to collaborate on things like strategy development, campaign execution and bringing highly complex projects to life,” she added. 

Natalie’s Top Tips for Strategic Marketing

So you want to improve your brand’s content strategy. Natalie shared her two biggest takeaways that all marketers should be aware of:

• Drive trust through relevancy: It’s not about selling a product or solution; it’s about helping customers buy by giving them exactly what they need, when they need it. Start by asking “What do they actually want & need to feel confident in their decision?” rather than “What do I think they want?” because user behavior & data-driven audience insights should consistently be utilized to inform the marketing strategy and optimize the digital experience, not your assumptions.

• Differentiation is everything: Work with clients to help them find a better angle or unique perspective that sets their content apart. It’s not enough to cover the same topics everyone else is covering. You need to bring fresh insights, specific expertise or a unique point of view that makes people stop scrolling and pay attention. That’s where the magic happens in content strategy.

How To Implement This Approach Going Forward

With relevancy and differentiation in mind, how should this change your approach to content writing? Here are five ways to integrate Natalie’s process into your own strategy:

1. Lead with audience insights, not assumptions: Before you create anything, dig deep into who your audience is — including what haunts them at night and their biggest pain points. Let this information guide the topics you cover.
2. Map content to the buyer’s journey: Relevancy isn’t one-size-fits-all. Make sure to align your content with specific stages of the customer pipeline, from awareness to decision-making. This ensures you’re always delivering the right message at the right time. 
3. Develop a distinctive brand voice: Differentiation often starts with how you say things, not just what you say. Craft a tone and language that are uniquely yours and resonates with your customers.
4. Offer original insights and thought leadership: Don’t just repeat what’s already out there. Use your team’s expertise, proprietary data or unique experiences to create content that adds something new to the conversation.
5. Experiment with new formats and storytelling styles: Break through the noise by exploring creative ways to deliver your message, from interactive guides and data infographics to customer stories and short-form animation videos. 

Outside of Marketing: Jetsetting and Redecorating

When the day is done and the work is through, you’ll find Natalie planning her next big trip to add to her long list of travel feats. Her next vacation? Paris over New Year’s — her third time visiting. She’ll be grabbing croissants and walking along the Seine while ringing in 2026. As one of her favorite places in the world, she even named her cat Soleil.

She also spends lots of free time redecorating her space. If you’ve had the pleasure of digitally meeting with Natalie during work hours, you already know how beautiful her home is (or you might have assumed it was a pristine Google Meet background). Her favorite place to hunt for treasures in Louisville — where she lives — is Mellwood Antiques. Some recent finds include a red bookshelf, crystal bowls, several oriental rugs and ginger jars. Amazing scores, if we do say so ourselves! 

Whether she’s adjusting her furniture or putting the finishing touches on a project proposal for her clients, Natalie always approaches each task with creativity and whimsy. Now, take her content strategy tips for a spin — or check out your local thrift store for a new trinket to add to your collection.