Re-branding

Well, the title gives it away doesn't it. It's been a while coming, since Christmas in fact. A friendly meet up turned into an all evening chat about branding, business and all things around marketing.

When we moved here in 2016 we only knew that we needed to run a business, I suspect like a lot of people buying smallholdings or farms, there is a need or desire to make money from the land that you now have. Not many people can afford to run and manage a holding purely off full time wages as well as a house. Let alone actually having the time left to deal with issues and fencing! Equally people love the idea of starting again, doing something different and buying a smallholding certainly does that for you.

For us it was about keeping goats, that was where our passion started, and those goats were going to be a big part of everything we did here. It was fate that landed us an old traditional family held recipe for goats milk soap. A unique recipe handed to Steve one day at work, it has proven to be brilliant and truly unique which is exactly what she said it was, and one of the best. I only hope she sees all this one day, what she gifted us all those years ago has become. Steve did try to find her to tell her we'd made something of it as she told us to, but she'd moved on, a new job or role somewhere else.

When The Clean Goat Soap Company launched we wanted to focus on the goats, tell people we used our own and milked them, no pretending or buying in powdered milk or flashy pictures of goats that weren't ours. The honesty in that felt really important to us. Over the years and particularly with this website and with us running courses people know we have the goats, they've seen us interacting with them and many people have now been to us and hand milked the girls themselves.

We are not the only ones milking goats and making soap, lots do it, and we all should because it is a brilliant product. The variety in the soaps made really gives the customer the choice to buy what suits them, whether you love plain, textured, colours or scents, maybe you feel a connection to the farm or the goats. What helps you connect as the customer is social media, it forms such a back bone to connecting to our customers. I won't lie I've felt a little lost in the social media world, what do people want to see? What updates would people actually like? This is why the social media pages were split into two. Now I can share relevant information for both sides of the business.

@cleangoatco @cleangoatsmallholding

@cleangoatco is the skincare page, the definite content is about the products, the goats and their updates as well as sharing elements from the plants I use for the soaps. A large part of me living here was about plants, trees and gardening. It has finally shown itself to me that in fact I have already taken what was an amazing and unique recipe and blended it with a whole range of botanicals and earth elements. So that is how I should be showing the brand to be. Yes we have the goats and yes I have grown many of the botanicals here, for some of you, you may have seen the images from the last few years of calendulas grown by the 1,000. However I am pushing away from the 'made on the farm' idea. You all know me and what I have here, my passion for plants and health as well as skin health may not be something you know me for.

So it was important to me that the brand reflected that new ethos, my new direction. The goats stay, the goats milk and its provenance is key to the ethos, and now so is the botanicals, the oils and the unique recipe.

The new name, removing the word 'Soap" also gives me more scope for the new and expanding skincare range. From the initial range that was produced and the whipped soap which everyone loved it became clear the more times I created them I felt I had a clash with the business name and image. So below is the new identity. You'll see the photographs slowly change to reflect the new look. Hopefully you'll all enjoy the new content but equally I hope you'll all enjoy the new skincare range that will be coming as well as continuing to enjoy the soaps and shampoo that I make here.

Soaps and shampoos will be back soon the skincare range will be available slowly over summer and into next year.

So then there is the branding for this website and the smallholding side of the business, the image that carries the message to people about the workshops, the rugs, the lifestyle we have here. @cleangoatsmallholding. My mission for this side of the business is to carry on doing what I've been doing and inspire people to make the leap themselves. I want to give people confidence in doing something new and challenging. I would like to build on that and there are things bubbling around inside my head for now.

This year I've had the most wonderful time helping a couple who came on a series of days with us over the course of a weeks staying locally. They were introduced to our way of life, the lifestyle and of course all the animals here. They fell in love with it all and made headway to relocating. Over a few years, several house viewings, many missed opportunities because the market for smallholdings always is kinda nuts they got a text message off me... 'STILL LOOKING FOR A PLACE? A FRIEND OF OURS IS SELLING, THEY'VE ASKED ME TO ASK AROUND, YOU COULD GO LOOK BEFORE THEY PUT IT ON THE MARKET'. It made their day as they'd lost out on viewing one house just the day before. Wasn't long before they went to visit our friends place. On that day they all agreed to the sale, it seems to have slotted in well for both couples. So this year all going well they are likely to complete and move local to us. If that doesn't promote our experience days and workshops then nothing would!

There are others, who have bought livestock off us and dived into this lifestyle, the best feedback was from someone attending a day course with us to learn. The feedback I got afterwards very much surprised me but they said that what they got most from the day was that it was all doable. Every problem we came across was similar to theirs and we'd fixed it and we were able to show the improvements from small changes. We had inspired them into believing they could achieve what they wanted.

Sometimes we all have great ideas when we buy smallholdings, but then once you land it can sometimes feel too big a hill to climb, so its been an absolute pleasure to help others no matter what they want to achieve.

So I hope you all enjoy this new logo, I feel it's more appropriate and represents us more. Here's to a productive years ahead.

Thank you for subscribing and reading my blogs, every click, comment or share really means a lot to us in this ever widening world online.

Emma