Fighting For The Small Guy In The Marketing World With Mal Alder

Mal Alder: So the tagline of the company is honest digital marketing with trackable results. And that's always what I believed in. Again, focusing on small businesses and nonprofits where a hundred bucks can make or break a month. We don't want to be the traveling snake oil salesman of the digital marketing world, which is really easy to fall into.

Chris Hill : Welcome to We Build This Brand. I'm your host as always, Chris Hill. And today we're at Alder & Co. I'm really excited to be here. We had a great interview with the founder, Mal Alder. about her business and about everything that they do. I think you'll really get a lot out of it. Really enjoyed the time we got to talk about fighting for the small guy in the marketing world and helping smaller businesses make their mark, you know, on Knoxville, the city that we're in now, and as well as in our community with some of the nonprofit ventures she's done.

So let's just take it away and dive right in.

Mal, thank you for joining me today.

Mal Alder: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

Chris Hill : This You know, anytime I come over here, I'm just very jealous of this space. It's so cool.

Mal Alder: Yeah, it's always a work in progress. I kind of joke it's the first apartment out of college. We're slowly but surely evolving, which, you know, is kind of the Alder and Co way.

We just want a space that inspires creativity and all the dog hair.

Chris Hill : Yeah, gotta have the dog hair. How many dogs do you have here?

Mal Alder: Today, we have three. Our Director of Operations will normally bring her two dogs in, and then personally, I have three and a half, if you count my dad's dog.

Chris Hill : Okay.

Mal Alder: That we watch when he's out of town.

So, you know, any given day, it could be one dog, it could be five dogs. But keeps it interesting.

Chris Hill : Definitely. So we're here today to talk about you, talk about Alder & Co, talk about the brand that you've built here, brands that you're helping build for other people. So, um, I'd love to just kind of dive into that and just ask you where, where did you get your start?

How did Alder & Co become a thing?

Mal Alder: Like all good entrepreneurial stories, Alder & Co launched because I lost my job. I was working for another local agency in town that'd been around for about 30 years. And the two principals decided to retire. And, you know, as one does, when you find out you are losing your paycheck, trying to figure out how to keep food on the table.

So it gave me a good opportunity to kind of take a hard look at the marketing space locally and And what was missing and what really I wanted to do with that next step. Previously, I'd commuted to Sphereville, Oak Ridge, Clinton. I finally landed that downtown job with the goal of live, work, play downtown because I'm a local girl.

And there really wasn't a ton within kind of the radius I was looking for. You know, we have some incredible Industry leaders that have been downtown forever with like MoxCar, Tombris, Morse Creative, but they also weren't really leaning into the industries I wanted to. I worked for a lot of local companies kind of when I was in college and coming up and no one was really out there fighting for the little guy.

And so I saw that gap in the market and decided to go for it. And that's kind of what brought us here.

Chris Hill : Fighting for the little guy. Tell me, tell me some stories. Like, who are some little guys that you've helped fight for?

Mal Alder: So, one of my favorite clients that I always kind of think about with this is we work with a local distillery in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge area.

Their name is King's Family Distillery. So, when you think of moonshine and the Smoky Mountains, you think Old Smoky, Sugarlands, you know. These, like, multi million dollar corporations now. Sure, they started small, but where they are now. And their product's good, but, you know, King's family, their product is amazing.

They kind of have a cult following. It's really fun to work with them. But just the growth we've been able to implement with them and kind of elevating their marketing with custom photography, a new website, social media management, it's really giving them that online presence. So they have a little bit more of an even playing field in the digital space.

Chris Hill : That's really cool. And I know, you know, I'm a, I'm a big craft beer, whiskey fan myself. So it's, it's neat when you get to work with those brands that are small and interesting to you and fun to work with. So that's really cool.

Mal Alder: And then us being a young company ourselves and then working with smaller companies, it's kind of like we're growing up together.

I'm really fortunate to have a great relationship with so many of our clients and so many of our clients we've worked with since. You know, I started a little over five years ago. So seeing how their company's grown, which has been fed into our business growing, it's really kind of a magical partnership that I'm very thankful to be a part of.

Chris Hill : Yeah, I think, I think that's always great when you've got clients that you can also say, Hey, look, they've been with us since we started, like they're dedicated, they're committed to us and we're proving value to them. That's why we keep working with them. That's really cool. That's really cool. What about, like, you, you've had in Fighting for the Little Guy, I like this theme that we're kind of getting into here, like, you've you've also helped in other ways.

I remember during the pandemic, we talked about, and you got highlighted for your work with Yassin's, some of the work there. It's been a few years, so remind us, What happened there? Tell us that story.

Mal Alder: Yeah, that was a really interesting project. I want to say it started around March, April, right when everyone was sent home, schools were closed, hotels were closed, and there was a really just initial shock of food insecurity.

And I've been friends on Facebook with Yassin for a few years now. I mean, who doesn't want to follow his journey, talk about goals. But he put out there that he was looking for someone to help with a website. And, you know, we had some free time, so I reached out to kind of see what he was looking for. And the idea of the project, it was called 865 Strong, was helping connect people in the community, despite your economic level, if you were facing food insecurity, connecting you with the community.

Resources available to you immediately. So linking, I know there was a lot of Facebook groups that came out. I think the health department was putting statements. We linked Twitter accounts to all the local government agencies and really just kind of helped bridge that gap. So we were really thankful to work on that.

It was actually the first Addy Award we ever won. We submitted that website and it's been fun kind of To fast forward to today with Yessian's new non profit called Seeds and Bridges, where they're helping immigrants start their own businesses. His first project that he launched is Rom's House in Marble City Market.

And we actually just recently helped with that project, launching a website for Rom. Yeah.

Chris Hill : Yeah, I'm a big fan of Middle Eastern food in general. My wife is Turkish, so it, you know,

helps a little bit. But it's cool to see what they've done there. And that's really neat that you're supporting that community and helping fight for those people.

Mal Alder: Yeah, and I mean, that's kind of part of who we are. Yes, I love paying clients. It's fantastic. But again, the relationships with the clients we've had for a while and some of the other paying projects we have do open us those doors. Open up those opportunities for us to be able to give back, you know. ROMS House with Seeds and Bridges is an example of some work that we've donated for the last two years.

We've donated all the marketing to So No Pride. Most recently last year, and I think we're helping with them again this year, Todd Kelly Jr. He has the TKJ Foundation, which is a free football camp for youth in the community. So just kind of Not being the ones driving the change, but helping make a difference and being able to support the community as a whole really just holds a special place in my heart.

Chris Hill : I mean, it shows through in the work you've done over the years, what I've noticed of you outside of our friendship and relationship. Like it's cool to see how you get attention and not just get attention, but like are really helping people and serve people in that way. So that's to be commended. That's really awesome.

Mal Alder: Yeah. I think at my core, I'm a connector. If we were joking earlier, I'm in a marketing agency, but I'm the worst at marketing myself. I'm really good at talking up other people, but I think like that's kind of where the magic lies, where it's all a puzzle for me and how it works together. So I love being able to, Say, I have one client who is maybe a corporate client looking to get involved in the community, and then I have another client that's a non profit looking for donors and sponsors.

Like, just being able to kind of help bridge that gap and connecting the two is one of my favorite parts of my job.

Chris Hill : So, to that point, like, when you started this business, you know, you did it because you had lost a job, and you were starting out on your own doing something new and exciting. Everybody, I think, in business has this moment in which it's like, Hey, This could work.

I'm building something here that people are interested in. What was that moment for you? I call it the moment of validation. What was that for you?

Mal Alder: Well, that's a lot more professional than mine. I call it my oh shit moment.

Chris Hill : Also a good name for it, yes.

Mal Alder: Well, I was really fortunate when I started, um, and I know you've done work with the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center.

I paired up with a mentor who actually used to be a VP at one of the bigger firms in town. And I laid out my business plan. I was like, Will I make money? Number one. And he said yes. And he said it was a good idea. And I remember another piece of advice I got from a longtime family friend who has also owned her business for 35 plus years was if you're going to create a business, make sure that you get about 20 percent more than what you would get as a salary.

That way you created a business. You didn't just create a job for yourself. So kind of ruling, you know, following that rule, I set my goal for my first year and I hit it within my first six months. So that was me going, Oh shit, like this is actually a thing. I guess I have to go with it now. And I was really fortunate.

I was able to work with some dedicated contractors at the time. And then, you know, a year or two later when we got a little bit more established that rolled into full time employees. And now we have an office. And so it's kind of A wild rollercoaster. That's probably what, you know, I always describe entrepreneurship.

And if anyone's heard me talk about it, they've heard me say it where it's the most rewarding, but it's the most isolating thing you can ever do. So having the team and the ability and the confidence of saying we are doing something, we're not changing the whole world, but we're going to change our small little corner of it.

Having the team there, it really helps with the support.

Chris Hill : Yeah, that, that loneliness aspect. I mean, we've, we've commiserated over that. Yeah. Time or two. Over whiskey. Over whiskey. Yes. And you know, I think that that's one of the, like you said, the, one of the biggest challenges of being an entrepreneur. So.

Yeah, that's the reward of being able to be your own boss and not just have a job like all those things make it worth the time and energy you put into it, I think so. Yeah, it's cool to see you continue to thrive and that's really exciting. So tell me a little bit about your approach at Alder & Co. to doing business.

How do you Approach like a brand strategy with a client and what is your what is your focus there?

Mal Alder: So the tagline of the company is honest digital marketing with trackable results and that's always what I've believed in again focusing on small businesses and non profits where 100 bucks can make or break a month Is we don't want to be the traveling snake oil salesman of the digital marketing world, which is really easy to fall into.

You hear so many stories of businesses who've partnered mainly with the industry specific client companies and suppliers where they don't have admin access to their website, or their social media, or their analytics. So if you ever break up, you have to start completely over, and that's just not possible.

Especially for, you know, companies that don't have that much budget or they put their budget towards helping the community. So, how we approach it is we always kind of take a look at where are you, what are you doing, and what are your goals. Every part of our strategy that we implement is always tied to a business goal.

Sure, you can post on social media all day. But, why? You know, people will quote the Simonson X, start with why. Like, why are you doing this? What is the purpose of this? Are you just posting to post? No one's going to want to follow that. So, what are we trying to tie back to? So, by aligning it with the business goals, we are able to develop a custom strategy for each client.

You know, just like not all social media platforms are created the same. Not all, you know, digital marketing campaigns are the same. Like, social media could be good for one, but email actually has a higher ROI for a different industry. And just kind of helping our clients navigate that and not, Overselling them to things that aren't necessarily beneficial.

Chris Hill : Because we do podcasts, I definitely understand what you're saying because we get into situations where people will be like, well, I want a podcast. It's like, cool. What, uh, what are we doing for the podcast? Well, I want it to be about me talking about all my expertise. Neat, but why? And like, it sometimes has turned into counseling sessions with clients who just want to do things because they want to make noise.

They think it's the cool thing to do, especially a few years ago, it was the popular thing to do and finding people that really need it and want it and have a strategy for it is very challenging. Now we can help them develop that, but to your point, like it's, I don't want to be that snake oil salesman either.

So I totally align with that.

Mal Alder: It's funny you mentioned counseling and people do not realize how. Elbow deep marketers and communicators for businesses get in the business, you know. Sure, clients will come to me if they need help writing an ad, but we've also talked to the clients of, if we don't hit these numbers, we have to lay off staff and it's nothing that we've done necessarily, but it's things on their end.

So we understand the finances, we understand the flow. Like it or not, we know who on your team's performing and who's not, you know, like, which again circles back to having So much importance of the relationship we have with our clients and having that mutual trust.

Chris Hill : Yeah, I think that, I think that matters a whole lot.

And I think that's critical to growing a business. I mean, trust is important anywhere, right? So who is, you said the little guy, but who really is your target market?

Mal Alder: So we focus on local small businesses and nonprofits. So When I say the little guy or I say a small business, you could make a lot of money.

So maybe you don't technically qualify. But if you have a staff of five, you know, who's really in your office doing your marketing? Probably the secretary or the intern or, you know, the young kid who you just graduated. You can figure it out. Because at the end of the day, especially now, if you look at digital marketing or marketing where it is right now, everyone who's doing it.

Today, we all learned off of a few Google searches. You can fluff it up as much as you want, but when you and I were in college, you couldn't major in social media. You figure it out. So, understanding that everything that I do, someone else could do with, you know, a few HubSpot certifications or whatever, but the difference I bring to the table is I've been doing this for 11 years, they've been doing it for 11 minutes.

So, With that though, we're an opportunity cost. So that young hotshot in your office could be updating your website, but what else could they be doing? Maybe it's an attorney who, those could actually be billable hours, making you money instead of costing you money. So, um, kind of the businesses or the nonprofits where they've dabbled in the digital space, they know they need it, but they don't really know what they need.

They don't know where they want to start. You know, we kind of help filter it out, you know, remove the noise, circle it back to your objectives. So, um, yeah. What do you need? How can we help?

Chris Hill : Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So of course, this is a branding podcast. Um, so I do have to ask, like when you started Alder & Co.,

how did you come up with the name, the colors? I'm, I'm sure the name has a pretty obvious answer, but I would love to hear your take on it.

Mal Alder: It's kind of double sided. Obviously, it is my last name. And growing up, my dad would always joke that he was self employed. My mom was also self employed. But he would always joke that his company was Alder and Co.

He was Alder, and then mom and I were Co. But also a little bit further, if you, you know, I always joke Alder, the tree no one's ever heard of. But if you kind of look in, it is a hardwood tree that represents like strength and resilience, which is also part of the Alder & Co. story. The logo and the colors, I have to shout out one of my really good friends, Kate.

She designed it for me when I first started. An infinitely talented graphic designer who I would love to steal if I could. It's all lowercase because I have one of my favorite poets. I'm going to butcher her first name, but her whole thing is she would always write with lowercase letters. And now I was a English major with an emphasis in poetry in college.

And I always thought if I pursued that path, that would be the writing style that I wanted. So that's why we leaned into all lowercase and the colors where I told her my favorite colors, green and she ran with it.

Chris Hill : Yeah. That's, I mean, that's a part of you. It's a very deeply personal brand. So I think that's really neat to be able to share that.

So. You studied poetry.

Mal Alder: I did. Yeah.

Chris Hill : Do you write any poetry now?

Mal Alder: Not anymore. Okay. Um, I did. And you know, I feel like we all kind of worked through our angsty teen years in our own ways. But no, I was an English major and I loved poetry because to be completely honest, I didn't want to write a novel in college and I thought it'd be easier in poetry.

Twitch. I mean, you still read all of the literature books, and I think you learn so much, not necessarily of reading just fiction books, but creative nonfiction. And it's kind of the way that you can continue your education beyond what you get in school. So I'm really big on continued education. What did you learn?

What inspires you? Um, because at the end of the day, we are creatives in a creative field and burnout is real.

Chris Hill : Absolutely. So working with all these different brands, what, what have you learned about branding in the process?

Mal Alder: It's important. And, but, it's,

Chris Hill : I know, right,

Mal Alder: done, mic check, mic drop,

Chris Hill : it's important,

Mal Alder: no, um, it's a really good way to differentiate yourself, especially as kind of the world is trending.

People like people, people want that personalized, so you can't just be your logo and just your colors and some pretty graphics, like, what does the brand mean and what does it represent? And then do your actions match your words? So, I think, you know. TikTok virality can this whole culture to an an extent of it, it is like calling out fake brands or fake noise.

So how do you represent yourself authentically? And I think that's where a lot of opportunity lies within the branding. And just for the love of God, don't have a Canva logo.

Chris Hill : Well, I made this in Canva. I mean, it should be, should work, right?

Mal Alder: Well, it's probably not licensed for commercial use and everyone has the same cursive font with splash backdrop.

Chris Hill : Yes. Yeah. They become obvious after a while, don't they?

Mal Alder: And hear me when I say Canva has its benefits. We use it for some social media templates, but I don't think it should be what everyone relies on.

Chris Hill : Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think finding a solid designer has a lot more value. I mean, even when we started HumblePod, like that was one of the first things I did.

And when we started this podcast, we built this brand. I knew we were building it on branding. We hired a graphic designer to come in and design what we have now as our logo. So yeah, I think those things matter. So

Mal Alder: I love our graphic designer right now. I tell him constantly that his brain works in a way that mine just does not.

And some of the things that he creates, he's Be on talented. We're extremely fortunate to have him.

Chris Hill : Yeah. Yeah. It's always good. And you gotta keep that talent too. Yeah, that can be, a challenge as a business owner I'm sure.

Mal Alder: It can! We were talking about this earlier it's interesting. The Things you learn about your business through the hiring and the off boarding phase too, that goes through it.

Because, you know, you bring a new team member on or you lose a team member, it gives you the opportunity to kind of evaluate where are we, here's what I'm trying to achieve, are we doing that? So, um. It's the not super fun side of owning a business.

Chris Hill : Yeah, it's definitely one of the heavier lifts. And yeah, I think you're doing the right thing by thinking about what happens after those people leave.

Because there's always a, a chance to be reflective and make sure you're making the right decisions moving forward. So

Mal Alder: yeah, and I mean, we've all had terrible bosses. That's probably why we work for ourselves now. So I always try to follow the leadership strategy of being the boss I wish I'd had. And I take it seriously.

There's livelihoods that depend on me. There are families that depend on me. So, you know, I show up every day to show up for them and for our clients.

Chris Hill : That's great. That's great. So what does the future of Alder & Co look like?

Mal Alder: It's ever evolving. We're in a really fun, kind of space right now where we're working on a lot of really great projects with some of my favorite nonprofits including YWCA, I think I mentioned them.

Chris Hill : I think you did, yeah.

Mal Alder: Women's Fund of East Tennessee that also offers grants and other financial opportunities to other nonprofits in the East Tennessee area that focus on women and children. So kind of helping with that. We're dabbling a little bit in Being a little bit more well rounded as a project manager for other clients.

So if a client needs custom apparel or merchandise or signage or vinyl decals, like we can help with all of that. And kind of again, being that opportunity cost of a one stop resource for our clients.

Chris Hill : Sounds like you got some fun stuff coming up

Mal Alder: I know .

Chris Hill : So last question I always like to ask is what brand do you admire the most right now?

It's always good for, you know, if you're working in marketing branding to find out. Who's interested in said brand? So what about you?

Mal Alder: I was thinking about this when you kind of teased the question earlier, which I appreciate the heads up. Honestly, Liquid Death. And there's two sides to it. So my first experience with Liquid Death.

was not great. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the product. If anyone from Liquid Death is listening, I promise I do not hate your company. But I was at a music festival and they ran out of free water. And the lines for the bar where you could get anything else to drink were hours long. Like my husband waited a set and a half at a music festival to get anything to drink.

So then the only water we could get was Liquid Death So, I kind of had, you know, there's so much irony. It's hot, I'm thirsty, and all I have is Liquid Death. But, you know, I'd never heard of the brand before, so I kind of started following it. And it's really interesting, you know, we're talking about branding and being a little bit of a disruptor in the space, just kind of seeing how, you know, They're taking the, like, sparkling water world by storm.

It's branded like a craft beer, but it's not craft beer. And they're very tongue in cheek with their merch, so I love it when a brand can, you know, have a little fun with themselves. So, it's always fun to watch the journey that they're doing. And, um, They have grown past the music festival and I feel like they're everywhere now.

Chris Hill : Well, it's funny you say music festival because I just saw a new TikTok video that they've put out. It's probably on YouTube and everywhere else too, but they are marketing a makeup kit. For goth makeup and it's a real thing. I think you can actually buy it in their store and they have this goth rocker, like talking about it.

And these little girls, it's like, it's like a kid's like nineties ad for a toy, but it's with a goth rocker. And then, yeah, I don't want to ruin it. We'll make sure this gets in the show notes because it is hilarious and I think everybody should watch it.

Mal Alder: Missed opportunity of Gene Simmons wasn't the spokesperson.

Chris Hill : I know, I know. This, I think he actually, I need to go and look up the guy because I think he's actually like a death metal rocker, which is actually really on brand for them. Um, and the way the video goes, it just gets weirder and weirder and weirder and it just gets really weird. Really hilarious at the end, as any good ad does, but like, this is just, it's so well done.

And you forget about the fact that it's even, you know, sparkling water that they're selling because everything else is just so ridiculous around it. But yeah, they're, I, I agree with their branding. I've said on a previous episode, cause they've come up before, as you can imagine, they're not my favorite, but they're definitely good.

My son recognizes the brand of the store at five.

Mal Alder: And I mean, really, if you have a five year old that notices you, Money. Nailed it. Like, you have won.

Chris Hill : Yeah, and it's fun too, because my son will just see it and go, Liquid Death! And I'm like, this is hilarious, I kind of love this.

Mal Alder: Yeah, again,

when we were in college, we just called that Everclear.

But no, I mean, ultimately, like, Being creatives in creative fields, you have to have fun with it. It's why we're here. And so seeing brands allowing themselves to have fun with it, what I always am attracted to in following different campaigns.

Chris Hill : Yeah, that's um, absolutely one of my favorite things is, and I'm sure you've had opportunities to do it too, but like get creative, do something ridiculous, um, even embarrass yourself to that degree.

Like I'm, I'm not above it. So I will happily, I've done, um, speaking of beer and college. We had a client, the first video we ever did for them, they wanted us to do a parody of the Real Men of Genius campaign. If you don't know what that is, go look it up. All you youngsters that are out there watching, um, but Real Men of Genius is, as you know, very funny.

And I did a, I did a whole parody thing for them. And I was just in my house one afternoon singing their whole Real Men of Genius song.

Mal Alder: The jingle is going to be stuck in my head all day now.

Chris Hill : But it was, it was a lot of fun to do. And that's, that's when, for me, that was one of my moments of validation of like, I'm doing what I love to do.

I'm doing something ridiculous and getting paid for it. This is amazing. So yeah, that's really cool. All right. Well, Well, we're towards the end of our time, so I always like to know, like, where can people find Mal? Where can they find out more about Alder & Co.?

Mal Alder: Sure. So, Alder & Co., it's really simple. We're The Alder Co.

A L D E R C O on all social media platforms.

Awesome.

For me, I'm MalNotMel on pretty much all of them. I joke that was the peak of my creativity. And I have a shrine of all the things where people have gotten my name wrong. But yeah, we're around.

Chris Hill : Awesome. Well, we'll make sure people find you. We'll not, Mel.

Why did I almost say Mel?

Mal Alder: And you said we were friends.

Chris Hill : You, you had just said Mel. And my brain was stuck on, oh, don't say Mel, and so I said Mel. Just that intrusive thought.

Mal Alder: Mal, not Mel.

Chris Hill : Mel, I think we'll leave this in.

Mal Alder: Okay.

Chris Hill : It's, it's too funny to take out. Mel, thank you so much for coming on the

Mal Alder: podcast.

Yeah, thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.