Today we’d like to introduce you to Alli Neal.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Alli, and I’m the co-founder of a content marketing agency called Split Pace Creative.
One of the things any Minnesotan resident will clock quickly is that I’m not originally from here; I grew up in New England. I moved to South Minneapolis in 2018 to grow my business AdventurHER Travel, which hosted outdoor adventure sport outings and vacations for women and folks of underrepresented genders. With its access to a great airport and multiple adventure sport types, Minnesota was a no-brainer choice for my headquarters. When the pandemic hit, the choice to grow that business or shut down was made for me. I moved to Salt Lake City for the mountains, van life-ed around a bit, and then moved back to Minnesota for love, cleaner air, more progressive politics, and ice climbing. It almost makes winter worth it.
I loved that business and that mission, but turning your hobbies into your career has its dark side. Shutting it down was hard, but there were bigger things to focus my energy on at that time that helped me keep perspective. I got involved in state level politics in communications and email marketing, and the organization I was with helped flip the Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia state legislatures. Two of my campaigns were the ones that officially flipped their Houses.
My background is in professional writing and most of my career has been in melding communication and customer experience. Sometime between van life and moving back, my co-founder and I started Split Pace Creative to help businesses and organizations elevate their content marketing. Our specialty is capturing and translating brand identity into conversions, particularly through excellent longform SEO and email marketing, though we write a great annual report, case study, and product description.
We set out to work with companies that do good/bring joy. We feel so lucky to get to partner with incredible Minnesota businesses like BWCAW outfitter Ely Outfitting Company, a global luxury plush toy brand with a MN HQ, and others–as well as some amazing out of state clients in industries like home remediation services, queer apparel, wedding photography, biowellness, and financial services. All of our clients have been truly good people who really believe in what they do, and they just need some help with their marketing. Helping our clients’ meet their goals of helping their own customers is the best part of my job.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Owning a business is never a smooth road. Being a person isn’t a smooth road. Is it easy for other people and no one told me?!
We launched Split Pace Creative three weeks before ChatGPT rolled out to the public. Talk about a rough time to launch a new content marketing and copywriting business! This was before it started becoming clear to folks who don’t live and breathe our industry that LLMs poised major issues with intellectual property, reliability of sourcing and fact, security, and dozens of other huge concerns. My co-founder and I have nearly 50 years of combined experience, but our business was brand new–and right out of the gate we were sitting in pitch meetings and educating busy business owners about why investing in us was a better business move than asking ChatGPT.
We’ve had highs and lows and we’ve kept the momentum going. You have to. The marketing landscape is constantly changing, and it requires agility, acuity, and authenticity. We’re really fortunate to excel in all three.
Probably the most important thing I learned from my last business was that being a solopreneur is incredibly hard. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it alone again, and Split Pace Creative wouldn’t be what it is today if not for my co-founder, Pamela. You don’t succeed in business if you don’t love solving problems. You don’t get through without sisu, that resilience and bravery and grit flowing through Minnesota like water. But even with that, I wouldn’t be anywhere without Pamela.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Split Pace Creative?
Split Pace Creative is a content strategy, marketing, and copywriting agency. Our specialty is capturing and translating brand identity into conversions through creative and proven content marketing.
If it’s words, we’re on it. For example:
-Website or app copy
– Blog posts & long-form articles
– Email marketing campaigns
– Product descriptions
– Scripts & ad copy
– Case studies, whitepapers, & annual reports
– Press releases
– Meta & LinkedIn post copy
I’m particularly partial to email marketing. I might be the only person you’ll ever hear say the words “I love email marketing” in that exact order, but it’s true! Creativity, persuasion, and data in the perfect and infinitely testable, tweakable package.
One of the things that sets us apart is how truly good we are at capturing your brand identity and using it to drive your content. That’s where everything starts–because that’s the heart of it all. Then we take data and our professional experience to turn that into meeting your business goals.
We’ve helped a solo apparel designer grow orders by 344% year over year. We’ve helped a mold remediation company jump from page 3 of Google to their biggest keyword ranking 3rd on Google for the last 8 months and get listed by name in AI overviews (before a national franchise). But what we’re most proud of is when we deliver copy after an onboarding session and a new client says “I never really knew how to explain my business before, but it’s exactly this.”
We love to plug into a business or organization wherever they need help. Whether it’s a small business owner who needs to outsource all of their content marketing, another agency who needs a reliable partner, or a big marketing department that needs to cover parental leave or outsource an occasional project, we’re happy to step in anywhere we’re needed.
How do you think about luck?
When I feel lucky in my business, I can usually trace it back to actions I took to cultivate that. Relationships I’ve put effort into, networking, prospecting hours and smart advertising, delivering results for clients. But I believe that in most things–especially in business–luck is an equation of hard work and privilege.
I’ve had immense privilege in my life. Full stop.
I’ve had to work very hard in business and in life. I’ve built businesses with no additional funding, couch surfing and living out of my Subaru with my dog. I’ve spent a lot of time in trauma therapy. You don’t get here without working hard. And I can count myself lucky that I didn’t have to work even harder.
Where I am incredibly lucky, though, is in the people I’ve found who have loved me along the way. Within weeks of moving to Minnesota, I met my best friend, who quickly introduced me to some of my other best friends. I’m lucky that I was raised by an entrepreneur who has been one of my most influential mentors (hi, dad!). I was lucky that my co-founder was looking for freelance work at the same moment my then marketing department was looking for a copywriter, and a mutual friend introduced her to me. Those are the things that feel like luck was on my side.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.splitpacecreative.com
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/splitpacecreative
Image Credits
Mo Hounsell
