Strategic Assessment
For project work, we begin with a brief to ensure that both parties understand the scope of work, specific communication goals, timeline, budget and other relevant parameters.
For prospective clients considering a more far reaching relationship, our process typically begins with an assessment of your business and communication goals, market awareness, competitive dynamics, timeline, budget and ROI projections. This is developed in collaboration with you / your team. This could require some investment in market research. But given the quick pace of today’s planning and implementation cycles, our MO is to assimilate quickly and move forward with the best information available to us.
Brand Development
Large or small, successful industrial and engineering businesses have their own unique DNA. This is a blend of vision, values, corporate culture, technical expertise, history and workforce … along with the internal firepower to innovate!
Some CEOs understand all this at a granular level; for others, Very often, company leadership is too close to their own day-to-day operations to understand the subtle attributes that differentiate you from your peers. (needed?)
At Shift, our roots in brand positioning go back to 2005. Today, we continue to use a time-tested process to understand the essence of organizations from a variety of perspectives, including key stakeholders, employees and customers.
We have a special talent for translating these elements into an identity that captures the rational and emotional essence of your organization. It should be obvious that brand development is more than logo design; it is how your company innovates, executes and services its customers.
From there, we weave your brand strategy into a dynamic communications program that brings life and purpose to your positioning month after month. Shift helps a company evolve, both internally and externally, with its message, identity, brand positioning and employee relations.
Our Brand Development expertise includes:
Company / Product Naming
Logo Design
Benefit Testing
Positioning Statement
Brand Positioning Collateral / Video
Integrated Marketing Campaigns
From traditional direct mail to digital campaigns (email, social media promotion and video), Shift has the experience to write, design and execute brand awareness and lead-generation campaigns. For clients interested in tracking performance, we can provide both top-line and in-depth campaign analytics.
Please read this: We have worked directly with several marketing automation platforms. While the data and insights available through these digital partners can be amazing, it is also quite expensive, requires additional staffing and, in most cases, is overkill for industrial clients.
B2B clients want business leads. Lead “nurturing” via email marketing, video marketing and LinkedIn is well within our wheelhouse. Further, we have the capability to pinpoint interested prospects who hit your website and track the pages they visited.
Website Redesign
Particularly for manufacturing, engineering and construction clients, our web design process assimilates the culture, values, personality, expertise and other factors that differentiate your company.
In the creative / design process, we become the eyes and ears of your target prospects. What are they seeking? How much information do they want to take in on a first or second visit? How do we quickly create a perception of expertise and experience … of genuine warmth and engagement? How do we write the content in a way that speaks directly and personally to them? How do we facilitate contact?
Working within WordPress, we start from a non-templated blank canvas to create a presence that captures the essence of your company and encourages prospects to engage. We focus on effective SEO content and metadata that maximizes your Google presence and monitor traffic and visitor behavior on a regular basis. Your website is custom programmed to display perfectly on laptops and mobile devices.
Below are several websites we feel are representative of our best work.
Strategic Content Marketing
A commitment to keeping fresh, relevant content on your website and other digital platforms does three important things:
Creates an air of leadership.
Improves Google presence.
Brings leads to your sales pipeline.
Attracts high quality applicants.
In 2010, SHIFT was one of Greenville’s first marketing agencies to develop content marketing programs for our clients. Today, we tailor our expertise in blog publishing, video marketing, email campaigns, newsletters, white papers and other tactics to provide you with affordable tactics to outsmart your competitors.
Effective content marketing requires a diverse set of skills and a commitment to consistency. Most companies don’t have the necessary time and talent to effectively execute a plan. With Shift, you have immediate access to a well-rounded team skilled in business journalism, video production, PR, social media and digital metrics.
A Word of Caution: Many companies and agencies fall victim to the narcissistic allure of seeing an unending stream of their own content on social media. The tail starts wagging the dog. Working together, we’ll develop a social plan that’s intelligent and sustainable.
Industrial Video Production
If you haven’t already, check out our Industrial Project page for a sense of our experience in producing great industrial video work. We’re at home in our boots, safety glasses and hard hats. So, what makes Shift a good partner for your video program? Pardon the pun, but here’s what we shoot for:
Short, incisive pieces … a short story told by your folks.
A lasting sense of technical competence and cultural warmth.
Affordability and sustainability. Can we use multiple cameras and take hours lighting your project?
Of course; but is it worth the cost?
The mechanics of a Shift video is pretty simple. We meet to discuss the project and specific communication objectives; we provide a short list of questions a few days before the shoot. We typically shoot the interview with a two-person team – interviewer (one of our writers) and videographer (who manages filming and audio capture). We get the necessary ambient b-roll. Then we edit into a rough cut for your review. Video length … typically 60 to 90 seconds.
Often, we’ll cut up a longer video into short, snappy teaser videos for LinkedIn that invite you to the website for deeper engagement.
But here’s the key: With Shift, you have a marketing team that knows you. The interviewer understands your people, brand and culture; the videographer already knows your preferences. Together, we realize that the goal is a steady cadence of engaging video work. We keep the program on scope, on time and on budget.