Why WordPress?

Why WordPress?

WHY WORDPRESS? 12 GREAT REASONS...

 

 

A great platform with flexibility and a broad developer base.

Born in 2003, WordPress is now the most popular blogging platform on the market, and is used for more content management-enabled websites than any other platform. These are our top 12 reasons why WordPress its our preferred WordPress platform for your company’s website or blog.

Want to see some premium WordPress websites we have created in the past?
Click here…

1. Ease of Use

WordPress is easy to use with an intuitive interface to its backend functionality. Put simply, you don’t need to be a web developer to work with this toolset once the site is setup right.  It’s a snap to add new pages, blog posts, images, videos and so on. With technology this simple, your time spent working with the system is greatly reduced.

2. Future Proofing

The WordPress platform has been around a long time and gained a global following of web developers. At this point we are confident that WordPress is going be around for a long time. Over the long haul, staying with the same web platform means saving time and money which can be put towards mission critical tasks.

3. Availability of Development Assets

Nothing is worse than not finding a reasonable priced developer to work on your business tools. WordPress is a global phenomenon, with millions of developers working on WordPress as we speak. You will always be able to find someone to work on you site.

4. Access from Any Internet-enabled Device

WordPress is browser-based, which means if you can browse the web, you can work on your website. You can login from any Internet-enabled device and manage or update your content quickly and easily.

5. Complexity of HTML Editing or FTP Software not required

While web programming skills such as HTML editing and FTP access can be used within your WordPress environment, they are absolutely not required. Almost all basic system requirements, such as creating a new page or blog post, formatting text, uploading images (and editing them), uploading documents, and more can be completed all without additional HTML or FTP software.

6. Ease of Search Engine Optimization

The underlying code which runs WordPress is both clean and simple, allowing fast and easy access by search engines. With a wide variety of SEO plugins ready for implementation, you will easily be able to optimize each page, post, and image with their own meta tag keywords, descriptions, and titles. A rich set of features will open up your site to the world!

 

Wanna know more about about WordPress? Check out these links;
WordPress Features
Popular Plugins
Great Modular Template System

7. The Power of Customizability

WordPress is built around modularity and the desire for developers to customize the user experience. An integrated template system means you can quickly swap look and feel or duplicate components for re-use. With the power to customize 100% of the WordPress platform, your brand standards can be carried through to your website with ease. Last minute changes, no problem! Need to add social media integration, e-commerce, interactivity… no problem!

8. You Have Control of Your Site

With simple, no-code based functionality control in your hands, you do not need to be tied to expensive developers for every little change. Updates to your content are simple and quick, and easy or timely changes can be done by an internal asset, rather than an expensive specialist.

9. Integrated Blogging Features

WordPress was created to make blogging easy, with blogging capabilities integrated from the get-go. Even if you are just using it to build a website without blogging features, the moment you are ready to open up a dynamic blog style communication pathway to your customers, it will be simple and quick. No new software or training required.

10. A World of Plugins mean Ultimate Flexibility

WordPress makes almost anything possible through the power of plugins, many of which are free or low priced. Add a calendar, insert a video, activate a Twitter Feed, integrate with Facebook, turn on a storefront… these are just a few of the thousands of options available to a business with a WordPress website.

11. Scalability… Grow Your Site, Grow Your Business

WordPress sites are extremely scalable. You need to expand to hundreds of thousands of pages or blog posts? Performance is great from small to large, and can be further optimized to accommodate almost any scale of growth

12. Multiple User Levels

WordPress enables setting-up multiple users for your website, allowing you to assign various access levels and capabilities to each of different types of user. Need an intern to just update posts? No problem. Want to give complete but temporary access to a temporary development asset? WordPress delivers user flexible levels out of the box.

In Conclusion.

While WordPress is by no means the only game in town, it has many advantages for small to medium size businesses and individuals. We are happy to discuss any of these details if you are on a fence… otherwise, we look forward to helping you bring your business to the web through the powerful platform that WordPress represents.

We design and develop for all markets and industries...

Design, Marketing & Creative Services
helps accurately tell your story to the world

A Social Media Primer

A Social Media Primer

A SOCIAL MEDIA PRIMER

First and Foremost; Assess Your Business Landscape.

As a marketing tool creator, we get a lot of questions about how best to use social media to increase brand visibility or increase lead generation. Of course, the question usually sounds more like, “How do I get more likes on Facebook?” or “Can I connect my website to Instagram?”

Perfectly good questions but its always important to look at your bigger picture and ask these type of core questions before trying to answer specific implementation questions:

  1. What is my market and how does my market use social media? This question will point you at which social medias should be your focus (ie. Is Instagram or YouTube a better fit, and why).
  2. What type of “conversation” can I engage in with my customers? This question will help you focus on the way to use the social media(s) of choice.
  3. What type of media am I most likely to be able to sustainably generate? This question will guide you toward what kind of media (photo, video, audio, text) is ideal for you to focus your efforts on.
  4. What are my specific goals in my process? This question will help guide and drive your efforts with a way to measure success.
  5. How much time and resource do I have to support the effort? This question helps scope both your internal process, and how much exterior support you can afford.

These are not easy questions to answer on the fly, and the best thing you can do for your business, is to engage a pre-production phase of assessment, like drawing a blueprint before building a home. A good assessment process will help you answer the questions above, and gets you ready to make decisions about the scope of your development effort while deciding on which areas to focus your attention and resources.

Social Network Standards.

Before we dive into specifics of each major network, there are some standards that exist across all social media, including:

  • Posting Best Practices. Each social media platform has its own set of posting specifications that need to be adhered to in order to best take advantage of the specific platforms strengths. Your SM provider already knows these details, but they are also very easy to find online. They include things like optimal size of graphics or length of text content, etc.
  • Consistent Brand Projection. Consistency allows your viewers torecognize your brand amongst the many people screaming for attention online. This means using the same logo, font and colors. It also means the tone of your written voice and message. This branding standard works for any size business.
  • Professional Standards.It is surprising how important maintaining business standards is to keeping and growing your audience. Good spelling, proper grammar, visible moral and ethical standards… these are make and break!
  • Visible Value.Mission critical to all social media success is delivering value to your audience. Empty content with no payoff and blatant advertising does not work well on any platform. Give value as you deliver your promotion and you will find your audience grows steadily.
  • As their primary source of revenue, all major social media platforms offer advertising in various forms, from subtly pushing your posts to more people, to banner ads that are a close parallel to classic ad placement. It is not necessary to use ads, but it certainly increases your exposure, and can be used selectively to kick off campaigns or raise post awareness.

Each social media platform has built in strengths and weaknesses, and each are ideal for different reasons and for different markets. Let’s take a look at the top offerings, their basic advantages and disadvantages, and some examples of how to dive into the biggest networks…

Top 21 Social Media
(in monthly users or visitors)

1. Facebook – 2.23 B
2. YouTube – 1.9 B
3. WhatsApp – 1.5 B
4. Messenger – 1.3 B
5. WeChat – 1.06 B
6. Instagram – 1 B
7. QQ* – 861 M
8. Tumblr – 642 M
9. Qzone* – 632 M
10. Tik Tok* – 500 M
11. Sina Weibo* – M
12. Twitter – 335 M
13. Reddit – 330 M
14. Baidu Tieba* – M
15. LinkedIn – 294 M
16. Viber – 260 M
17. Snapchat – 255 M
18. Pinterest – 250 M
19. Line – 203 M
20. Telegram – 200 M
21. Medium – 60 M

Top Social Media Sites.

The following are brief descriptions of the main social media engines (networking, messaging, blogging, etc.), and how people typically take advantage of them.

FACEBOOK
The largest and most widely used social network on the planet (2.3 billion users per month active!). Take this with a grain of salt as it is not growing nearly as fast as it used to be, and with the “Fake News” and “Privacy” issues rocking the system, it has its downsides. Caution is needed if you are delivering “news” style content. Facebook is best with consumers, keeping humans connected to each other and their past. Best uses of this network focus on the human side of connection, tapping friends, relatives, and co-workers to spread your word. FB isn’t as powerful for direct business-to-business representation but it shouldn’t be discounted, as it’s still individuals that drive business decisions. The ways you can use FB to promote are deep and rich, from custom Apps to display ads and more.

MESSENGER
Considered to be a separate entity (with 1.3 billion monthly users), this is A FB asset that focuses on instant messaging, and is tightly integrate with the FB platform. You can use this platform to advertise, send newsletters and other communication type promotions.

YOUTUBE
YouTube is second biggest with almost 2 billion monthly users! It’s interesting to note that the bulk of the users are between 16 and 24, making this platform most appropriate for that market segment. While there is a lot of content to wade through, this video-centric sharing platform is great for brands that rely on video to deliver their message.

WHATSAPP
While WhatsApp  is owned by FB, it’s still a powerful separate identity (monthly 1.5 billion users). It’s focus is on instant messaging, making communication and smooth as possible between individuals and groups. For brands that do a lot of current message delivery (like communicating daily specials, or pushing frequent press touch-points, for instance), this may be a strong option.

QQ, WeChat and QZone
These are the Chinese equivalents of WA and Instagram (with a combined 1.5 billion monthly users), and perfect if you want to target instant communication in the eastern markets.

INSTAGRAM
Another asset purchased by FB, it was built to focus on Photo sharing (since expanded to video and beyond). With approximately 1 Billion users monthly, Instagram plays well with other social media and websites. For brands looking to promote through imagery and quick referrals, this is a popular platform with influencers and a great choice for consumer products.

TUMBLR
This is a blogging site (645 M users monthly) for sharing any type of media, and is a good platform to get your blogging efforts noticed. This is mostly consumer focused but some businesses with lots of content generation find this a powerful option.

TWITTER
With politics clearly demonstrating the power of Twitter (350M monthly viewers), this social media is strongest for companies needing to project their conversation on a moments notice, as they focus on real-time information delivery. It is a short form of communication, with a restriction on characters per tweet, so companies with lots to say may want to swerve away.

LINKEDIN
This is the king of business to business personal networking (294 M monthly users), focusing on connecting professionals and their business networks. A great place to dialog with your audience about technical and informational elements of your business, and connect with possible clients or new employees.

REDDIT
With 330 M users monthly, this is the king of active forums, which encourages active conversations regarding anything and everything. If you drive your company on a dialog with your users, this platform will be a good choice.

SNAPCHAT
With a focus on photos and short videos, this platform (weighing in at 255 monthly users) is popular with the youth who like fast and simple communications. A great business use for Snapchat might be a farmer’s market vendor or gourmet restaurant with daily specials attached to tasty photos… If you have the energy for lots of posting, it is a great way to connect with a younger audience.

PINTEREST
Pinterest is the corkboard of the Internet with a monthly 250M users, allowing people to post materials in a way that random discovery of content is easy and fun. This site has a surprisingly high content approval rating, indicating this site has big sway in purchasing decisions for the average consumer.

FLCKR
Flickr is seeing 112M users monthly with its focus on photo sharing. Anyone with images to share as a promotional pivot, will want to tap this high-use network.

Please note that the numbers cited in this article change every month, but I have used as current numbers as possible, with no numbers older than August 2018, and most being from January 2019 and earlier. That said, nothing changes faster on the Internet than social media popularity.

 

Learn More with these Articles on Social Media Networks

Get Verified on Instagram
Best Practices on Instagram
Best Practises on YouTube
Accelerate your Business with LinkedIn
Best Practices on Twitter
Best Practices on Facebook

Found a great article? Send it to us so we can included it here!

Making Social Media Work for You.

To properly utilize social media, the following should be on your radar:

Build your Profile with care. Every social media network has a profile, which tells the world about the account owner, wether its a business or individual. Proper attention to your profile is absolutely critical as it delivers your core message or brand and allows others to know you are who you say you are (there are millions of imitators or fake accounts).

Consistency and Maintaining Standards. The type and consistency of posts has the same value as properly maintaining your brand. Audiences are more sophisticated than we often want to believe, and they look for consistency from their content or media providers. Professional standards should be rigorously adhered to, including a clean and professional logo, accurate and correctly spelled descriptions, link to appropriate web site(s), and so on

Active participation. Just opening an account on a social media network is obviously not enough. Most of the networks have two driving elements: one, the more individuals follow / join your network the better, and two, the more you post entries the better. Of course, every network is different and require different actions to stay active and grow your visibility. On YouTube, creating a channel with your videos, and constantly adding new videos will keep your account viable. On Instagram, your posts go stale after just a few hours, so determining when your followers are active will enable you to focus your efforts during the hours of the day that your audience are actually following posts.

Parallel network participation. Many social networks look to other networks to tune their own. For instance, Instagram looks to YouTube (as one of their metrics) to determine if your account is worthy of a Blue Ribbon rating. Why? It’s their way of cross promoting, by promoting their users that are being noticed on other systems. Popularity on system drives popularity on other systems. No one said social media was going to be easy…

Clear Communication Lines. As the primary reason for social networking is generally two-way communication, enabling that is critical, and requires considering both pathways; one, how you reach out to your potential audience, and two, how your audience communicates back to you. Design your posts to accommodate both, by making sure your message is direct and actionable (don’t forget your call to action) and make sure it is clear how they can speak with you (don’t forget to direct them to a working email!). On Instagram, this means using hashtags generously and accurately. On YouTube, make sure that you use embedded links accurately, and that the end of your video includes appropriate “Call to Action”.

Advertising vs. Posting. Most networks want you to pay for advertising, but also give you pathways for non-paid outreach. The unpaid outreach generally is more powerful than paid, as it is also more personal, but to bring in strangers to your network, some ads may be advantageous. For LinkedIn, posting interesting articles (whether yours of others) allows you to use content to dialog with your audience. On Instagram (and others), encouraging user-generated content gives you a flow of postings without you having to do all the work. Facebook lets you “push” your personal posts, incrementally increasing your reach by the application of low-level finance. This hybrid between personal post and advertising has helped make Facebook the powerhouse that it is today.

In Conclusion.

Social media is the state of the art promotional and marketing engine of today. No serious brand or business can ignore its power and reach. Like static advertising of old, the only limit is your imagination and the resources you can commit. Also, like the old model of advertising, there are no simple or easy solutions. The true power of social media is two-fold; global reach and statistical feedback, both of which traditional advertising could not truly deliver.

First and foremost, set realistic goals and settle in for the long-haul, as using social media to your advantage requires hard work, patience and persistence. Then, remember that maintaining your audience is an on-going process that requires constant effort. Lastly, remember that the quality of work you present (creative, technical and so on) will directly reflect on the audiences perception of the quality of your products and services.

The great news is that once you have built a following, unless you abuse them, they will build and grow your business in ways traditional media never could. Have fun and socialize!

We design and develop for all markets and industries...

Design, Marketing & Creative Services
helps accurately tell your story to the world

Search Engine Best Practice 2019

Search Engine Best Practice 2019

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION - 2019

To aid our clients, we are always researching the latest in best practices for SEO efforts. It is a bit of a black art ( ie. not a science) but current trends are always changing, so we hope this knowledge brings value to you and your businesses.

Properly addressing Search Engine Optimization is a challenge that is ironically made so by the search engines themselves. As you might imagine, the search engine companies want you to pay for ads, as that is how they make their money. They intentionally do their best to not inform the public about the reality of their systems. In addition, they change their rules frequently. That said, the challenge of properly setting your site up for search engines is possible so read on!

What is clear is that the strategy of paying for “Search Engine Registration” is not an optimal approach. The current best case includes 5 stages of development outlined below. Once a website is designed, built and launched (your obvious first step), the next best step is Stage Two, which utilizes a specialist supplier who will focus on “Structuring your site for Search Engine Optimization”. This generally does not mean visible changes to your pages, but it does include a number of behind the scene site enhancements.

The strategies and tactics for SEO range across a matrix of high to low value, and from white hat (focus on human audience) to black hat (focus on search engine rules)

STAGE ONE: PROPER INITIAL SITE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Great site design is not done by accident. In the same way that marketing professionals tackle any marketing challenge, your first and most important step is simply understanding your market, and outlining your marketing goals. Another challenge is choosing a good supplier, from automated online website generation tools, to customer website creators, like ContentX. This is generally determined by your budget, how much of the work can be done by your internal staff, and how much you want outside aid.  Once you have created a website, promoting it will be an ongoing job for you and your marketing assets.

STAGE TWO: SEARCH ENGINE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

Your next step is making sure your site is ready for search engines. The website search engine optimization process (generally completed by a specialist supplier with various levels of engagement) focuses on 3 feature sets:

ANALYTICS & TRACKING

Custom integrations for Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, Data Studio, Hotjar Heatmapping and others. Clients receive an interactive custom dashboard to monitor customer conversions like phone calls, form completions, downloads, emails, and more!

TECHNICAL SEO

Technical SEO ensures the entire website is fully crawlable and indexable by search engines. This includes microdata & schema markup for social media open graph, accelerated mobile pages (amp), and dynamic metadata optimization.

SPEED & PERFORMANCE

Google has moved to mobile-first indexing, meaning page speed is critical. We’ll audit mobile usability, page speed load times, overall SEO performance and more to make sure your site design addresses current standards established by the major search engines.

Once you have optimized your website, the search engines will automatically crawl and register your site, placing you within their systems based on your site optimization, its content and its structuring. Suppliers offer these services at different levels, and also offer monthly “maintenance” of these services, though this is probably only appropriate for a company engaged in active ecommerce sales, or companies with a reasonably-sized monthly budget. We can help you understand the best level for your business, and make sure this gets implemented with best case practices.

SEO Stats for 2019

1. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

2. Google holds 76% of total search engine market share. Baidu, Bing, and Yahoo! come in at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place with a combined 21.6% market share.

3. 57% of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative.

4. 81% of people perform some type of online research before making a purchase.

5. 47% of consumers view 3-5 pieces of content created by a company before talking to a salesman.

6. 72% of marketers describe content marketing as their most effective SEO tactic.

7. 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.

8. 61% of internet users do research on a product online before making a purchase.

9. Leads from search engines have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (ex. cold-calling, direct mail, etc.) have a 1.7% close rate.

10. 70-80% of people ignore paid search results, choosing to only click on organic search results.

11. Bounce rates increase by 50% if your website takes 2 seconds extra to load.

12. Conversion rates fall by 12% for every extra second that it takes your website to load.

STAGE THREE: CONTENT OPTIMIZATION

While not strictly a “stage” as this is an ongoing process, the content on your site is as important as your technical site optimization (as per above). Ultimately, the search engines analyze about your site content, using a number of factors to help rate your position on the search results. Some of the ways you can make your site do better in searches is as follows:

  • Your pages are kept current and updated on a regular basis
  • Your pages use text content that matches your meta-tags and descriptions
  • Your pages use photo content which match your text content
  • Your pages use video content to support your other content
  • Your media content naming is accurate and synched with your page content
  • Your pages refer users with links that lead to other websites, which also refer users back to your site
  • Your pages deliver content value to the public as a whole
  • Your pages are integrated with other sites (such as social media) from across the Internet
  • Your page content is not duplicated, either internally, or by external sources (such as PR)

Much of these rules are applied as we build out a website for the first time, though it is reliant on the content we get from our client. While this seems like a short and simple list, there is an infinite world of potential when considering how content is delivered within your website and web presence. It is also important to note that this is not a one time process, but that a well-positioned website is a growing and changing environment, updated regularly. We can help you form and implement a strategy to address this area of focus.

STAGE FOUR: SEARCH ENGINE AD PLACEMENT

With the above 3 stages in place, you will absolutely get better search engine positioning, but the truth is, there is no guarantees about location or position, as your position is reliant on software algorithms and their rating of all the factors we mentioned above. Your competition is competing for search engine positioning just as you are. If you are looking for a guarantee of increased traffic, and a guarantee of top of the fold search positioning, ad placement is still going to be a viable strategy. Like traditional advertising, the general approach includes committing to a monthly budget, and deciding how you want to target your ad placement budget. Again, this stage has a world of possibilities and will require a functional plan to move on your options. We can help you with a working Communications plan, and even work with your marketing goals to optimize placement.

STAGE FIVE: GUERRILLA OUTREACH

This is the black magic of website promotion, and has so many options that we will simply give you a basic outline in this article. Once you are setup online with the above 4 stages, there are many ways to reach out to the Internet and begin seeing value. Check out these options:

  • Active engagement in social media conversations. Every time to you post on your favorite social media, you are opening up possibilities that other humans will read and interact with your engagement.
  • Active engagement in forums. Back and forth conversations generate many opportunities to present you or your companies agenda. Deliver value (not advertising) and you are working within modern marketing conventions.
  • Deliver free content as value that users can tap into, and promote free value as a pathway to your products or services. The Internet is often called a zero-billion dollar industry. Free opens doors and shows how you are working within the modern Internet landscape.
  • Don’t underestimate the value of traditional media. Your marketing funnel must address bringing people in from the real world. Your online presence is a billboard to the real world, but you must erect multiple billboards to get noticed!
  • Don’t forget the power of brick and mortar. Humans still live in the physical world. Businesses which have a presence in the real world have a solid window into the virtual world. Find a way that your physical location can help guide traffic to your virtual presence.

This just scratches the surface. Creativity is your only limiting factor… have fun, deliver value and stay open what you can do for the Internet, so that it can pay you back in its most valuable coin, user eyeballs!

IN CONCLUSION

For any client who wants their site to have better search engine positioning, the most important area of development is Stage Two: SEO website optimization, see above. For those clients who have allocated marketing budget for expanding your Internet presence, Stage Three becomes a good step to address. For clients who are very budget conscious, Stage Two is still mission critical, but you will then focus on to Stage Three (optimizing your content) and Stage Five (guerrilla outreach).

We are happy to help with any level of your business marketing needs, online or otherwise. Give us a call and we will walk you through the options to arrive at a go forward strategy.

We design and develop for all markets and industries...

Design, Marketing & Creative Services
helps accurately tell your story to the world

Video: Automatica

Video: Automatica

Video: Automatica

OK, so I am not a fan of the overuse of robotics. I would rather order food from a human, or simply know that my taxes are not going to pay to automate jobs that less fortunate humans require to pay their bills. That said, this video shows a great use for robots…

Why do I like this? This is a great example of advertising which delivers content value without being in your face about a product. The product (robotics hardware) is obvious, but as a viewer, I am not hit over the head with hard sell. I get enjoyment as the first priority, with the added value of brand promotion.

We design and develop for all markets and industries...

Design, Marketing & Creative Services
helps accurately tell your story to the world

Animation: Fabricated

Animation: Fabricated

If you like the industrial look, or are a fan of stop-motion, this piece is right up your alley. Even if you don’t like the aesthetic, you will probably be impressed by this 10-year in the making project!

Animation: Follow the Ball

Animation: Follow the Ball

Motion design is a dynamic combination of rich media, video, animation, stop-motion, claymation… the list goes on. The following piece brings a unique style to the screen, a playful piece sets an interesting mood and tone.

Atlas Peak Olive Oil

Atlas Peak Olive Oil

Case Study: Atlas Peak Olive Oil

ContentX provided brand, web, packaging and marketing services

The Challenge

Atlas Peak was on a shoe-string budget, but wanted to begin presenting their products as a premium product offering. They wanted their multiple product package designs to have a family feel, with expandability into the future.

The Solution

Starting by examining the market and customer base, we designed a new logo that would work well in the speciality foods market. Growing the new brand platform, we systematically designed a product packaging lineup, and web platform to deliver a synchronized look and feel across their entire marketing landscape.

 

Premium product packaging puts a face on a premium product!

Quality Branding has global appeal...

Atlas Peak Olive Oil sells through 3 primary venues; boutique grocery stores, farmers markets and online through their website. Every one of these sales venues project the image and brand of Atlas Peak to the world, so a comprehensive and overarching premium brand look is mission critical. We provide that by building each new element on a strong brand look, carefully matching new elements with old and driving sales through positive customer impression and feedback.

“Finding a good designer is always a challenge. We got lucky when we found ContentX. Over the years, their support has been unwavering and of immense value to me and to my organization.”
Cathy Hammond, Owner, Atlas Peak Olive Oil

Interested in what the Atlas Peak Olive Oil is doing now? Check out their website: www.atlaspeakoliveoil.com

Atlas Peak Olive Oil
As a boutique provider of olive oil,
they needed premium design to project premium quality.
ContentX built their brand from the ground up,
starting with the foundation of a new logo,
to matching print collateral to packaging and web presence.

Efficient Drivetrains

Efficient Drivetrains

Case Study: Efficient Drivetrains

Building success with marketing, brand and creative services

The Challenge

Efficient Drivetrains came to us over 10 years ago with a dream of building a company around their unique patents in the field of electric vehicle technology. They had big dreams of becoming an industry player, but were restricted by the classic financial challenge of a start-up budget. Success would demand premium quality work across a wide range of creative service requirements.

 

 

The Solution

ContentX was a perfect fit for their requirements. We are small, agile and reasonably priced. We have the flexibility to staff up based on fluctuating requirements. As we are a small design shop, they could speak directly to our designers. These features make us ideal for any size company.

For the last 10 years we have helped them grow and expand. There hasn’t been a section of their business that our team hasn’t supported, including:

  • Marketing and Promotional Strategy and Consulting
  • Logo and Identity Design and Production, from brochures to identity package
  • Videography and Animation
  • Interior Site Design for both facilities
  • Tradeshow booth and event support
  • Multi-language website and web outreach
  • Press Release and PR support
  • User Interface design
  • Realtime Promotional Software
  • Financial Acquisition Presentation Tools

The culmination of our relationship has been the acquisition of EDI by Cummins, Inc.  Now operating as a division of Cummins, EDI still relies on ContentX to provide comprehensive creative services for their marketing and sales teams.

 

We grew Efficient Drivetrains from an fledgling start-up to a successful corporate acquisition in just under 10 years!

Support from Start-up to Acquisition

EDI founders Joerg Ferchau and Andy Frank are true innovators, coming from the research labs of academia, to this point, where their technology to be found in most modern electric vehicles. In the early stages, they had the raw talent but needed to grow a team of cross-functional assets to build a company with potential for success. From the early days of experimentation and grant pursuit, through years of research and development, and now, with the feather of a corporate acquisition fresh in our cap, ContentX has helped the team with their creative services, marketing and promotion. Working with every level of the team, we have proudly stood with the EDI family from the beginning. EDI will tell you that a combination of relationship chemistry and design excellence is what makes working with ContentX such a rewarding long-term success.

Successful acquisition by a $20B company!

The proof of ContentX design value can be tracked over time, by simply observing EDI’s successes. $20M in investment (seed through series D). $25+M in state and federal grants acquired. $100M in pipeline generated as a result of successful demand generation programs resulting in integration into 27 vehicle platforms with leading customers like Daimler, PG&E, Thomas Built Bus, Freightliner, and Bluebird bus. From presentations and graphics, to printed trade show materials and interior location design, our marketing and creative services support has helped across the EDI organization to keep professional level brand a mission critical priority. ContentX has helped EDI show the world their best face, and can do that for almost any company and in any market, as our design is driven from the customer’s core business values, with brand efforts designed to support all aspects of the company face and operations.

“We don’t work with ContentX because of their past client list. We work with ContentX because of their people. They listen carefully and respond intelligently, with design work that clearly reflects our needs, desires and requirements. They are part of our family, and we would recommend them to any business who wants premium collaboration, outstanding quality and creative solutions to business challenges.”
Joerg Ferchau, Chief Executive Officer, Efficient Drivetrains

Interested in what Efficient Drivetrains is doing now? Check out their website: www.efficientdrivetrains.com

Efficient Drivetrains
As a startup, EDI needed to grow fast
without being to afford a full-blown ad agency.
ContentX provided the plug-in flexibility of
on-demand creative services when they were small,
and helped grow them to the point of buyout by Cummins, Inc.

Mendocino Film Festival

Mendocino Film Festival

Case Study: Mendocino Film Festival

ContentX provided marketing, brand and creative services

The Challenge

Mendocino Film Festival (MFF) is a small film festival in a remote area of the Northern California Coast. Their primary challenges are to attract interested sponsors, increase membership, and drive attendance to their venues which are spread throughout the county.

The Solution

As with any complex organization, the solution was multi-layered. In this case, we started with the foundation, an existing logo, and built that into a true brand identity. A new standards package was created to ensure the various distributed teams would project a cohesive brand. Next, we examined and overhauled their public facing marketing materials. New pitch materials were created for the sponsorship drive. New outreach was strategized and created for the membership generation process. New ads were built for local papers, theaters, magazines and social media. A new branded look and template overhauled the show program. Each element that was created was reviewed by the MFF team and synchronized with the brand standards. The growth in sponsorship, membership and attendance was exceptional, and prepared MFF for its 10th anniversary blow-out!

 

Membership, Sponsorship & Attendance all increased more in one year than all nine years previous!

Membership up 35%

At the core of the festival are the repeat attendees, and as this area is remote, the membership is key to keeping the interest alive. Our new approach and polished materials drove an increase in membership of over 35%!

Sponsorship up 23%

Affluent donors and company donations enable special events, cover the costs of the large main tent and keep the wolves from the door. Recognizing this is as vital lifeblood, we applied new efforts and materials to this challenge, increasing sponsorship by 23% over the previous year.

Attendance up 42%

As attendance has been good over the years, the size of the festival had grown steadily. When we came on board, the festival had just made the leap of adding a large new venue to accommodate the sold-out smaller theatres. Of course, with the new size came new expense, requiring that attendance be pushed even higher. Our cross-system attention to brand cohesion saw an increase of attendance across all venues by almost 40%!

“Working with the ContentX team was a pleasure. Deep knowledge, unbounded creativity and lots of positive energy made the experience better than we expected. All that… coupled with measurable results! I highly recommend ContentX for any of your marketing or creative design efforts.”
Michael Fox, Executive Director, Mendocino Film Festival.

Interested in what the Mendocino Film Festival is doing now? Check out their website: www.mendocinofilmfestival.com

ContentX
a small design company with big ideas

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