Homepage Before & After
Helping Shockoe Know Itself
It’s a cruel irony that agencies in the business of communications often struggle with how to communicate themselves. Positioning brands is hard work, and it seems positioning agencies can be even harder.
This is even more apparent for digital product and services agencies who are in the business of “communicating” with customers through their design but are not necessarily masters of messaging in the form of art and copy (i.e., advertising).
I saw a great opportunity in helping Shockoe when they came knocking on my door asking for help in positioning their brand to prospective clients. As one of the top mobile dev shops in the mid-Atlantic, I knew they had a great product offering that could be better expressed. And having worked with Shockoe on several successful new business pitches, I understood they could deliver on the products they promised.
Focusing on the four “Cs” related to positioning – Company, Customer, Competitors and Communication – I conducted a full audit of Shockoe and unearthed a few gems.
The competitive audit showed an industry filled with agencies able to express clearly what they do and even how they do it, but few if any offered any explanation as to why they are in business besides making money.
Leveraging customer interviews and third-party data, it became apparent that CMOs and CIOs were (and are) looking for vendors that can help merge idealism and pragmatism to impact their businesses.
And importantly, Shockoe the company was well suited to differentiate themselves from these competitors and align their offerings with customer needs by continuing to do exactly what they have been doing successfully for the past ten years. As a company, and as individuals, Shockoe is a humble and thoughtful institution. Yes, they make apps. Yes, they solve big business problems in innovative ways. But they have a shared belief that mobility makes life easier, faster, and better.
This was our springboard. It’s a simple idea – life is better with mobility (and mobile technology). But it wasn’t being expressed in their communications. Instead of talking about the big picture and how they work to achieve it for their clients, Shockoe (like their competitors) was trapped in talking about what and how they work.
Presented not as a false choice but rather a critical addition, I worked with their in-house designers and the wonderful team at Punch to bring this why/how/what to life in a visual and verbal language. Overseeing their web redesign was a critical first step, and from here I was able to layer this new brand position and guidelines into their pitch decks, service descriptions, case studies, SEO, CRM workflows, and all inbound/outbound marketing and sales communications.
The idea that mobility makes life easier, faster, and better has become a rally cry for all departments and is helping Shockoe push their clients to find solutions that are powerful both in their functionality and intent.
Service Offering Before & After
Note: We changed the language around Shockoe service to align with search behavior (Inventory & Asset Management has 0 monthly search volume, meaning Shockoe was doing the heavy lifting of defining a new term rather than selling a service already in demand).
Extended Services for Shockoe
Brand
- Brand Positioning
- Brand Guidelines
- Agency Values Refinement
Content
- Website Redesign
- Deck/Collateral Redesign
- Social Content Strategy & Calendar
Marketing
- SEO Audit, Copy and Content Strategy
- CRM Optimization
- Conference Management
- Revised Collateral and Pitch Decks
- Awards Submissions
Sales & Strategy
- New business pitches
- Product strategy for several new/existing clients
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