Marketing and Design Blog

Building a Modern Identity and Website for Homeyer

When you think “tool and die manufacturer” the first words that pop into your head probably won’t be “modern” or "high tech.” In most cases, you’d be right. But not if you were talking about Atomicdust client, formerly known as Homeyer Tool and Die.

They came to us looking for a new identity and website to reflect the changing nature of their business. Sure, tool and die work has been the foundation of their company and will always be part of their operation. But it’s dwindling. And they’ve smartly responded by shifting to precision manufacturing for some very demanding industries, like healthcare, military, aviation and energy.

Read more about our branding for Homeyer Precision Manufacturing. 

Atomicdust’s Crafty Camp Out for St. Louis Children’s Hospital

Atomicdust was asked once again to get crafty for St. Louis Children's Hospital following the success of the organization's 2012 annual report.

The direct mail piece called “Trystan’s Camp Out” tells the story of one child's experience during a year at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Trystan is a 9-year-old who loves the great outdoors, and the theme of her booklet was “MORE camping trips” - a callback to the “MORE” theme of the annual report. 

Read more about our work for St. Louis Children's Hospital.

Atomicdust Wins 24 Targeted Advertising and Marketing Awards

The weather may have been stormy last night, but the mood inside the Chase Park Plaza’s Starlight Room was festive as St. Louis celebrated the best in business-to-business marketing at the annual Targeted Advertising and Marketing (TAM) awards.

And we’re happy to report that this year, Atomicdust brought home 24 awards - topping last year’s personal best of 23.

Read more about the TAM Awards and see the full list of Atomicdust honors. 

Understanding Responsive Website Design. An Overview for Marketing Managers

We’ve been reading a lot about responsive website design on the web (it’s a very popular topic) and thought we would put together an overview for Marketing Managers that might have questions about the topic. What is responsive design? And why does it matter?

Read, 'Understanding Responsive Website Design. An Overview for Marketing Managers.'

Atomicdust looks beyond the expected to create brand for consulting firm.

Daugherty Business Solutions has been quietly improving the way Fortune 500 companies use technology for more than 25 years. And while their client list includes many household names, they’ve found the competition for business to be quite intense beyond their St. Louis home.

That’s why they came to Atomicdust.

As a company, they had never done much marketing. Almost all growth had been from word-of-mouth, referrals and organic growth within existing clients. So they never really needed to. But with aggressive goals in place, that needed to change.

Growth in this sector is about more than attracting customers, too: it’s about recruiting and retaining top talent.

Read more and check out our naming, branding and web design work for Daugherty Business Solutions.

For Atomicdust, Drawing Attention at a Tradeshow is Elementary

If you’ve ever been to a trade show, you know that product demonstrations are a dime a dozen. So when our client, Elsevier MEDai, called us to build traffic to their booth for previews of their new product, MEDai Navigator®, we knew we needed to do something different.

One small catch – the show (the American Health Insurance Plans Institute 2012) was just two and a half weeks away. Oh yeah, and we had to do it all without the help of extensive new booth graphics: we only had a small table in a small booth to tell our story. Read more about our tradeshow marketing for Elsevier MEDai. 

The Brand Spiral of Death (and other thoughts on branding)

The importance of branding from the inside out.

There are two things you need to understand about your brand:

1. You care about it more than your customers do
2. You can change that

In order to begin the shift to a brand that customers genuinely care about, it’s critical to understand that branding is the starting point. Not marketing. Not sales. Branding. Yes, that 8-letter word that agencies and clients have been carelessly throwing around for years in an attempt to sound smarter than one another.

Read 'The Brand Spiral of Death (and other thoughts on branding)'

Rethinking The Professional Services Website

Professional services firms often struggle with their own branding, social media and marketing. Typically, it's because the services they offer are so similar to their competition, there's no real platform or defined difference to create anything concrete. It's sometimes difficult to tell them apart.

We're fortunate to work with many professional services organizations (architects, financial services, healthcare, technology, etc.) to help develop memorable messaging and marketing strategies. And typically the first place this new thinking will appear is on the company website.

Here's some helpful perspective on what you should consider as you build your professional service firm’s marketing materials and website.

Read 'Rethinking The Professional Service Website.'

May Marketing and Design Events in St. Louis

We believe the best way to support the marketing, design and social media community in St. Louis is to get more people involved. You’re bound to run into a few Atomicdusters at these events, so you’ll always have someone to mingle with (plus one of the events is right here at Atomicdust)! 

Check out our list of upcoming marketing, design and social media in St. Louis.

Naming, Branding and Website Design for Daugherty Mobile Suite

One project leads to another.

We were in the midst of a full-scale branding program for our new client, Daugherty Business Solutions, when they came to us with a more urgent task: branding their new, mobile-oriented products.

This in and of itself represented a seismic change for the company. Daugherty had always focused on long-term consultative client relationships, rather than individual products or services. Daugherty asked us to name these new products in a way that positioned them as an extension of the company’s experience and expertise, not as a separate entity or independent division.

In the competitive marketplace, names for mobile-focused divisions run the gamut from straightforward to esoteric. We decided to leverage Daugherty’s brand equity – they have a long history in the IT consulting space – and name the set of products the Daugherty Mobile Suite. It’s simple, descriptive and accurate, while giving the company the flexibility to add new products or functionality without rebranding.

Read more and check out our naming, branding and web design work for Daugherty Mobile Suite.