We never could have dreamed that this offbeat little idea would grow into such a big event. We collected more than $800 at the door and scanned over 80 new faces at the event. That brings our total number of faces scanned to about 270.

Yesterday, we presented Food Outreach with a check for $3,800.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to the party, and stay tuned as we start thinking about the next reason for all of us to get together.

Check out the photos from the event on our Facebook page. 
 

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.

Celebrate your difference

There is hardly a client meeting I go to where someone doesn’t mention their competition. It seems the grass is always greener, and there is always a competitor that sticks out in people’s minds as being the company to beat.

Our advice is rather than try to emulate your competition, declare your differences and turn them into advantages. Turn your differences into positioning and messaging that works across all of your marketing. Compete with them by not competing. Change the conversation to make theirs irrelevant.

Worry less about traffic. Worry more about conversion.

All too often, professional services firms look to their websites to establish credibility and produce leads. Traffic is great, of course, but conversion is better.

We see a lot of conversation around SEO, but far less effort goes into creating a reason for people to fill out a form, or call a phone number. When planning a website, focus on the idea that every page is a chance to come closer to conversion. Make people want to get in touch with you.

Proving you can do the work is just the beginning. Highlight what sets you apart.

Having a section of your work / case studies is not enough. A lot of professional services are a commodity. It’s sad, but true. The audience looks for a certain level of expertise or professionalism in your case studies, and good work is becoming the norm, not the exception. Having a certain caliber of work will get you accepted in the audience’s mind, but is often not enough to win business by itself.

It’s important to not only have the level of work clients expect, but also strive to have a unique perspective on your industry. “Here’s our point of view, and here’s the work it produces.”

Use calls to action. Ask your audience to do something.

You might be surprised how many professional service firms totally lack any calls to action besides a Contact Us section of their website. Simply put, ask your audience to do something on every page of your website. Ask them to sign up for newsletters, follow you on Twitter, or like you on Facebook. By doing so, you’re gaining their permission to continue the conversation long after they leave your website. It’s established that giving the audience direction, even though it may seem obvious, improves response.

Give them a reason to come back.

There’s nothing worse then websites that never update. Or update so infrequently it hardly matters. Professional service firms should create content their audience finds helpful or entertaining. Those are really the two main purposes people use the web. For helpful advice... and cat pictures.

Professional service websites should have blogs. It doesn’t matter if you call it ‘news’, ‘insights’, ‘deep thoughts’, or ‘updates’. Content creation is important for any digital marketing strategy. It's the best marketing advice that no one wants to hear and firms often struggle with the concept because it forces the principals in the company to expose their thinking. And that can be scary. But it’s easier than you think, and you’re harder on yourself than your audience will be. 

Use social media and email newsletters to stay in front of your audience.

Use social media and email newsletters as ways to remind your audience who you are and what your firm is about. Social media remains a mystery for some professional service firms. The biggest question they have is not ‘what is social media’ but ‘what should I say?’ Turn the updates from your website into content to fuel social media. Even if you have hardly any followers. It’s an easy strategy and everyone has to start somewhere.

Design always matters.

Good design makes the content you’re delivering digestible and palatable. Your website should look great and instill confidence in your audience. It seems like obvious advice, but it’s important.

At the end of the day, a website should inform, inspire and reassure its audience about their purchasing decisions. 

Mike Spakowski is Principal / Creative Director of Atomicdust and is involved with the day-to-day design strategy, art direction and studio management.

Here’s what we did.
We developed a campaign to recognize excellence in the nursing industry as a reflection of the type of excellence that Mosby's Nursing Suite products instill in nurses. Mosby’s Nursing Suite assists nurses in critical roles across the healthcare organization - from the emergency department to nursing executives, patient safety officers to nurse educators.

Put simply, the products help nurses be excellent. They help nurses be heroes.

The Superheroes of Nursing Contest and T-Shirt Giveaway launched on May 1, 2011, during National Nurses Week.

For four months (May 2011 - August 2011), Facebook fans were invited to nominate nurses who excelled at certain aspects of their jobs - patient care, education, standards & regulations and time management. Each of these core qualities were tied to superhero roles – The Protectors, the Achievers, the Educators and the Validators.

At the end of each month, three finalists were chosen and put to a public vote. The winners were revealed at the 2011 ANCC National Magnet Conference® on October 5, 2011. Following the conference, each of the four winners was profiled on the Mosby’s Nursing Suite Connect blog.

The T-shirt Giveaway was a supplement to the Superheroes of Nursing Contest. Every Friday from May until the ANCC National Magnet Conference® in October, ten ‘Super Nurse’ T-shirts were awarded to Facebook fans who entered the giveaway.

Other components of the campaign included a landing page on ConfidenceConnected.com, a video, targeted email campaigns and Facebook ads, and stickers that were handed out at trade shows and conferences over the course of the campaign. 

And here’s how the campaign turned out.

• Between May 1, 2011 (the launch date) and October 5, 2011 (the reveal at ANCC), the Mosby’s Facebook page added 7,020 new fans (a 238% increase over the previous 5-month time period) and increased interactions by 419% (over the previous 5-month time period).
• The contest and giveaway apps were the most visited pages on the Facebook page, being viewed 21,276 times.
• Overall site traffic to ConfidenceConnected.com doubled the first week in May, when the initial email announcement for the Superheroes of Nursing Contest was sent out.
• During the 5-month promo (May 1-October 5), traffic on the site remained double what it was in the previous 5-month time period.
• The Mosby’s Heroes landing page on ConfidenceConnected.com had 1,523 unique visitors during the promotion.
• Facebook became – and remains – one of the top referrers to ConfidenceConnected.com
• Sixty-two entries were submitted for the contest in the four rounds of nominations, and 1,355 votes were cast to pick the winners.
• The T-Shirt Giveaway had an average of 164 entries per week.
• 2,967 email addresses were collected to be contacted in the future with newsletters and promotions.
• At the 2011 ANCC National Magnet Conference®, where the winners were announced, the Mosby’s team scanned nearly 1,000 badges after attendees requested product demos, T-shirts or more information from sales.
• They tracked more than $210,000 in new sales opportunities through prospects and customers that received the Superhero emails during the four months the contest was running.

The 2012 Superheroes of Nursing Contest started this week, and this time around, the superheroes are fighting off the evil Obstructo. Learn more about the contest at MosbysHeroes.com.  

And just a note on our use of Comic Sans - one of the most hated typefaces in all of graphic design. We felt it was appropriate, considering the materials were designed to emulate comic book lettering. There is rarely an excuse for using comic sans, but we wanted to point out that it was intentional, and funny.

Right away, we saw this wasn’t a design or writing challenge. This was a branding problem. So we started by interviewing key stakeholders from Resinate to gain a deep understanding of the company’s place in the resin market.

Throughout the process, we learned Resinate’s key differentiator lies in their customization process. This in-depth process enables them to create better quality, more affordable resins that enhance their customers’ end products.

Several members of our staff traveled to their lab in Michigan to photograph the process in action. We saw this as the best way to showcase what sets Resinate apart, especially in the market, where websites and other materials are often drab and highly technical.

We incorporated the photos into a colorful, approachable website, brochure and sales sheet template that stay true to the highly technical nature of the products involved. The pieces also include sections that walk visitors through the collaborative, eight-step process Resinate follows with its customers. For the site content, we focused on clearly communicating the technical and financial benefits of customization to the company’s customers in the coatings, adhesives sealants and elastomers market.

Face Off Against Hunger has been a successful way to give to a great charity while having a little fun at the same time. We’re honored that more than 180 people have scanned their face, including KTVI-Fox 2/KPLR-News 11 and even Mayor Slay.

We don’t want the fun to stop there though.

Everyone is invited to join us at Atomicdust on Thursday, May 10th at 6 p.m. to celebrate the success. We are asking for a $5 donation at the door, with all proceeds going to Food Outreach.

Stop by to check out the gallery of scanned faces, scan your own and enjoy the evening while supporting a great cause.

Street Parking. Beer, wine, soda, snacks and live entertainment will be provided. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Here’s a list of upcoming events for May:

Cannes Do

BMA
May 2, 2012
6:00 - 8:30pm
Sheldon Concert Hall

St. Louis will have a chance to see the best television ads from last year, as awarded at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This event is ideal for marketing and brand managers who want to learn what makes a video go viral, creatives who want to be inspired or international marketers who want to see winning strategies from around the world.

Face Off Against Hunger Gallery Show

Atomicdust
May 10, 2012
6:00pm
Atomicdust

Did you scan your face for Face Off Against Hunger? Do you want to see all the crazy scans from this one-of-a-kind fundraiser? Stop by our humble abode to check out the gallery of scanned faces from the Face Off Against Hunger campaign. We are asking for a $5 donation at the door, with all proceeds going to St. Louis Food Outreach. 

Beer, snacks and live entertainment will be provided. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Tell Me More: Creating Interest With Everyone You Meet

PRSA
May 10, 2012
5:30pm
BlackFinn American Grille

Join PRSA for a high-energy, interactive session with communications veteran Steve Hughes, the President of Hit Your Stride, LLC. He will help you, your colleagues and your clients change the way they talk about what they do and the projects they're charged with promoting.

SPARK 2012: Where Do Great Ideas Begin?

COCAbiz
May 10-11, 2012
COCAbiz

COCAbiz presents nationally known speakers Seth Godin, Jonah Lehrer, and Linda Kaplan Thaler with a hands-on innovation workshops and arts-based activities to deliver an immersive, experiential business conference like no other. Attendees will gain the inspiration, practical skills and useful tools to put new ways of thinking and doing to work in their businesses and their lives.

#TweetTheMostGood Tweet Up in support of @SalArmySTL

Salvation Army
May 15, 2012
5:30 - 7:30pm
Moonrise Hotel

Simone Bernstein, founder of @STLVolunteen and @VolunTEENnation, and a regular blogger for The Huffington Post, will be the keynote speaker for the Tweet Up, discussing the importance of volunteering, and talking about ways that professionals can fit doing good into their busy schedules.

Unlock Your Inner Genius

AMA
May 17, 2012
11:30am - 1:00pm
Maggiano's

What if you could learn to think differently? Bill Donius, the former CEO of Pulaski Bank, will help you finish lunch with your right brain activated and firing neurons in a new way, and by the time the waiter brings your cheesecake you’ll be thinking, “wow, I really am thinking differently.” 

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.

We also named the two products that would be part of the suite at launch, Mobile Field Productivity and Mobile Merchandiser. Again, these names clearly and concisely define the functions of the products, while giving both employees and customers a common set of terms to use.

We initially planned that any product-oriented information would be included on the new, large, corporate website we were creating as the culmination of our branding program. However, an aggressive launch schedule, driven by key industry trade shows, accelerated the timeline and changed our plans.

We set out to create a standalone, four-page microsite for Daugherty Mobile Suite. Luckily, we weren’t starting from square one. We used the new brand assets we had created for the parent company site as a building block for the microsite. So, in essence, it became a soft launch for the new Daugherty brand.

Of course, schedules aren’t the only things that change rapidly in the technology field – the technology itself shifts, too. We built the Daugherty Mobile Suite site in WordPress, to make it easy for our client (or us) to make changes and additions to the product lines as time goes on.

Stay tuned for a full discussion of the new Daugherty brand and website.

The ADDY Awards are the largest advertising competition in the world, with nearly 50,000 entries being submitted by marketers and advertisers across the country.

Everyone at Atomicdust is honored to be included in the ranks of other great marketing and advertising firms around the globe.

I’ve never met him, but I’ve been a big fan of him and his work for years. In 2001, I read his first book, MTIV; Process, Inspiration, and Practice for the New Media Designer.

What struck me about the book wasn’t just his wonderful design work, but the open and honest way he would share stories about his life, and how it influenced his work. By exposing his own vulnerabilities through his stories he really reassured me that you should always be yourself, and approach life and design with openness and honesty. That you don’t have to change who you are to be successful.

Hillman has made many short films on design over the years that have been more than inspirational to me, and I’m sure thousands of designers. They show a view of design that we might never have seen otherwise. Strangely enough, and I don’t know why this has stuck with me for so long, I think of this photograph and story from his book every time I hit turbulence in an airplane. Every time.


Here’s the excerpt.

“August 2001: I’m on a plane, flying to Las Vegas for a job, headphones on, cranking whatever MP3’s I have on my hard drive, trying to quell my fear. The plane is bouncing around, dipping, and rattling. In the middle of it all, I recall a line from some pop song –– “Nothing Really Matters...” –– and I weave that phrase into my white knuckled prayers. But when I’m in the worst of it, it occurs to me the line is crap. Watered-down Zen Buddhism. In fact, everything matters. The plane and everyone on it matter; the clouds matter; the birds matter. Las Vegas, New York, and every town in between matter. My company, coworkers, and work all matter....And most importantly, my wife and little boy matter...a lot.

Clearly, the experience brought out the philosopher in me. And it’s a philosophy I hold in every aspect of life, including my work. But with one key difference: In life, everything is important, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant; in design, each element must be deliberately chosen, and only then does it matter.”

Thank you for the inspiration Hillman. You’ll be missed.

Here’s more of Hillman Curtis's work.