Making a First Impression

Challenge: Professional services clients typically offer a wide variety of services. This leaves them with the challenge of determining the most optimal method for quickly explaining who they are and what they do. That was exactly the case with this Executive level IT Consultant firm. It was 3's task to define the myriad services they offer and condense them into a one-page information sheet.



Solution: Projecting that more detail on the services would be needed, 3 wrote the copy for individual sheets for each service. Each service engagement is custom fit to the client and manifests in slightly different ways. By approaching the project broadly first, 3 was able to better understand and present the many permutations.

Once that information had been gathered and written, a hard look at what was truly essential to understand each service boiled down the one-sheets into the 1-2 sentence descriptions seen on the information sheet.

The art direction by Blake Frey took full advantage of the company's blue color scheme to make the information easy to digest in a quick glance.


Result: This clean, professional information sheet provides a gateway into the company's consulting services. When distributed, it will accompany the detailed one-sheets of the individual services, almost as an index suggesting where to look for the most relevant information.

Free samples spur hundreds of email newsletter subscriptions

Challenge: 3 arranged for a food product client to participate in a local bicycling event giving samples to roughly 20,000 riders. The visibility for their brand was enough to justify the participation fee, but it was 3's challenge to make this event a truly measurable success.



Solution: As part of the sponsorship, 3 negotiated to have an exclusive e-mail sent from the event's contact list of 14,154 pre-registrants. The e-mail contained a special offer to receive a free product with registration to our client's e-mail newsletter. To ensure the client would not be overloaded by free giveaways, the offer was only valid for a limited time at their bakery outlet.

Result: During the four day period of the offer there were 774 new subscribers to the e-mail newsletter - more than tripling the size of their list. 106 coupons were redeemed at the bakery, which considering the two hurdles customers needed to overcome to use it (printing out the e-mail and taking it to the bakery) is an encouragingly high number. The success of this event has redefined our previous model for event sampling promotions.

Action Sales Kit, Not "Leave Behind"

Challenge:
First, please tell us: Who loves the lowly sales kit? Mostly the sales staff. Certainly the client or prospect pays these basics of marketing little respect. It's a quick glance and then a piece of a larger pile on someone's desk. We asked ourselves what we could do that might be a different, though far from novel or rare, approach. What if the sales kit could be used as a note pad? Or, a guiding document on a sales call? What if the sales staff could simply check boxes, make a copy and send one to the client? These days most all forms are Web-enabled. We wanted to take a page, if you will, from Web forms and put it to use in the real world.


Solution:
A colorful, design-forward (yeah, that's a fine cliche), deliverable that is at once informative as it is brand-centric (another cliche' - sorry). Yes, we fell in love with our own creation here. And like any good parent, we think it's as beautiful as it is functional. We'd like your opinion, so lay it on us.



Result:
We have shared the backgrounder -- including it's matching debossed folder -- with several clients and Xenium prospects in the past few weeks. We have received very positive feedback thus far. "It's elegant." "It's so clear and easily understandable." "Me like green," OK, that last one was from the bosses' two year old. But, you get the idea.




Special thanks to Todd Silberman of Green Dog Printing for his help in producing the final piece. It is printed on 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper using Soy-based inks. No trees were harmed un-necessarily in the making of this fine piece of collateral.

Special thanks also to Blake Frey of Frey Design for his clever art direction and "design forward" sensibility. Blake, you are the man.