Putting the Art in Marketing to Non-Profits
Project Scope: Brand strategy + refresh, copywriting, custom website design
Client Overview
This boutique tele-funding agency is a leader in Canada and has now raised over 1 billion dollars not-for-profits and charities all across North America in over 3 decades.
Their clients are not only in the performing arts but also museums, hospitals and healthcare, libraries, education, and more. Services include capital campaigns, in-house staffing, strategic planning, and data analysis.
CHALLENGES
They are often seen as a necessary evil, but they’re really a strategic partner. Their telemarketing team is so highly trained and engaging that they are actually like brand ambassadors. They’re storytellers, great listeners, and highly motivated because they care.
GOALS
The primary goal is to communicate the value of the art of conversation and human touch that direct mail and digital marketing can’t match. That they are a strategic partner.
A secondary goal is attracting people who want to work for AMS. They look to hire dreamers and believers. Many work as actors and performers. They want to work with us because of our clients who tend to be mission-based companies who do great things like helping children in 3rd world countries.
They want nonprofits to reach out for more information and potential storytelling fundraisers to apply online.
The Brand Makeover
The original logo, designed by legendary Canadian designer Heather Cooper, was based on the symbol for Mercury. They wanted to stay with this symbolism so I refreshed it rather than a total redesign. I created alternate logos for them to use for other media applications.
The golden yellow we chose brings in energy, creativity, warmth, and positivity. Grey, navy, and black help align them with their more corporate clients. Navy blue brings in calmness, responsibility, stability, and tends to be gender-neutral.
Brand words are storytelling (connection), collaboration (lasting strategic partnerships), passion (generosity), integrity, leadership (approachable), professional (expertise), respect, innovative (always listening and improving).
The Design Strategy
The art of conversation is what sets AMS apart from other telemarketing companies and positions them as a higher-quality service. Their fresh and innovative nature is reflected through a total refresh of their website. From a black background with tons of text to a clean to a modern website design with lots of white space, more concise copy, and quality stock images showing happy endings.
We put the spotlight on solving problems for their clients so the text is less about features and more about results.
A fresh colour and font palette give the brand a more creative feel. Images show warmth and personality that reflect the touchy-feely nature of your conversations and the results and outcomes their nonprofit clients are looking for.
Testimonials throughout the site provide social proof of the transformation and value. They’re not from clients but from the people who receive the fundraising calls. Our goal was to reinforce the idea that patrons appreciate the calls and counter negative perceptions about telemarketing.
We’ve created a more engaging page for attracting new employees including forms so they ask questions, learn more, or apply for jobs. And it’s listed at the top and bottom of every page.
Plus, they’re showcasing their expertise with a new blog for articles and case studies. These have lots of visuals for better engagement and longer lengths to help with SEO.
Fun Fact: The original Artsmarketing logo was designed in the 1970’s by legendary Canadian designer Heather Cooper – best known for designing the Roots logo.
“Bonnie was easy to work with and was understanding of our trepidation in redesigning our website. She did a great job of updating our logo and redesigning our website. She had a great sense of the emotion behind our work and was able to communicate that through our website. We had a very short time frame and were concerned about completing the project on time but she made sure that we launched right on schedule which is somewhat unheard of when undertaking a redesign. ”
Custom Graphics
In addition to brand and website graphics, my clients often need social media cover images, launch graphics, plus some image recommendations and templates for blog and social posts. Each branding project also comes with a style guide to help them keep their visuals on brand across platforms.
“Bonnie, is very proud of the work she does and her work does not stop if you are unhappy or apprehensive. She also provides training tools to allow you to maintain your site now and into the future so you can keep it current. We have a much easier website to navigate now. Bonnie was very flexible about incorporating our ideas into a final product that we are all very proud of. And she was a lot of fun to work with! It wasn’t as painful as I’d envisioned and we’re so pleased with the results.”
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