Our Service

Services

A brief overview
of capablities

Service
above all else.

Brand Development/Update

Growth Strategies

Web Design/Development

Packaging Design/Engineering

Trade Show Design/Management

Start-up to Series A and Beyond

As an agency, we don’t do one-off project work, preferring a more holistic approach to marketing with our clients. Experience has shown that this adds the most value. Rains | Birchard Marketing is a team that earns our keep by being a solutions provider. If you have a challenge, challenge us with it and we’ll deliver. We don’t fail. We have references that back that up; we’ll give you phone numbers or e-mail addresses to check our references. We’re a bit cocky because we deliver on what we promise. It is helpful to define some of the agency’s capabilities and while it’s impractical to list all services we offer, much of the work we do for manufacturing, financial services, trucking, and start-up clients falls into the following general categories:

“He who has a thing to sell, and goes and whispers in a well, is not so apt to get the dollars, as he who climbs a tree and hollars.”
– Advertising in a nutshell

For B2B manufacturers, industry trade media still delivers a sizable audience. Thus, print advertising oftentimes is part of the overall marketing plan. But, advertising is not just print ads. It includes an ever-expanding array of digital media options including digital display ads, paid search, retargeting, and more. Some industries also have relevant outdoor and broadcast advertising options as well. Rains | Birchard Marketing understands all of these options and can help craft consistent creative messaging across a variety of media for a cohesive campaign.

“Show the sheet metal”
– a sentiment first used in car advertising because at some point you need to show your product.

The products our clients manufacture can be large or small, simple or complex. The final product, or a component supplied to an OEM. In any case, having to create and control consistent visual assets for the products and larger brand elements is something we’re particularly well-versed in. Traditionally this was done with photography, but nowadays this is more often done with 3D or CGI assets. We play nice with engineering and can take production CAD files to convert into marketing assets. Cataloging and keeping track of what’s current and how to replicate an established style is part and parcel to the process of asset creation and control. So, worry not about how to photograph or shoot video of your product. Just put us in touch with the product engineers. And if for some reason CAD files aren’t available, we’re also capable of creating 3D assets from scratch.  Failing that, we work with great photographers if photographs really are a better option.

“Brand is product, product is brand.”
– They are inseparable, but marketing can influence and craft perception.

Manufacturers can at times be defined by their most successful product, which may be good or bad. However, the company’s overall brand should guide the positioning of the product within the minds of the target audience. Defining brand and developing the framework to manage it consistently is often a recommended starting point for marketing engagements. Rains | Birchard acts as keepers of the brand for our clients. We’ll often create the brand standard document that emcompasses a design standard (what the brand’s visual assets are), but also the brand’s tone and voice (what it sounds and feels like). The exercise of defining your brand as a person is an approachable way to think of brand development and management. Is your manufacturing firm serious and analytical or jovial and carefree? Brand is perhaps the most valuable asset a company has. People often refer to companies as brands. It’s not corporations, or people, or widgets, but the all inclusiveness of the “brand.”  Being a good steward of the brand requires following the rules established for the brand, and we’re serious about this, whether they’re dictated to us from a previous marketing partner or they’re something we’ve had a hand in creating. Brand value is hard to overstate.   

“It’s at times less important what you say, and more important that you simply say something.”
– Repetition is recognition.

Rains | Birchard Marketing lumps a lot of marketing activities under the banner of “Content Marketing”. This used to just mean blogging. Or social media. Or Public and Media Relations. Or White papers and case studies. Today it’s all those things and more. Successfully implemented, consistent content creation and dissemination can truly set one manufacturer apart from their competition. Having a sound strategy is the prerequisite for this to work, but once there’s agreement on that, the tactical implementation will fail if it’s not followed. If you want to establish authority in the industries you serve, you must be an active participant. And that means consistent, relevant content. It can be curated, but it also needs to be original creations. If an editor needs to interview an expert on a topic for an upcoming feature in their trade magazine, they’ll look to the company that’s going to help them the most and be recognized by their peers as an expert. Content marketing establishes this authority and plays a tremendous role in organic search rankings as well as support sales efforts across the board. Even if you make the best widget, your competitor who dominates the conversation about their widget will often capture the most market share. Building a better mousetrap often isn’t enough.   

“Our job is to get the customer to raise their hand, it’s the job of sales to call on the customer whose hand is up.”
– Properly arming the salesperson is a key function of the marketing department.

Buyers of products still like to hold a brochure every now and then, or read it on their smartphone. Having well designed, professionally written sales collateral that’s on brand is part of what brings success. While printed brochures, flyers and catalogs still have their place, they no longer account for as large a share of marketing budgets as they once did. However, the piece that really stands out may have more impact now that it’s more rare. Rains | Birchard Marketing has a firm foundation in print production, and we know more about ink on paper than many. But regardless of the form sales collateral takes, going through the creation process in collaboration with our clients, their various subject matter experts, and the overarching strategy involved in getting the content correct, is a process we’ll expert at.

“For the uninitiated, the costs can be staggering, but the ROI is there if well planned and executed.“
– The whole industry in one place every year or so.

Companies build their annual plans around key trade shows and events because they are integral to success.  Prospects ready to buy, current customers to smooze, competitors and partners to check out. Whatever the industry, there’s at least one key trade show to attend each year, and they can command a large portion of the marketing budget, but should also lead to a large amount of follow on sales. Like anything in business, there must be an ROI, and keeping a focus on that when you’re tempted by all the fun and creative potential of building a killer booth you’ll occupy for a few days can be hard. Rains | Birchard knows our clients and their industries and partners with them on trade shows. We do 3D visualizations in-house, before we get to engaging with booth builders. We’ve attended shows in very diverse industries, and know where most of the sinkholes lie. And beyond simply designing a “pretty” booth, we often work it with our clients. Going above and beyond most agencies to offer turnkey trade show services. From booking space, to handling utilities orders, to helping set up or managing show site labor, to putting on the client’s shirt and working the booth taking orders – or even donning the mascot costume and dancing in the aisles (seriously) – we do it ALL.  Freight logistics, we’ve got that covered. Anything and everything trade show related, we’ve earned our gray hairs and experience managing them for clients. You can tap into this well of experience and benefit from it. Plus, it will be cohesive with everything else we’re doing from a marketing standpoint.

“A picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.”
– Live action, animated, 3D rendered, motion graphics, even white board videos, we’ve got you covered.

As a manufacturer, you need to show how your product delivers value to your clients, and one of the best ways to do this is through video. Rains | Birchard Marketing is adept at leveraging our 3D modeling and CGI animation capabilities to deliver stunning, impactful video content for our clients that showcases the features, advantages, and benefits of their product. If it’s impossible cutaways, animations of the product in action, or a hybrid approach with live action and overlaid motion graphics, if you can imagine it, we can create it. We have videographers as partners who can do the capture under our direction, nationwide, and robust in-house post production skills. Some of the work we’re most proud of are our 3D animations clients use in campaigns, pitch decks, at trade shows, on their websites, and in social media. Video is powerful, and we know how to create and leverage it to maximize ROI. And please, for the love of whatever, don’t buy an “explainer video” from some random company online that pitched you. It will be terrible, and it shows.

“If you build it, they will come.”
– The era of Field of Dreams has long since past, and we know that websites are a salesperson in their own right these days.

Websites are often the conduit through which all leads and sales may flow. Brochureware isn’t good enough anymore. Your website must tie into your CRM, have analytics and lead tracking. Be hooked into your social media, be the repository for technical and service literature and videos. Include retargeting and marketing automation functions. E-commerce is key, if your product lends itself to being shippable. But perhaps most importantly, the website is the largest, most public expression of the brand. It’s everything a potential customer should want to know about your company. Where and how to buy, what’s your story, why should I care? The website needs to cover all of that and more. Rains | Birchard Marketing designs and develops robust, scalable websites in-house, and we support what we build so your “website guy” is us. The web constantly evolves, and we keep up so your site will too.

“Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.”
– It bit of hyperbole, but in essence we’re unafraid of the unknown.

This is for the outliers, the misfits, the projects that are marketing related, but don’t fit nicely into any other grouping. Rains | Birchard is full-service, so we’ve encountered our fair share of “everything else” projects in our day. These might be executive recognition projects. Or full-blown online training platforms. In-house office displays or corporate signage. Even building or landscape signage. Covert or market intelligence projects occasionally come our way too. Need secret shopping? That would go here. If it’s something tasked to the marketing department, toss it our way and let us run with it. We employ craftsmen whose hobbies get pulled into the workday as we’ve made use of the woodshop and laser cutter to produce custom trophies in a pinch. Seriously, we’re FULL-SERVICE. Whatcha got?! Throw it at us! Transparent LCD display product showcase? We’ve done that. In-house. Mascot costume? Check.  Internal reporting data as CSV, to data visualization software, to variable data MailChimp integration sent to dealers? We run the reports monthly.

For B2B manufacturers, industry trade media still delivers a sizable audience. Thus, print advertising oftentimes is part of the overall marketing plan. But, advertising is not just print ads. It includes an ever-expanding array of digital media options including digital display ads, paid search, retargeting, and more. Some industries also have relevant outdoor and broadcast advertising options as well. Rains | Birchard Marketing understands all of these options and can help craft consistent creative messaging across a variety of media for a cohesive campaign.

The products our clients manufacture can be large or small, simple or complex. The final product, or a component supplied to an OEM. In any case, having to create and control consistent visual assets for the products and larger brand elements is something we’re particularly well-versed in. Traditionally this was done with photography, but nowadays this is more often done with 3D or CGI assets. We play nice with engineering and can take production CAD files to convert into marketing assets. Cataloging and keeping track of what’s current and how to replicate an established style is part and parcel to the process of asset creation and control. So, worry not about how to photograph or shoot video of your product. Just put us in touch with the product engineers. And if for some reason CAD files aren’t available, we’re also capable of creating 3D assets from scratch.  Failing that, we work with great photographers if photographs really are a better option.

Manufacturers can at times be defined by their most successful product, which may be good or bad. However, the company’s overall brand should guide the positioning of the product within the minds of the target audience. Defining brand and developing the framework to manage it consistently is often a recommended starting point for marketing engagements. Rains | Birchard acts as keepers of the brand for our clients. We’ll often create the brand standard document that emcompasses a design standard (what the brand’s visual assets are), but also the brand’s tone and voice (what it sounds and feels like). The exercise of defining your brand as a person is an approachable way to think of brand development and management. Is your manufacturing firm serious and analytical or jovial and carefree? Brand is perhaps the most valuable asset a company has. People often refer to companies as brands. It’s not corporations, or people, or widgets, but the all inclusiveness of the “brand.”  Being a good steward of the brand requires following the rules established for the brand, and we’re serious about this, whether they’re dictated to us from a previous marketing partner or they’re something we’ve had a hand in creating. Brand value is hard to overstate.   

Rains | Birchard Marketing lumps a lot of marketing activities under the banner of “Content Marketing”. This used to just mean blogging. Or social media. Or Public and Media Relations. Or White papers and case studies. Today it’s all those things and more. Successfully implemented, consistent content creation and dissemination can truly set one manufacturer apart from their competition. Having a sound strategy is the prerequisite for this to work, but once there’s agreement on that, the tactical implementation will fail if it’s not followed. If you want to establish authority in the industries you serve, you must be an active participant. And that means consistent, relevant content. It can be curated, but it also needs to be original creations. If an editor needs to interview an expert on a topic for an upcoming feature in their trade magazine, they’ll look to the company that’s going to help them the most and be recognized by their peers as an expert. Content marketing establishes this authority and plays a tremendous role in organic search rankings as well as support sales efforts across the board. Even if you make the best widget, your competitor who dominates the conversation about their widget will often capture the most market share. Building a better mousetrap often isn’t enough.   

Buyers of products still like to hold a brochure every now and then, or read it on their smartphone. Having well designed, professionally written sales collateral that’s on brand is part of what brings success. While printed brochures, flyers and catalogs still have their place, they no longer account for as large a share of marketing budgets as they once did. However, the piece that really stands out may have more impact now that it’s more rare. Rains | Birchard Marketing has a firm foundation in print production, and we know more about ink on paper than many. But regardless of the form sales collateral takes, going through the creation process in collaboration with our clients, their various subject matter experts, and the overarching strategy involved in getting the content correct, is a process we’ll expert at.

Companies build their annual plans around key trade shows and events because they are integral to success.  Prospects ready to buy, current customers to smooze, competitors and partners to check out. Whatever the industry, there’s at least one key trade show to attend each year, and they can command a large portion of the marketing budget, but should also lead to a large amount of follow on sales. Like anything in business, there must be an ROI, and keeping a focus on that when you’re tempted by all the fun and creative potential of building a killer booth you’ll occupy for a few days can be hard. Rains | Birchard knows our clients and their industries and partners with them on trade shows. We do 3D visualizations in-house, before we get to engaging with booth builders. We’ve attended shows in very diverse industries, and know where most of the sinkholes lie. And beyond simply designing a “pretty” booth, we often work it with our clients. Going above and beyond most agencies to offer turnkey trade show services. From booking space, to handling utilities orders, to helping set up or managing show site labor, to putting on the client’s shirt and working the booth taking orders – or even donning the mascot costume and dancing in the aisles (seriously) – we do it ALL.  Freight logistics, we’ve got that covered. Anything and everything trade show related, we’ve earned our gray hairs and experience managing them for clients. You can tap into this well of experience and benefit from it. Plus, it will be cohesive with everything else we’re doing from a marketing standpoint.

As a manufacturer, you need to show how your product delivers value to your clients, and one of the best ways to do this is through video. Rains | Birchard Marketing is adept at leveraging our 3D modeling and CGI animation capabilities to deliver stunning, impactful video content for our clients that showcases the features, advantages, and benefits of their product. If it’s impossible cutaways, animations of the product in action, or a hybrid approach with live action and overlaid motion graphics, if you can imagine it, we can create it. We have videographers as partners who can do the capture under our direction, nationwide, and robust in-house post production skills. Some of the work we’re most proud of are our 3D animations clients use in campaigns, pitch decks, at trade shows, on their websites, and in social media. Video is powerful, and we know how to create and leverage it to maximize ROI. And please, for the love of whatever, don’t buy an “explainer video” from some random company online that pitched you. It will be terrible, and it shows.

Websites are often the conduit through which all leads and sales may flow. Brochureware isn’t good enough anymore. Your website must tie into your CRM, have analytics and lead tracking. Be hooked into your social media, be the repository for technical and service literature and videos. Include retargeting and marketing automation functions. E-commerce is key, if your product lends itself to being shippable. But perhaps most importantly, the website is the largest, most public expression of the brand. It’s everything a potential customer should want to know about your company. Where and how to buy, what’s your story, why should I care? The website needs to cover all of that and more. Rains | Birchard Marketing designs and develops robust, scalable websites in-house, and we support what we build so your “website guy” is us. The web constantly evolves, and we keep up so your site will too.

This is for the outliers, the misfits, the projects that are marketing related, but don’t fit nicely into any other grouping. Rains | Birchard is full-service, so we’ve encountered our fair share of “everything else” projects in our day. These might be executive recognition projects. Or full-blown online training platforms. In-house office displays or corporate signage. Even building or landscape signage. Covert or market intelligence projects occasionally come our way too. Need secret shopping? That would go here. If it’s something tasked to the marketing department, toss it our way and let us run with it. We employ craftsmen whose hobbies get pulled into the workday as we’ve made use of the woodshop and laser cutter to produce custom trophies in a pinch. Seriously, we’re FULL-SERVICE. Whatcha got?! Throw it at us! Transparent LCD display product showcase? We’ve done that. In-house. Mascot costume? Check.  Internal reporting data as CSV, to data visualization software, to variable data MailChimp integration sent to dealers? We run the reports monthly.