In celebration of our 15-year anniversary, I thought it’d be fun to share a few of my favorite marketing projects. From clients of all sizes and all across the globe, the Allee Creative team has had the ability to work on some great marketing strategies, program launches and digital initiatives. There were so many to choose from and so many ways I could categorize our work. To simplify, I decided to group these top 15 marketing projects in three key areas: nonprofit marketing, small business marketing and global marketing.
It’s a great sample of our work and a nod to some of the amazing clients we’ve worked with over the years. In no particular order, here are 15 marketing projects that span the past 15 years from clients near and far that have a special place in my heart.
Nonprofit marketing
1. Addressing food insecurity (Minnesota FoodShare)
Minnesota FoodShare is a nonprofit organization that works to address food insecurity and poverty “by engaging communities throughout the state via education, state and federal advocacy efforts.” In 2019, our team was brought on to help with the March Campaign — the largest grassroots food and fund drive in Minnesota — by developing strategic digital content initiatives that would support not only the campaign itself, but the 300 partner food shelves in the state. This short-run campaign (6 weeks) encompassed paid and organic initiatives, generated triple-digit increases in impressions online and, more importantly, generated 13,318,287 combined dollars and pounds collected by food shelves.
Services provided: Digital content strategy, social media content development, content calendar development and timelines, paid social media campaigns, digital design.
2. Educating parents and youth about safe choices (HEARTS for Families)
With the mission to “strengthen families and those that serve families,” HEARTS for Families is a wonderful nonprofit out of the state of Georgia that provides programming for youth drug and alcohol intervention and safe parenting. We worked with the HEARTS team for several years on new program development throughout the state, education materials, digital content (social media and blog posts), and training for their team.
Services provided: New program development and launch, graphic design and print material management, digital marketing, ghost writing, blog management, staff education and training, website content management.
3. Publication management (Dunwoody College of Technology)
Dunwoody has been a strong supporter of our growth even before our agency was born. I worked full-time in the alumni and development department for several years before starting my agency. I will always hold a special place in my heart for my first manager who was always supportive of my growth and knew that I was onto something as I left to pursue my dream. Dunwoody ended up being our first client. We were charged with producing the quarterly alumni magazine, managing production calendars, supporting alumni events, and getting the college started in email marketing endeavors to alumni and donors. Our work on “The Compass” (the alumni magazine) won several awards from the Association of Women in Communications, Hermes and CASE IV.
Services provided: Publication management, writing, email marketing, event marketing, design, communication strategy.
4. Event management and production (UMSA and Secure360)
One of our longest clients, our team worked with UMSA on the Secure360 Conference for eight years growing the event from a roughly 700-attendee, $650k revenue generator to a 1,000+ attendee, $1M+ educational event for cybersecurity and business continuity professionals around the world. Our services were retained year-round for all-things marketing. As the Agency of Record for the organization, we managed volunteer committees and webinars to full-scale marketing campaigns, design and events. If it was marketing-related, we were on it.
Services provided: Event management, speaker management, sponsorship solicitation, graphic design, copywriting, website design and management, print marketing, advertising, digital media, social media management, volunteer recruitment and management.
5. Brand refresh and website redesign (Minnesota Autism Center)
Our work with the Minnesota Autism Center was requested to support updated messaging to inform a new content marketing plan and website redesign. With a set of new goals outlined by MAC’s board of directors, our team got to work assessing needs, reworking messaging and developing new directions for digital media channels.
Services provided: content marketing strategy, keyword and SEO optimization, website design and development, blog strategy, email marketing development and general marketing strategic direction.
Small business marketing
6. New program launch (ShredRight)
ShredRight is a shredding and document destruction company. This locally owned company founded in 1983 enlisted our team to enhance the brand and rollout a new program as part of the company’s philanthropic arm. We facilitated the strategic direction and launch of #ShredRight4Good, a recycling and shredding fundraising program for organizations with a three-fold mission: 1. to protect sensitive information, 2. to leave a responsible footprint on the environment, and 3. to raise money.
Services provided: New program development and launch, digital content strategy, website design, program character illustrations, videos, presentation decks, marketing kit materials, recycling bag design, educational flyers and promotional materials for fundraising organizations, visual branding and logos.
7. Content marketing expansion (KimbleCo)
KimbleCo is a woman-owned commercial real estate and brokerage company. The ladies at KimbleCo are smart, savvy and value-driven. Another long-standing client of ours, we provide full-scope marketing services year-round to KimbleCo as its Marketing Agency of Record. From monthly social content calendar planning to networking events and awards, it is always a pleasure to work with Julie Kimble and team.
Services provided: annual marketing planning, website content optimization, blog management, social media management, paid media and graphic design.
8. Visual brand development (Cedar Creek, Riverwood and Vintage Golf Courses)
In 2015, we were approached by the general manager and golf pro of Cedar Creek Golf Course to provide visual re-branding services to three separate courses within the Cedar Creek brand. Each course needed an identity, but those identities were to work cohesively so that when events and course promos were co-branded, the look and feel would collaborate nicely. We developed a soft color palette of blues, greens and browns to complement the game of golf and natural surroundings of the courses while evoking a relaxing feel to those who visit the facilities.
Services provided: Visual identity and logos, brand standards documents, business cards.
9. Digital audit and marketing plan (Seventh Circle Audio)
The owner of Seventh Circle Audio approached me after attending one of my SCORE webinars for a digital audit and marketing recommendation plan. He had just purchased the company from a prior owner and wanted to assess the current state and gather insight for future marketing planning. I worked directly with him to provide a full-scope assessment of the company website and digital channels, as well as a recommendations plan for moving forward. This type of project is something we’ve done a lot of during our 15 years in business and is so important when starting a small business!
Services provided: digital channels audit, website review, 12-month marketing recommendations plan.
10. Lead-gen marketing strategy(4aGoodCause)
While Dunwoody was our first client, 4aGoodCause is our longest standing client to date. We were working with 4aGoodCause back when we tracked billable hours by hand and they are still a client (no hand-tracked hours needed … we’ve upgraded!) A fundraising platform for small nonprofits, working with 4aGoodCause has been a delight. During the pandemic, we strategized with the company to build a lead-gen program that educated clients and potential clients about fundraising in tumultuous times. The focus was on free, educational webinars and free PDF downloads to provide nonprofits with the support they needed to build effective fundraising programs while building the 4aGoodCause database.
Services provided: blog management and writing, lead-gen template/publication creation and design, webinar marketing, general marketing consult.
11. SEO, keyword research and website optimization (Harbage Consulting, now Aurrera Health Group)
As they say, team work makes the dream work, and for this project we were part of a team with our colleague Renita Faye from Affina on a brand awareness project for Harbage Consulting (now Aurrera Health Group). Our role was to take updated messaging being used for a new website and optimize that messaging for search. We dug into current website metrics, made recommendations for keyword use moving forward and developed an SEO strategy to execute at the launch of the new website.
Services provided: keyword research, SEO, website optimization, digital channel audit.
Global marketing
12. International product launch (3M Littmann Stethoscopes)
As a collaborative effort with our colleagues at Schermer, we worked on several product lines (and launches) of 3M Littmann Stethoscopes throughout 16 countries. Our role was to develop social media channel strategies, Google ads and paid social. During our time on the project we launched the 3M Littmann Stethoscopes LinkedIn showcase page, Instagram channel and moved the product line into an always-on paid media approach. We love how the brand has embraced their digital channels and have added resources to fun, lifestyle imagery and posts that loop in the audiences using their products. Check out their Insta for visual inspiration.
Services provided: ad strategy and development, copywriting, paid media execution, social media channel management, Google CPC, metrics, lead gen strategies and paid media budget management.
13. U.S. product launch (MammoScreen)
In conjunction with Introworks, our team collaborated on a U.S. launch of MammoScreen, an AI tool for breast cancer screening. As a product that first launched in France, content was largely produced in French with most digital followers doing so in that country. Without the ability to launch MammoScreen through in-person tradeshows in the U.S. due to COVID-19, the focus needed to be on implementing an omni-channel strategy concentrated on digital tools that distributed content to create awareness, trust and education. We needed to show the product and assure clinicians that AI was not here to take over their jobs, but rather, aid them in growing their practices and patient trust.
We developed a content marketing plan that included updates to the MammoScreen website, video
to showcase the product, weekly educational blog posts, a biweekly enewsletter, and expanded focus
on social media in the U.S. Our goals were:
- To build brand awareness and engagement by using organic digital media strategies on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram
- To develop trust and thought leadership by way of new blog articles, categories and content to inform and assist physicians in private radiology practices
- To provide a ‘see it, use it’ experience even without the ability to attend in-person events with how-to video development, free webinars and demos
- To increase website traffic and usage as the home ‘hub’ for U.S. physicians, providing ongoing
resources and content to meet them where they were in the tech adoption process.
The results included a 24% increase in social media message volume that produced a 1,650% increase in followers and 1,258% increase in impressions. New blog content gained 40% of top website pageviews and we were able to move the average users’ time spent on the website from 0:47 to 1:41 in a 6-month period of time.
Services provided: digital content audit, content marketing strategy, blog management and ghost writing, social media management and community engagement, design, metrics analysis.
14. Conference workshops (IABC World)
While I’ve led many international marketing projects during my career, most of them didn’t require travel outside the U.S. In 2018, I was asked to present at IABC World in Montreal, Quebec to lead a session on digital communication strategies. I chose to highlight this particular training session as a favorite of mine over the past 15 years as it was one of the largest I’ve done and also one of the most inviting; the participants in my session were engaging, asked loads of questions, and were a delight to hang out with for the duration of my trip.
Services provided: Marketing education and training.
15. Content marketing training and assessment (The Co-Operators)
We were enlisted to provide a 3-hour webinar around content marketing with an added deliverable to provide high-level recommendations for current digital strategies. The Allee Creative team took time to review prior personas developed by The Co-Operators, assess current marketing strategies (and goals set forth by their board) to determine next steps and best practices for reaching those goals moving forward. The end result was a marketing recommendations guide and corresponding templates that their team could implement together to work through marketing for the next year.
Services provided: Content marketing training and assessment, digital channel audit, source list and content calendar template development.
I hope that by sharing some of my favorite marketing projects over the years that you are inspired to take your marketing to the next level. Need help making the move? I know a great team. Connect with us — we’d love to add you to our list!
