Ant Hill Marketing

We recently evaluated a handful of email marketing services to use for our agency and settled on one we felt had the basic capabilities we need, Constant Contact. So, I went online to sign up. The website offers a a free trial, but suggests you call the 800 number if you are ready to buy. OK, I’ll do that.  But, the interactive voice response system asks you to hold for a communications consultant (what is that?) and doesn’t give an approximate wait time. After 3 minutes, I decide I’ll contact the company through email and ask them to call me to set up an account. The “incident” emails I receive say that could be 1-2 days.  Not fast enough for me.

At that point, the company had given me three negative brand touchpoint experiences. It made me question the quality of their product and what kind of support I’ll get once I’m a customer. Maybe it was the name that gave me the impression it would be quick and easy to sign up. Plus, as an active online purchaser in both my business and professional life, I have a few expectations of how the process should work.

On the positive side, a customer service representative did contact me in about 3 hours and I signed up with the hope I’ll discover the brand’s value to my company. But, how many prospects or customers are they losing because the sales process is not set up to deliver what people expect?

We’re jazzed to be working with Special Olympics Oregon to help promote the inaugural Polar Plunge Columbia as well as its sister event, Polar Plunge Deschutes (to be held Feb 21st and Feb 27th respectively). These wacky events will have individuals and teams jumping into the Columbia and Deschutes  rivers in crazy costumes – all with the goal of raising funds to support Special Olympics Oregon programs year round.   When all is said and done, Special Olympics Oregon hopes to have raised as much as $200,000.

Ant Hill Marketing is providing public relations strategy and execution, including helping the Special Olympics venture into social media (Facebook, Twitter) to create buzz in the online community. In the first week, the Twitter account has attracted more than 400 followers. Combining all this with traditional tactics like media advisories, press releases and media relations will help the organization reach the participation goals for both events. Plus, it will help build awareness for the organization statewide and get more people involved in this great cause, which is to help folks with intellectual disabilities.

You can follow/friend them on these social networks:

Twitter: polarplunge

Facebook:  Polar Plunge for Special Olympics Oregon

I am very excited that I can now blog about our non-profit client, Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center. Kim (one of our partners) met the CEO, Gil Muñoz, through one of the medical employees. After talking with Gil, our team realized Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center would truly benefit from our brand development process.

What’s great about their organization is that they already have a really powerful mission and an amazing staff that are 100% behind it. The organization just needed help defining their distinction in the market and then visually expressing that distinction.

For those who don’t know, Virginia Garcia fills a critical healthcare need to those with barriers to access in Multnomah and Western Washington Counties. They opened with one clinic out of a two-car garage in 1975 and have now serve over 40,000 patients each year, with multiple clinic locations. And they are growing every day.

We have completed our brand development process with Virigina Garcia and are now in the midst of executing on the developed strategies. We are working on many exciting projects for them including identity development, collateral and a website. Can’t wait to share more soon!

-Erin