Atlas Marketing

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing and communication for InVision Human Services. We provide support services for adults with intellectual disabilities and autism, through residential and employment support programs and behavioral health services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

Prior to joining the company, it didn’t have a wholly-defined marketing and communications function. I was the first person brought in for this position and my objective was to help develop the discipline and build out some things. One thing I realized is that we had no formalized process or approach to deal with a communications crisis. I brought in Atlas Marketing to help with this.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Atlas Marketing helped us develop and formalize a crisis communications plan. During that process, we had two incidents occur which could’ve created potential issues for our organization from a PR and perception standpoint.

As we were developing the plan, Atlas Marketing helped us create response plans and did media training for our senior leadership team. That was something that hadn’t occurred before and was done in case we needed spokespersons for responses to media inquiries.

As we worked through the response plans, Atlas Marketing worked on an ongoing consulting basis on specific details, as it related not only to the crisis communications plan development but also the two ongoing incidents.

What is the team composition?

Chris (President) was my sole point of contact and there were two people working with him.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I have a background in advertising and PR on the agency side. Chris and I worked together on several occasions, at different firms in the area. We stayed in contact over the years. I trusted his experience and expertise so I reached out to him when I realized I had this problem. It was an easy selection for me to make.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was $30,000–$35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from February–December 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Chris is very thorough. He’s direct and forceful, but in a way that comes off as being kind and empathetic. Especially when working with people with no experience in PR and crisis communications, it’s essential to have the ability to think at a strategic level and help train on the fundamentals of the area.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

The project was prior to the pandemic, so we had in-person meetings along with email and phone communication. There were no situations where Atlas Marketing lagged behind. In actuality, they were always ahead of the curve with deadlines. While these projects were significant for us, they didn’t have a level of minutia that would require project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was the level of collaboration. Chris puts people at ease, especially in situations like the one we had, which can be very emotionally-charged. He has a calming effect on people. We’d known each other for a long time, so I was accustomed to that.

However, his ability to walk into a room with a bunch of people who didn’t know him and had great concerns, and then put them at ease and gain their trust was my favorite part of working with Chris. He’s levelheaded and doesn’t get excited. He sees the problem and attacks it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not at all. This was a long process, and we were working with senior-level leadership. All of them felt confident in Chris’ abilities and valued his participation. He achieved everything we set out to achieve. Thinking back on it, there’s nothing that I wish had a different outcome.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

There were no challenges or issues raised during this project. My advice is simply for clients to be as transparent as possible, especially in situations like crisis management. That’ll allow Chris to do his job much better. We want to make sure he knows of any potential issues or landmines that may exist.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the shareholders at Thrash Commercial Contractors, a general contractor. We mainly do government and commercial building construction. We primarily work in Mississippi, but we’re trying to grow our presence around the Southeast. We’ve been in business for about 20 years.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

We wanted to work with a new marketing company that had more experience in our line of work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a little slow getting started because we started working together right as the pandemic hit. They’ve mainly focused on digital marketing for us. They helped us to get all of our social media accounts more organized. They’ve helped us schedule the postings to Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn in a more coordinated fashion. They’ve been helping us a lot with our website by improving it, compressing files, and helping do updates.

What is the team composition?

We work mainly with two people. We work with Chris (President) and Beth (Marketing Manager). We have a business development person on our side and he’s been working really closely with both of them. We also worked with 1-2 other people from their office that are more into the technical side of things with the website.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I went to an Associated General Contractor’s National Convention in 2019. Chris gave a couple of presentations. We were using another marketing advertising company at the time. A few months later, we felt we needed a marketing company that had more experience with general contractors and construction. I called Chris, and we ended up putting a contract together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $11,000. It’s an average of $1,800/month. There were also some additional charges because they had to help us compress some files on our website. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They deliver quality solutions. They really helped us to improve our social media marketing and optimize our website. I think in another couple of months, we’ll have a website that we’re very proud of and will really portray who we are. So far, it’s been a very good relationship.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Our business development person does most of the communication with Chris and Beth on a weekly basis. We have a larger meeting once a month via Microsoft Teams. We generally talk for about 45-60 minutes about what’s going well, where we need to improve, etc. Chris checks to see if we had any issues or problems. It’s something that really helps with communication. 

They have a pretty strict scheduling system. We know at the beginning of the month what days of the week they’re going to be posting. We know when we have to submit information to them. They then put the information together in a post, we check it, and then they post it. It’s worked very well. It’s been very organized. They stay on top of it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They communicate well. They let you know that they’re taking care of you and that they’re doing what you pay them to do. If we have an issue with a post, we just call them and work it out. We work together. We correct it quickly and move on. I like working with people like that. We’ve been very pleased so far.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Check them out. They’re very good at telling stories. Contractors typically aren’t sales and marketing people. What Chris has taught us is you have to do more. You have to tell a story about the project. You have to tell a story about the people involved in the project. That’s what they’re good at. Chris is the owner but he’s very available and easy to talk to. I encourage people to not be intimidated. Just give him a call.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the business development manager at a management company for bigger construction projects.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

We were working with a local marketing agency that helped us get our social media off the ground, and created our website. As we went along, the process was very slow and it would take 2–3 weeks to get something updated or corrected on the website. There were a lot of typos in the social media posts too, so we started moving elsewhere for a more efficient company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Chris (President), drives our strategy for business development, whether that’s reaching out to architects or engineers to help to try our business as best as possible. Their team also runs the operations of marketing, which means that they keep track of all of the photos we gather for projects and create social media posts. Then, I’ll do a simple review, and they’re ready to be posted. They help keep things consistent, with our posts, messaging, and images, too. Additionally, the team updates our website with projects that we’ve just completed, and format the site based on photos that we take.

What is the team composition?

We work with Chris as our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I met with Chris at an agency event. We chatted and got the relationship going. Eventually, we dropped our local marketing firm and picked up Atlas. Chris was very available to us, even before we hired him. He gave us feedback on what we were doing and how far we could take it. It was an added bonus that they worked specifically with contract engineers, which means they know what our service is and how to communicate the professionalism of it.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $1,800 per month, with an additional rate for business development consulting.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and our work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Our target audience is starting to see our content more often. At this point, there’s no one in the state of Mississippi who hasn’t heard about us, especially if they’re in the construction world. For example, we’re doing work for a small local bank. They reached out to us and decided that they wanted to work with us, and it’s been going very well. We’ve been posting about that project, and their social media account shares everything that we post. That exposure has created a good relationship with them, and they all respond to it well. It’s probably going to lead to a new branch down the road.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. The team is timely, responsive, and mindful of my time, which I really appreciate. The marketing side is an ancillary role, that’s a little lower on the priorities, but they still give me updates and action items each week.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They consider marketing as something that we’re heading towards, not something that we have to do. With our previous marketing agency, it seemed like we didn’t have any clear goals. With Atlas, they give us good options of what we can do, want to do, and should be doing, based on the results we’ve been seeing. They promote intentional progress towards the goals that we want to hit.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes the social media posts could be more creative. I’d like them to have a little more “wow” factor to them. That could be on the graphic design end since construction isn’t that visually appealing. Going forward it could be a creative video or the way they format a picture, but they could make things pop a bit more.

On the website side, we’ve had some issues that have lingered for a while. They were working diligently to get them solved, but it might have been an impression issue with the images. They hire an IT person when they need to do a project that’s above their heads, but I wish they had that in-house so they could internally solve technical issues like that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you give Chris a call on the frontend, it’ll be more than worth your time to see that they really know what they’re talking about. They generally cared about our business for free, before we started working with them. It won’t take long for you to understand they’re serious about growing your business

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and CEO of an outdoor recreation nonprofit. We work to remove barriers and create access for individuals of diverse backgrounds for outdoor experiences.

What challenges were you trying to address Atlas Marketing?   

Earlier this year, we were heading into our major fundraising event, but we were short on staff. We originally hired Atlas Marketing to provide PR support for the event.

However, our fundraiser was canceled due to COVID-19, but we transitioned our contract with them into developing a COVID-19 communication plan for the organization.

What was the scope of their involvement?

For the event, they were helping us with branding and marketing. The team was running all our social media, sending newsletters, and drafting press releases. Once the event was cancelled, they continued to manage our social media and newsletter activity, but the content and tone changed.  

What is the team composition?

I believe there were two people assigned. Chris was the project manager, and Beth worked on communications. 

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I’ve known about the company for years. They’ve worked with other nonprofits, and our children go to school together.    

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between $10,000-$15,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We brought them on in late-February 2020. We’re wrapping up the project at the end of May 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Before working with them, our external communications were non-existent. They got us back out there and elevated our presence. The team enhanced our image by using a well-rounded and complete communication strategy. We got a lot of positive feedback from volunteers who liked our increased engagement on Linkedin and Facebook. 

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they did a great job managing the tasks. It was well-organized and they provided a streamlined process for the internal staff to participate. We had weekly check-ins. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were well-rounded. I’ve worked with other communications and PR firms that had a specific focus or slant. They understood how to develop a communications strategy that is respectful of our diverse audience. 

I’ve worked with other companies where there was a lot of confusion and balls dropped. That wasn’t the case with Atlas Marketing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of my staff commented that they wished some of Atlas Marketing’s content writing paid a little bit more attention to the homage of what we had developed over the past couple of years. Sometimes, the tone of their work was too different. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Keeping clear lines of communication, and setting goals is important.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Hanco, Ltd. We manufacture, service, and repair equipment for the metals, mining, and energy markets.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

We wanted to improve our marketing efforts.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, our old website needed to be reworked. We kept a fair amount of our old content, but Atlas helped us come up with new wording where it was appropriate. In general, the message, delivery, and landscape of how the website worked was totally different.

Currently, the team is working on some marketing collateral, including brochures and some social media. Specifically, they’ve helped us with our Linkedin and Instagram posts.

What is the team composition?

Chris (President) is my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I met Chris at a conference, and we got to talking about our struggles at a roundtable. A few weeks later, we identified a marketing need, so I decided to reach out to Chris.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in July 2019 and is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We haven’t been tracking specific metrics, but the website has definitely had a positive impact. Our staff is working remotely, and the pages are proving to be an excellent sales resource. In general, our business has been able to thrive in this new environment because Atlas taught us the skills to be successful digitally. We’ve updated our homepage to display our COVID-19 notice, and we can effectively let our customers know we’re open on social media.

Recently, one of our LinkedIn posts reached 1900 views, which is more engagement than we’ve ever seen. 

If I have another website that needs to be built, I’ll absolutely go to Atlas.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They were perfect. If anything, I held them up. The team has been a reliable, patient resource, always accepting my calls and taking time to explain digital marketing concepts to me. We’ve kept in touch over email and phone calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Chris is an exceptional colleague. He makes working with Atlas a really enjoyable experience. Further, the entire team is quite timely and provided consistent follow up and clear communication. Their values met our values.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them the time they deserve—if you can, designate someone on your side who can give the project as much attention as possible. If you do, the engagement will go very quickly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an orthopedic startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

Our initial challenge was formulating a website for our company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Because we’re an early-stage company, we’re pre-commercial. Being pre-commercial means we don’t have products for sales, but since we’re public, we need a website. Working from scratch, their team constructed a site that would be easy to navigate for mobile and web. We compiled an investor deck that we had initially put together. Their team reviews and adds information to the deck. Occasionally, they also help with our press releases that come out once or twice a year.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Chris (President, Atlas Marketing) and his team.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

I received a referral from another early-stage startup that did similar work with them in the past. They were also in a related industry as well. Their team had a positive experience working with Chris and his team.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Atlas Marketing began in January 2016.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Since our nature is an early-stage business, we’re a unique animal. Other firms are a bit more mature and commercial than we are. We don’t have metrics to track, but I think Chris and his team do a fantastic job.

Atlas Marketing delivers quality work, responsively tackling requests. Since we’re a public company, information changes from quarter to quarter. Those situations need to be reflected in our website and investor deck, which they frequently update in a timely fashion.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team is good at meeting deadlines and following project compliance. We would meet weekly to review their work. The team at Atlas Marketing was consistently on top of it. They delivered on expectations. Overall, I thought their management was professional.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been using Atlas Marketing for about four years now. While the nature of our business limits us, we continue to use their services in a maintenance capacity. Their team continues to perform support on our website, makes updates to investor decks, and assists with press releases.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very pleased with Atlas Marketing.

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m the COO of IT-CNS, Inc., a US subsidiary of a Czech Republic based IT company. We focus on cybersecurity and encrypted data transfers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing? 

We've been building up our US presence for five years, and developing a software product for the US market for the past three years. Given that my business partner and I are non-native English speakers, we needed help moving from development to commercializing our product and acquiring new customers. We were looking for a PR and marketing company that would address all of our needs.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Atlas Marketing helps us with messaging and our overall PR strategy. In the first stage, they helped craft the message of what we offer to US customers in the cybersecurity world. They also helped translate the original marketing materials that we brought from Europe. 

Now they are working on the second stage, which will include media buys and additional marketing activities. They’re drafting press releases and connecting us with the right people in the media world. They've done some copywriting and editing of our blog posts that we will relaunch in September with a redesigned website. 

What is the team composition?

Our main contact is Chris (President, Atlas Marketing).

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing? 

Our companies are both members of a technology council. A few years ago, I heard Chris speak about marketing at one of the events. He really impressed me, so I talked to him about our company and what we were doing. We had several informal meetings to discuss our focus. Based on my feelings and impression, I decided that they would be the right fit for us. I liked Chris’ ideas and his overall approach to us as a potential client. I was really impressed. 

We’d dealt with many marketing and PR agencies in the past where I simply wasn't satisfied. They tried to take advantage of the fact that we had no idea how the US market works. Chris is completely different. He’s honest and straightforward. 

How much have you invested with them?

We pay around $2,500 per month. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

The first stage started in April 2018 and the engagement is ongoing. Our current agreement goes through the end of this year. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

While it's too early to have metrics, I’m overall satisfied with the process to date. Chris has been working very closely with us on the messaging and the marketing strategy. He does a good job of focusing on the cybersecurity field, and it’s working out quite well. 

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint? 

The Atlas Marketing team keeps everything in line. They never miss a deadline or any date that we agree on. That’s been somewhat surprising because in software development it’s more common to fall behind. They’ve been really perfect. 

We schedule regular calls to discuss their progress. We also use Slack. We have a marketing channel that we use with the whole team, and then another channel that is just for our executives and Chris to discuss overall strategy. We also use email and hold in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

What’s really unique about Atlas Marketing is their personal approach. They’re completely different than other agencies we dealt with in the past. I’m absolutely satisfied with their work and I’ve already recommended them to our other business partners. We work with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in helping other Czech companies enter the US market. We recommend Atlas Marketing to those companies because we’re 100% sure that they will do the best job. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

No, nothing comes to mind at this point. I may feel different at the end of this year after we start to see some metrics of their work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the communications lead for the International Aerospace Quality Group. We write aerospace standards and support trade associations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

My company didn’t really have a communication strategy. We hired Atlas Marketing to help us tactically manage elements of communication.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Atlas Marketing developed our marketing strategy. First, they helped us understand who our key customers were and what our objectives were for communicating with those customers or stakeholders. They then developed a plan that would target specific areas and the mechanisms and channels through which we’d deliver those messages.

Atlas Marketing also creates videos for us, and they’re working on expanding our social media presence. They created brochures and newsletters for our company previous to the current contract.

What is the team composition?

We work primarily with the president and vice president of Atlas Marketing. They have support teams behind them as well.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

My company found Atlas Marketing through another supplier that had used their team before. We then did a competitive bid between them and another vendor, and Atlas Marketing won the bid.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent more than $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The current project started in January 2019, and it’s ongoing. We previously engaged Atlas Marketing to do more tactical than strategic marketing work, such as creating brochures and newsletters.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

It’s only been six months. However, we didn’t have any social media before this, and there’s a marked difference.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is one of their assets. We receive weekly progress updates, and they let us know if there are any issues. If my team is late in delivering something from our end, they’re quick to let us know that they can’t move forward without it, so that helps. Their reminders help us meet our deadlines. We communicate with their team via phone and electronically.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Atlas Marketing has a good service. If there’s anything that we have a question about, we get a response.

From my understanding, they’re a relatively small business. We’re also a small business, so they understand the uniqueness of what we do. However, they also have experience working with larger businesses, so they bring the big world to a more palatable, smaller format for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Let them be the professionals. Sometimes, you think you know what you're doing, but you're hiring them as professionals. Ensure that you take their guidance and advice regarding engagement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of market development at Sharpsville Container Corporation. We are a metal fabricator with three distinct product lines: ASME pressure vessels and kegs, general containers, and high-pressure gas cylinders.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

We had a new product for the market—a stainless-steel cylinder for high-pressure reactive gas applications. It was new to the industry, and we were trying to supplant a different aluminum cylinder to some level. We believed our product was superior, and we used Atlas Marketing to develop an advertisement strategy to reflect that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had some budget constraints, so we purposely limited the scope of services. We asked Atlas Marketing to help us lay out a process and milestones from a big-picture perspective.

Chris (President, Atlas Marketing) helped us ensure that our white paper was grammatically correct. Further, he made sure the content was presented logically so that we could have a third-party expert review the product. We then posted the white paper on our website, and the strategy was to determine the channel through its market. Our internal designer has made some graphics that go hand-in-hand with the white paper.

We’re starting a second, more tactically oriented engagement with Atlas Marketing, in terms of setting up MailChimp email campaigns and similar initiatives. We asked Atlas Marketing to provide us with a menu of options for how we could brand and go to market with our new product. We had a pretty good idea of how to do it, but Atlas Marketing helped us refine our thinking. We eventually decided on strategies for social media campaigns and a print ad launch.  

A different company created an explainer video of the product, but we thought they missed the mark in terms of professionalism and audience targeting. Chris had several ideas to improve the video, and he helped us edit a second revision.

We’re relying on Atlas Marketing to upgrade our website in the coming weeks so that it is cleaner and does a better job of funneling customers to the product. The website improvements are the last step before we roll out all of these efforts. Chris has also researched trade shows and speaking opportunities for us to explore.

What is the team composition?

I interacted with Chris and his team.  

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

Our president was familiar with Chris’ work and thought we’d benefit from working together to determine the product launch cycle. We needed somebody that could keep us between the guard rails and keep the project moving forward. I had mapped out a game plan for us, but Chris had great ideas for how to stay on track.   

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $13,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first stage was 45 days from April–June 2019.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

 We’re about 40­–50% of the way through our work with Atlas Marketing. We’re in the process of engaging with customers and managing a PR campaign. Chris has given us a path, and we’re trying now to not deviate from it.

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I find Chris to be very professional and helpful. We have a healthy working relationship. When I need something, I bounce it off of him. When he needs something, he bounces it off of me. We work well together.

I have a full Gantt chart of the project, and everything so far has been completed as specified. The chart covers what’s been finished, what’s in the works, and what’s coming down the road.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Chris is hands-on and has a very good grasp on how to handle the project. They’ve lived up to every promise in the scope of work. The communication is businesslike but with a personal touch. They make sure things stay on track, and I’m very happy with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We asked Chris to put together a presentation for our board of directors. It was a bit on the simple side, but that was probably because we didn’t give him enough direction.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Make sure you utilize the service. Chris has some very good ideas. They didn’t always match ours, but he made strong cases and considered our opinions as well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the communications director at KML Regional Council of Carpenters, a carpenters union based in Pittsburgh.

What challenge were you trying to address with Atlas Marketing?

Our website was outdated, so we engaged Atlas to help revamp it from scratch.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Atlas Marketing redesigned our website on WordPress, providing some assistance on wireframes. They merged another entity we acquired, made the site mobile-friendly, and then started helping us with our newsletter (print and digital). 

What is the team composition? 

I worked with 2–3 people at any given time.

How did you come to work with Atlas Marketing?

We met with Chris (President, Atlas Marketing) and liked his approach. They were also priced competitively compared to others we'd spoken to. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–March 2016.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Atlas redesigned a site that drastically improved our online performance overall. A survey of users came back with an 80% positive rating, and we've been able to incorporate any suggested changes from user feedback as well. 

How did Atlas Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We never had a problem communicating with their team. They were very reactive and accessible via email as needed, organizing project milestones on Google Sheets and Google Drive for the most part. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their rapid response time sets them apart. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Utilize the designers on their team as much as possible, because they're very talented.