Brandmint

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief strategy and marketing officer of Aboldco. We represent three distinct brands in the staffing and recruitment industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Brandmint?

One of the gaps that we identified across all of our brands was in our in-house creative capability. We needed help in getting out and delivering engaging content that resonated with our respective audiences. 

We decided to turn to Brandmint to help us develop not only the content itself but also the strategy for getting it out to our target audiences.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Brandmint to elevate our overall marketing strategy across the board. We have an ongoing relation relationship with them, where we use them month-to-month for a number of different things. 

One of the projects that we did was a global rebrand of all of our portfolio assets. We brought Brandmint in-house to do qualitative and quantitative workshops, where we tried to figure out who our core customers were and who we were trying to reach out to. Then, Brandmint worked with us to develop our logos and brand style guides.

Aside from that, they also redesigned our website, which was built 10 years ago, to give it a more modern look and feel. We’re going live with this website on April 15th, and we’re going to work on the rest of our properties in the following month.

We had gone through the entire lifecycle of splitting our company into three distinct brand properties, and it took a lot of churn for us to get to a point where we were satisfied with the new branding assets. But ultimately, I'm really proud of Brandmint for sticking with the whole process and working with our senior leadership team to go through multiple iterations of what we thought was an acceptable logo, color palettes, and web design.

Brandmint also does a great job of tracking our paid media efforts, including the type of audiences that click on our ads or ultimately get converted into leads. They make sure that we’re getting good ROI on any of our media spend.

Brandmint also does ad hoc consulting for us. When we generate collateral that's going to go out to customers, they're in charge of making sure that it's aligned with our brand style guidelines before it goes on our social media. They really act as a true marketing partner that ensures that everything is in line with our brand and that it's going to be accessible by our customers.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Louie (Founder & President), Renee (Director of Strategy), Beth (Creative Director), Larissa (Project Manager), and Jed (Chief Financial Officer). We’ve also worked with 2-3 more people who provide additional support on graphic design and creative generation.

How did you come to work with Brandmint?

Louie has done a really great job of locally setting up a bunch of different brands across various industries, so they’ve become a staple in our area. He also has a good connection with our CEO, so we decided to go with them for this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $53,000 on the rebranding project, which was completely distinct from our annual retainer. We spend around $4,900 per month for everything else, including paid media and website support.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We have quantitative metrics that we use, and conversion rate is a big one. Brandmint actively tracks leads for us on our websites and our social posts. Quantitatively speaking, we actively take any design or creative that we do to our general staffing and medical folks internally, and we do user feedback reviews to make sure that it's in line with what their customers and candidates expect to see.

So far, we’ve definitely seen an increase in our traffic and online visibility. Prior to working with Brandmint, we didn't have the best presence. But once we actually started using Brandmint, we definitely saw an uptick in people who could find us over the internet and engage with us. We have gotten positive feedback as well, either through the articles about us that get published, the blogs that we publish internally, or the content that we post. It's been a good experience overall. 

How did Brandmint perform from a project management standpoint?

Brandmint has performed well in terms of project management, but we have seen things take more time than we anticipated. But from a transparency perspective, they've been really excellent — they've actually gotten us a seat on Monday.com so we can actively track where any stoppages might be. 

Admittedly, there have also been issues on our end that have caused those stoppages, so I'm not going to pin it fully on them. And although things do occasionally get a little bit delayed, they're really good at explaining why those things happen and providing us transparency in the situation.

We primarily use Slack for communication and Monday.com for project and timeline management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about Brandmint is their turnaround. We were in a position with Brandmint not that long ago where we had communication breakdowns and we were struggling to get messaging aligned between our CEO and the people that we were generating creative for. 

But once Brandmint started employing their modern, sophisticated tools, such as Slack, Monday.com, or any of the other social media management tools that they use, everything’s been going smoothly. I really appreciate the uptick in transparency and how they've been able to invest in themselves in order to get information to us in real-time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Brandmint could benefit from continuing to look at the emerging trends in the market. As the landscape changes and the demographic shifts, I’d like to encourage them to try to figure out how we could take advantage of new social media platforms and how we can grow an audience organically through those platforms. I'm not saying that they're doing it better or worse than any other company, but I think that's a definite area of expansion for them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to be very clear and upfront with your expectations. As long as you can map out a really clear set of expectations and problems and what they want out of the relationship, you’ll get to where you want to go a lot faster.
 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the administrator of a surgical office. We’re the only solo practice in the country that specializes in menstrual disorders and minimally invasive surgery options.

What challenge were you trying to address with Brandmint?

We wanted to improve the efficacy of our advertising efforts and direct people who were searching for certain symptoms to our website. 

Also, we have patients from all over North America who require our services, and we wanted to give people confidence in our business to make the decision to buy a plane ticket.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brandmint conducts a range of digital marketing work for our business. They manage our social media and host our website. 

Most of our patients find us through organic searches, so Brandmint’s ad work has been focused on redirecting information to them that will help inform their decisions and targeting the right audience. 

The team has helped develop ad content and has provided Google Ads and SEO support as well.

What is the team composition?

We work with Louie (President, Brandmint), Renee (Director of Operations, Brandmint), and Peter (Digital Director, Brandmint). 

How did you come to work with Brandmint?

Brandmint was recommended to us by another company we had previously worked with who understood our goals and budget. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a little over $50,000 over the course of our engagement with Brandmint.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in January 2017 and is ongoing.

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

Since most of our traffic comes from organic searches, it’s difficult to tell if the team’s work has increased the number of leads we see. However, their targeted ad efforts have saved me an exceptional amount of time. 

I no longer have to weed through patients who are experiencing symptoms that don’t require our services, which is something I used to spend about 20 hours a week doing that I now spend only two.

Each month, we meet with the team to approve new ads and ensure the information and material we’re putting out to our customers is current. We’re constantly reviewing what’s worked in the past and collaborating on how to replicate that success in the future.

Also, one of our primary goals was to provide enough information to make patients feel comfortable traveling to our office. Brandmint has made our website extremely user-friendly and easy for patients to navigate. The team has presented a really personal and polished image of our organization.

How did Brandmint perform from a project management standpoint?

The team has been amazing. They’re always on task and they’re always ahead of schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were hesitant in our first meetings with the team, as we’re in a very specialized area and we weren’t sure how they would be able to relate to our practice and goals. However, they really engaged with us and made sure they’d be able to make informed marketing choices.

It was very clear that Brandmint took the time to understand our needs and make thoughtful decisions for our business. The entire process was quite impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I can’t say enough good things about them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time to sit down with them and be prepared to thoroughly review your business, needs, and goals. When they’re armed with that information, they can do amazing things for you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an industrial waste engineer with Monroe County, New York’s Department of Environmental Services. My main responsibility is managing the county’s stormwater program. That involved monitoring regulatory compliance and water quality planning.

What challenge were you trying to address with Brandmint?

Our stormwater education program requires us to develop messaging about the pollutants in stormwater and their negative impacts on bodies of water in the county.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We totally restructure our marketing program away from TV and radio to social media and billboard ads. With the content that they developed for us, we’ve been able to retool our entire approach to marketing. In our first few years together, we relied pretty heavily on them to steer us in the right direction. 

We’ve noticed that our ads are driving people toward our web page, which was very outdated. Now, our team has brought them on as a website redesign partner as well. At this point, we have an updated website as well that properly communicates what our organization does. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three people on a regular basis in terms of messaging, marketing, and content development. Our team is also supported by its president on an intermittent basis.  

How did you come to work with Brandmint?

In the past, we developed TV and radio ads for our program and used the same ones every year. We contracted a buyer as part of that process. Brandmint applied to serve as one of our ad buyers, but we noticed that they were capable of handling messaging as well. From there, they came up with a marketing plan to refocus our efforts to cater more to digital media users.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $80,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2017, and our companies are still collaborating. Our team intends to continue our partnership with them. They’re currently on an annual contract with us.

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

We’re really happy with the work that they’ve done so far. They’re savvy about setting targets and tracking our success as well. Their team has helped us reach our goals. Every three years, we do a public survey on our stormwater education program. It’s essentially a way for us to measure how much people have learned from our program. We’ll conduct that survey in another year to see if we’ve made progress.

In the short-term, it’s nice being able to look at the analytics data on Facebook and our website. Already, we’re noticing that we’re reaching greater numbers of people across metrics. The analytics give us the necessary certainty that we’ve reached our audience. We were able to see which ads were performing the best, which allowed us to create a more dynamic education program.

How did Brandmint perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly over phone and email. Our team also has stakeholder groups, and their teammates have been accommodating in coming to our meetings with them to present what they’re doing. We rely on them to interpret what’s happening in the marketing and communication world. They’re able to address comments and feedback during those sessions as well. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They latched onto our mission, taking our environmental goals to heart. They don’t look at us just as a customer, they see us as a worthwhile partner. That’s allowed for a really close connection.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everything they bring to us is new, so I can’t think of anything they could improve on. I wish we had more money to spend with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Talk with them and listen to their ideas. They take the time and effort needed to show us what’s possible. Let them demonstrate their creativity.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a talent manager of Career Start, a staffing agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with Brandmint?

We needed a company to develop some of our marketing material and branding guidelines.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They came up with our brand guidelines and helped with sales material, letterheads, business cards, templates, etc. They also did Facebook ads and marketing for photo campaigns. For our website, they informed us of how many people accessed our website and other ratios of that kind. Finally, they’ve done some blog posts. We still do odd end jobs with them as well.

What is the team composition?

I usually deal with the same two people, but there are other staff members involved as well.

How did you come to work with Brandmint?

My CEO and their creator formed a partnership prior to me starting.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2019.

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

I was brought onto the project because it wasn’t meeting our CEO’s standards. They brought me on to help with the partnership and provide ideas to them to make the right design for it. I’d give them the idea and they’d put it into their system and make it to the right scale. They’d also share some ideas with us and we’d bounce those back and forth. They hired a writer to help because before that the writing was not to the standards of our CEO. Since then, it’s been good.

How did Brandmint perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very attentive. When I ask for something, they deliver pretty well on it. They use a lot of guidance from us and are good at getting things back to us by deadlines. We use email and phone, but I’ve gone to them a few times for in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their customer service and attentiveness when I need something are impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could try to see our vision better. That’s been kind of a broken connection between us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They use Microsoft Office for some of their stuff and would send us things in PDFs. If we wanted to edit some contact information, we couldn’t do that. It was a little bit of a struggle to get them on board with that, so be able to navigate to the different computers’ networking sites and things like Microsoft Office.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a food startup. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Brandmint?

As the owner of a small startup, I was overwhelmed with coordinating lots of freelancers for graphic design and Shopify to make a cohesive product. I hired Brandmint to be my one-stop-shop for my initial branding and website development.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Brandmint has helped refine my brand vision. So far, we've done a brand archetype session, which helped me figure out a better sense of my brand.

During the meeting, we created a brand standards guide from scratch, setting out my colors, fonts, and all other aspects of my brand. They've also created my logo and business cards.

Besides branding, they've done web development for me and are currently working on my Shopify store.

What is the team composition? 

Beth (Creative Director, Brandmint) is my account manager. I really enjoy working with her, and I feel that my project has become a pet project of hers.

I also work with a copywriter, a business administrator, and the owner. There’s a part-time photographer at Brandmint, too, who’s pretty talented.

How did you come to work with Brandmint?

I was extensively looking for graphic designers locally and found Brandmint. I knew the owner peripherally. He has some experience in the industry I am in, which made me confident that they could understand my business.

Ultimately, I decided to work with them because of their pricing structure. They price on a per-project basis and on how many hours are attributed to your project. This allows them to give an estimate on the cost but also set a guarantee that they will have your deliverables ready at, or below, a set cost.

I have been burned by per-hour pricing with no guarantees from graphic designers, and Brandmint’s pricing guarantees made me hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve invested roughly $9,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began work in August 2019, and the work is still ongoing.

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

I haven’t launched my startup yet, but everybody that I’ve shown Brandmint’s work to has loved it. My business cards are a little funkier, and I keep receiving compliments on them. 

I’m based out of an area where there isn’t a startup culture, and my branding really stands out. People here really like our branding so far. The quality of Brandmint's work impresses people, especially when they find out that it was done locally.

How did Brandmint perform from a project management standpoint?

From my experience, they have a unique management style. I meet with them regularly and communicate directly with their creative director, which I don't think is common but has worked well for me.

Email is their preferred form of communication since they don't like phone calls. We’ve also met in-person to learn about the brand, and they share things with me over Google Drive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I feel like Beth is my pseudo-first employee because she really cares. I know they’re a subcontractor, but Brandmint makes me feel like they really care about me, my brand, and my company. At other places, I felt like just another account, but at Brandmint I know they’re committed to my brand and are committed to helping me out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they would talk on the phone with me. They have an open office, and I get the sense that they don’t like people overhearing our conversations.

I also wish that they would do trademarking. They do great work creating things, but it would be great if they knew how to trademark it. It just seems like the next logical step to handle the legal side of trademarking.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to do a lot of research upfront. I believe my success with Brandmint is because before we met, I already had an entire Google Sheet full of ideas, websites I liked, and logos that inspired me. Doing my homework first paid off.