Madison+Main

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an economic development department, and we’re the business arm of our city. We help businesses with any issues they may have, and we help prospective businesses who are looking to move into our city. I’m the marketing coordinator of our department.

What challenge were you trying to address with Madison+Main?

We hired Madison+Main to help us revamp our brand including our logo, mission statement, and other variety of marketing needs that we had for our department.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team had a discovery process where they looked at our old brand and our past activities before creating a plan to move forward. They did their own research work before coming back to us with answers.

After that, Madison+Main designed a logo for our company. They also helped us come up with a tagline. On top of that, we’ve got new colors from them as well as ideas for our promotional pieces. The team is also going to develop our social media content, website content, and ads. They’re going to post content on our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Overall, they develop and design our branding projects.

On the web development side, they’ve revamped our entire website. They’ve integrated an application on our website so that people can submit their grant applications and incorporated features such as maps.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a lot of people from Madison+Main including Marita (Account Executive) and Carissa (Art Director).

How did you come to work with Madison+Main?

Madison+Main was selected before I worked for my company. They had an RFP process, and they were interviewed. From what I heard, their team had great examples and gave great information about their work. However, I wasn’t present there so I couldn’t speak too much about it.

How much have you invested with them?

Our budget for the whole engagement is $55,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing collaboration began in January 2020.

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

We’re now using the logo and branding that Madison+Main has developed for us. We’ve had to do some tweaks late in the game after our branding has been deployed, but our third-party stakeholders are charmed by it. Our external stakeholders have also mentioned that our branding is clean and sleek.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed excellently from a project management perspective. They’re always available whenever I need something. On top of that, they get back to us within 1–2 days if they don’t have the answers right away. We usually communicate through phone calls and emails. During COVID-19, we’ve had Zoom calls. We also use Dropbox to send documents back and forth.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very professional and personable; they’re easy to talk to, and they work with us to figure out our issues. They also understand the work that we do and our strengths as a government entity.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this moment, I have no comment on areas they can improve. They’ve done things without any problems.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Talk to Madison+Main. If you give them an idea of what you want, they run with it and produce deliverables that look good. They’ll also provide you with solutions that fit your needs. If they can’t do certain things, they let you know how they can get it done or who to contact to get it done.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and executive director of Hitting Cancer Below the Belt, a colorectal cancer prevention nonprofit organization based in Richmond, Virginia. We serve the state of Virginia.

What challenge were you trying to address with Madison+Main?

We brought in Madison+Main to help us with branding and marketing, everything that they specialize in.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Madison+Main has provided us with pro bono services for around four years to consolidate our messaging, brand, and target audience. They've also helped us wrap around a more solidified brand regarding our Boxer Brief 5K event, which is the signature event that we’ve offered for nine years, and our Blue Gene Bash, which is our end-of-the-year party.

We’ve provided them with our logos for those events, and they’ve created some promotional collateral for them. They’ve also helped us reach out to their large media contacts through press releases to promote our work. Additionally, they’ve gotten us many interviews on these large media platforms throughout the years.

Madison+Main helps us manage our Facebook accounts as well, creating event pages and building interest around them. They also look over the scripts of certain videos that we want to do. We give them the drafts of our scripts, and they help us refine the content.

What is the team composition?

We work with four people from Madison+Main: our main point of contact, a photographer, a person who writes our press releases, and a graphic artist who updates our logos and promotional collateral.

How did you come to work with Madison+Main?

We met Madison+Main through one of our board members. This person was an athletic director at a high school, and one of the athletes mentioned that their parent was going through some gastrointestinal issues.

As this was what we focused on, our board member asked to talk with the athlete’s parent, who happened to be one of the leaders at Madison+Main. They said that they wanted to help us because they believed in our work.

How much have you invested with them?

All the work that Madison+Main has done is pro bono.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2017, and our partnership is ongoing.

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

Madison+Main involvement brings people to our table and increases our visibility, which is very important for our work. We’ve had more interviews, engagement, followers on our social media, and interested potential partners.

How did Madison+Main perform from a project management standpoint?

Madison+Main’s project management has been stellar throughout our engagement. They were patient during the learning curve of some of our staff members and me. Additionally, they haven’t only achieved great results, but they’ve helped us ramp up regarding the needs of our organization.

We communicate via email, phone calls, and text messages. As we started working before the pandemic, we also had in-person meetings. We don’t need to schedule virtual meetings; if we need to discuss a new project, I can just call them, email them, or send them a text.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Madison+Main is doing a lot of good in the community, and many people know them. They don’t just do stellar work but also, working with them raises the level of our organization. Their recognition gives our organization more credibility by just being affiliated with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Given the nature of their business, the young, creative people that they bring tend to eventually move onto other projects. I’m not saying that they have a high turnover. However, as our work is so relational, we get to know the people that we work with personally, and sometimes they have to leave.

This isn’t necessarily negative; it is what it is, and we’re not sure that they can do something about it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared, and specifically know your ultimate goal. If your goal is to engage in an exploratory project, that’s okay, and they can help you with that as well. If not, be very specific about what you ask.