Marketing solutions for business growth.
Orange Element provides integrated design and communications services for companies that want to make a clear connection between an audience and a brand. We approach every opportunity focused on strategic planning and a commitment to deliver effective design solutions. This approach, coupled with our clients' unique stories, gains us a trusted partnership and better brand experience for everyone.
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Longstanding Partnership
Our work with OneMain Financial, one of the largest personal lending companies in the US, has been ongoing since 2003. Throughout our partnership, our efforts have supported a wide range of marketing campaigns and strategies, including:
- National direct response campaign initiatives
- National (seasonal) campaign strategies and creative support
- Branch materials development and distribution
- Brand development
- Content marketing
- Segmented direct mail creative
Why choose Orange Element?
OneMain has suggested the strength in our partnership is largely driven by an ongoing ease in executing on tight turnarounds. Acting as an extension of their marketing and branding teams, our knowledge in financial trends and targeted marketing has provided us the opportunity to be inserted in team workflows, quickly pick up on project briefings, and begin developing strategies to quickly meet campaign start dates without hassle.
Success Stories
A partnership that dates nearly 20 years provide us with many success stories from which to choose. A few of our most successful initiatives have included:
- Working with the marketing and analytics teams to audit, revamp and rollout an efficient and effective direct mail program, providing OneMain with a streamlined and segmented mail cadence to better meet customers and prospects on their terms. The results? OneMain now has a steady collection of high-performing control packages in place, with better data to best understand where new opportunities address real customer needs and anticipate the right time to attract prospects.
- Supporting strategic national initiatives to better engage and attract new community merchants, providing a wide range of solutions that fit personal lending needs.
- Generating awareness through a steady stream of financial content marketing strategies and development.
Mortgage Lending Rebrand
Preparing for growth
FirstHome Mortgage called on Orange Element ahead of schedule. As the business prepared for regional expansion, a need was identified to ensure the brand would be able to keep pace, maintain recognition, and excite officers (and borrowers) in new markets.
An audit revealed opportunity to start from the ground up, providing the business with a series of recommendations to include the overhaul of an aging brand image, and supportive marketing materials for field operations. Dedicated regional loan officers were provided guidance in their communications strategies, including newly branded resources and materials, and communications strategies to improve engagement and effectiveness. Additionally, allowing the market department with a better approach to reigning in efforts to ensure consistency in messaging and delivery of a branded experience.
Consultative support also included website positioning and ad campaign suggestions.
Chaney Enterprises Rebrand
Maintaining a Trusted Brand
Chaney has spent over 50 years establishing its name and stellar reputation. So we knew that the challenge would be to find a way to update, polish and strengthen their brand while maintaining its rich heritage.
After spending time with the leadership team, our recommendations included a few primary adjustments for positioning the name and identity. That included emphasizing the “Chaney” in the company’s logo, to continue building on the proud name has become synonymous with quality and trust.
A new logo identity, refined set of brand tenets and brand guidelines, have given Chaney the tools they need to continue moving their brand forward. The company’s pride in their new brand identity can be seen every day on roads throughout the region – with colorful Chaney cement trucks boasting their updated look.
Branding a new kind of coworking space
A New Coworking Concept
The Brick Companies came to us to help create a name and identity for their new coworking spaces. We began with a series of initial meetings where we learned about the business plan and asked exploratory questions about their vision for the business. Then, with a solid understanding of their goals and audience, we conducted market research, identifying competitors and comparators, and forming a picture of the existing coworking landscape. All of these pieces then came together to inform a set of unique brand tenets that would set them apart from the likes of Regus and WeWork.
The coworking trend was real, and still young—the perfect balance for the addition of a thoughtfully-designed concept that is modern but not “hip,” flexible but not flippant, and productive and professional, but with personality. Thus, the new operation would stand for flexibility, freedom, collaboration, stability, autonomy, and success.
From these foundational principles, we went on to a naming exercise, building a set of names and symbols that could make sense for their new offering. We explored concepts inspired by company’s origins manufacturing brick with symbols reminiscent of building, blueprints, and masonry, as well as options based on the ideas of flexibility, entrepreneurship, and community. Ultimately, the name Launch Workplaces was selected, accompanied by a logo symbol that represents separate entities coming together to form something greater than the individual parts.
We assembled a toolkit of brand and style guidelines, and their internal team used it for several years as the business moved through it’s early growth phases. Their vision was a good one: Launch Workplaces started seeing success and was gaining momentum quickly. In 2018, they found themselves in need of professional marketing and sales collateral, so The Brick Companies gave us another call.
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
A Trusted Institution
With circulation of more than 35,000, Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine is distributed to Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing Alumni; nurses at four Hopkins-affiliated hospitals; current, newly accepted, & prospective nursing students; nursing schools and nurse leaders; donors, friends, media, and legislators; and University hospitals and libraries.
Wide Reach, Modern Needs
The school approached Orange Element for a redesign seeking to update and modernize the magazine’s look and feel, re-organize the content, and design and implement a digital strategy.
Strategic Focus
Successful publications are all about focus. They must be driven by thoughtful concepting, great design, understanding how to speak to specific audiences, and seamless digital-print integration. These are the things that informed our approach to the Johns Hopkins Nursing magazine, which we completely redesigned starting with the Spring 2014 issue.
Amplifying a Global Brand's Voice
ONE is a global nonprofit organization advocating for action against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. As an effort to improve accessibility to education for girls all around the world, ONE created the Poverty is Sexist campaign, which launched a year prior to Orange Element’s collaboration with this project.
This massive effort required a strong narrative and identity to rally global support and awareness—ONE needed help tackling both. While the campaign and its mission were a huge success after the initial launch, ONE realized they needed to apply it across channels to enrich the campaign. Our job was to get it off the ground; they brought us in to help strengthen the core of the campaign and launch it to a wider audience.
Reviews
the project
Web Dev, Web Design & Virtual Event Svcs for High School
"Orange Element had solid teamwork that allowed them to get things done and be on the same page with one another."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the director of development for an independent high school in Baltimore City that serves students from limited economic means.
What challenge were you trying to address with Orange Element?
We had just begun work redesigning our website when the pandemic hit. Our website was in desperate need of a complete redesign overhaul, and we hired Orange Element to help us.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Orange Element started completely from scratch, so the team built and designed our new platform on WordPress. Additionally, we typically conduct a big in-person event every fall and we were already in the middle of planning but had to pivot quickly to create a virtual event. The virtual event was an invite-only event and served as our fundraiser.
The team built a landing page for the event and some features that we needed to integrate into that. The other piece was helping us manage the attendee list through constant contact to know who registered and who attended, so we were reaching a very specific group of people. The website went live in July 2020. They’re helping us with a second event now.
What is the team composition?
I worked with a couple of different people from Orange Element, but the person I had the most contact with was Caroline (Director of Operations). She was the front-facing person that translated between us and the people doing the coding.
We also worked with a person in charge of web development. Aaron (Founder & CEO) was also involved at different stages of the project.
How did you come to work with Orange Element?
My coworker had been at some event and recommended we invite Orange Element because they were very close to us. As a result, when we put out an RFP, we invited them to participate. We had brought in 3–4 companies in total to participate in the RFP, and we were most impressed with Orange Element’s presentation.
The clarity of how their whole plan would come to fruition and what their approach was excellent. We also got a good feeling and had a lot of confidence from the people involved in the presentation including Caroline and Aaron.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent $20,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in April–July 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We were very pleased with Orange Element’s site, and we also received nice feedback from our supporters and families. They made our platform user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing, and that also helped us to have an easy workflow.
How did Orange Element perform from a project management standpoint?
They had a perfect project management process. We communicated primarily through email — which is my preference — it drove my to-do list every day. Through email, I know what they needed from us and what things were coming up.
What did you find most impressive about them?
It’s hard to say what distinguishes them from others since I haven’t necessarily done this with others. However, they work very well. Moreover, Orange Element had solid teamwork that allowed them to get things done and be on the same page with one another. Most importantly, they had camaraderie and good vibes.
the project
Social Media & Content Marketing for Recruiting Company
"We’ve been perfectly satisfied with Orange Element’s services."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the founder and president of a recruiting company. My role revolves around client relationships, new business development, account management, and maintaining relationships with our existing customers.
What challenge were you trying to address with Orange Element?
Orange Element was contracted to provide social media strategy and execution.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They manage all of our content creation and postings. As part of that, Orange Element comes up with a content schedule and the posting schedule for our three platforms, specifically on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
When they come up with a monthly calendar, they propose it and then we go through and approve or tweak it as necessary. The main goal of our content is to be seen as valuable and important for the two communities that we serve across a number of different platforms.
The team also creates and designs a monthly newsletter and distributes it for us. They’ve also done some one-off projects such as marketing one-pager and a couple of different designs including pamphlets.
What is the team composition?
We mainly work with Aaron (Founder & CEO) and Hannah (Former Content Developer & Strategist). They also have a designer that we’ve worked with in the past, and I’m sure they also have other teammates on the backend.
How did you come to work with Orange Element?
We went through a program called Goldman Sachs 10000 Small Businesses Program. I loved Aaron’s approach to solving marketing and brand challenges from a very strategic and business goal standpoint. The substance that he was able to pull together impressed us, and that’s what convinced my partner and I to go with Orange Element.
How much have you invested with them?
We've spent $60,000 for two years. In the first year, we spent $2,000 per month and $24,000 annually. Then, in the second year, we spent $3,000 per month and $36,000 annually. We continue to pay them $3,000 per month.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in January 2019, and we continue to collaborate.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’ve been thrilled with everything that Orange Element has done for us, especially from the look, feel, and understanding of the message that we’re trying to get out. We highly appreciate that they’ve been able to voice out our message and it has been well received by our stakeholders.
From a metrics standpoint, the growth of our LinkedIn followers and other social media followers has been exponential — it’s been literally off the charts. We’re getting more hits to the website and more readers for our content too. Most importantly, our brand recognition, brand visibility, content, and thought leadership have been fantastic.
How did Orange Element perform from a project management standpoint?
We use a lot of Google Sheets and things that manage our calendar posting and content calendar. Everything’s been very organized, timely, and it's fairly easy for us to go in and communicate back and forth. It’s also quite simple for us to approve content schedules, so it’s been seamless working with Orange Element.
What did you find most impressive about them?
We’re not their only customer, but Orange Element always makes time for us. Whenever we have questions and needs, they can do it last minute.
For example, yesterday, my partner sent me a note asking me if we have something for International Women’s Day. However, it slipped my mind and I reached out to Orange Element and asked them if they could do something. After 15 minutes, they created a post and put it out on our social media pages. Overall, their responsiveness is phenomenal.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don’t think there’s anything that they can improve. Perhaps, it’s more on our side that has oversight, and we’ve been perfectly satisfied with Orange Element’s services.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Call Orange Element and clearly talk about your needs and business challenges that you want to address. Furthermore, tell them what outcomes you’re hoping to gain by leveraging their skills. Then, expect Aaron will be very upfront with what strategy they can deliver best for you.
The team will present a number of solutions and then let you decide which one you want to pursue either based on timing, finance, or other factors. In the end, you will see if they’re a good match for you.
Orange Element made the client's site user-friendly and modern which helped ensure a smooth workflow in their company. The platform also gained massive positive feedback from stakeholders. Their seamless internal communication and team spirit made the partnership a success.