You are remarkable
Your Organization is Remarkable. But maybe your brand isn't. At Resound, we help our clients build authentic brands and experiences that resonate with your customers and keep them coming back for more. Our services include:
- Brand Development
- Branded Experiences
- Relationship Marketing
- Consulting
We've helped a multitude of Arizona-based businesses achieve results and reach their goals. Some of them include Law Tigers, Shamrock Farms, Infusionsoft, DollarDays, Henry+Horne, and AppointmentPlus.
For more information about our services, visit https://resoundcreative.com
Focus
Portfolio
Google, Supercool, Dignity Health, Henry & Horne, Conscious Capitalism, MAC6, The Department, Frain Industries, CTM Magnetics, Appointment Plus, Tempe Chamber of Commerce, Prepass Safety Alliance
Prepass Safety Alliance Rebrand
Rebranding a national public-private partnership organization that oversees one of the largest transportation safety systems in the United States.
Resound helped rename the former HELP Inc. to the Prepass Safety Alliance and help tell it's story of safety, technology, and community partnership through a new corporate identity.
Services included:
- Brand Workshop & Strategy
- Naming
- Logo Design
- Identity Guidelines and Handbook
- Collateral Design
Tempe Chamber of Commerce 2020 Video
The official 2020 video commercial for the Tempe Chamber of Commerce - one of the largest and most active chambers in Arizona.
Henry and Horne
Henry+Horne has been providing stellar financial services to the Phoenix area since taxes were done on ledgers and carbon paper. In 2015, they approached us with a problem: their brand image hadn’t kept up with the changing times. Neither had their website.
Plus, they were losing their title as Arizona’s largest, locally-owned CPA firm. And what do you do when your brand's position in the industry is slipping away?
You call Resound, naturally.
We executed a three-step brand development initiative that ended with some really sweet results for the firm.
After launch, Henry+Horne experienced:
1,200+ Sessions in the first three days of launch
23% Increase in pages viewed
20% Increase in users’ average time on the website
620% Increase in visits to the "Services" page
600% Increase in visits to the "Leadership" page
Canyon State
Canyon State was looking for a partner to consult with them on improving the quality and effectiveness of their social communications. They felt like their social presence was drab and unremarkable. Their existing partner wasn’t quite up to snuff on the details, so they were primed to find an agency that could strategize, execute, analyze, and iterate all under one roof.
Good social strategy is all about two things: brand and audience. Canyon State had one of those two.
They knew who they were (their brand), but they hadn’t thought through what was important to the different segments of their audience. To kick off the relationship, we conducted a social strategy workshop with the CEO and VP of Marketing to uncover Canyon State’s goals, vision, and current markers – as well as getting to know their target audience.
With the Canyon State team backing our social strategy, we began executing it with extreme prejudice. But execution was only half of the plan. We started measuring and analyzing the data behind the execution and fed it back to Canyon State. We proactively came to the table with ideas on how to iterate our strategy to maximize engagement.
This level of proactive and client-centered consultative behavior led to measurable success for Canyon State.
Dollar Days
DollarDays, an online wholesale distributor and closeout company, was in desperate need of help on the website front. The site hadn’t been touched since the company’s founding in 2001. Yeah, you can imagine the problem already. Frankly, we were amazed the the company still had a customer base. The turn-of-the-millennium user interface was clunky and confusing, and ads were everywhere.
It was easy to assume that a simple reskin would solve all of DollarDays’ problems. After all, that’s what the RFP asked for. But we suspected there was something else going on behind the screen, so to speak.
On top of the website redesign, Resound proposed an audit to help DollarDays get insight on who was visiting the site and why. There had to be something compelling about the business for visitors to put up with the 2001-era UI and zero mobile optimization.
Going the extra mile sure paid off. We crafted a new brand experience for visitors to the site, and it was designed specifically based on data collected from the audit.
“We couldn't be happier about the new site. The improvements made were exactly what our customers wanted. The strong feedback we're getting tells us we're doing something right!” - Marc Joseph, CEO
Flip Side
Flip Side had the whole experience down...the bowling, laser tag, video games, bumper cars, a laser obstacle course, and amazing food...but they hadn’t considered how to position themselves in the market. Thankfully, someone turned us onto FlipSide’s dilemma. That part was awesome (referrals always are). Well...an awesome challenge for us. Poor FlipSide had no audience, no list, no targets, and no prospects. It was our job to build relationships from the ground up with a non-existent audience and launch a brand at the same time. Tough? Yup. Insurmountable? Not even. We were able to do both – strategically using the psychographics of the intended audience to our advantage.
FlipSide opened to an excited fan base, and it is still one of the most awesome spots for families to visit in Gilbert and the East Valley.
Sure, it was a big challenge for us to manage the timeline with so many moving pieces. Yes, it was tough to help develop a brand with virtually no existing culture or customer interest. In the end, our knowledge of the community and what would matter to them paid off.
By opening day, FlipSide had amassed:
Potential organic Facebook reach of 837,000.
7,200 monthly website visitors.
3,500 Facebook fans ready to engage!
A subscriber base of 3,700.
We built relationships between FlipSide and Gilbert families, and that made it all worth it.
Tempe Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award Winner Video
A video that we produced introducing the 2019 Business Excellence Award winner - Resound - to the Tempe Chamber of Commerce community and partners.
Reviews
the project
Drupal Web Dev & Branding for Software Company
"They are subject matter experts with great ideas for branding and re-branding."
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.
We are a software company that creates a tool for apps similar to CRM and e-mail marketing for small businesses. I work in the marketing department and plan events for our users and strategic business partners.
What challenge were you trying to address with Resound?
We hold two large events annually, numbering 600 and 2,500 attendees each. We needed to outsource web design for these events when our in-house creative team was downsized 2.5 years ago.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They added functionality and redesign to our Drupal site in collaboration with our stripped-down creative team. The team did brand design in addition to coding and backend development. For one conference, they created 4 t-shirt designs from which we chose one as a giveaway for 500 attendees.
What is the team dynamic?
Resound has grown in size since the start of our engagement. Originally, we worked with a developer and Mike [Co-owner, Resound], who served as project manager. Since then, we’ve had three different project managers, but we still work with the same developer.
How did you come to work with Resound?
Our creative team had used them before and referred them. Our team also recommended a few others, but we decided to go with Mike’s team.
How much have you invested with them?
I'd prefer to leave that confidential.
What is the status of this engagement?
Work started in October 2015, and it is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The results are very subjective because our company’s stakeholders have limited their ability to be proactive. Our business model is better served by Resound responding to our creative needs than by them working as design partners. The relationship has definitely ebbed and flowed, but the results are mostly consistent and the team is very responsive.
How did Resound perform from a project management standpoint?
My confidence in them has increased as their company has grown. They understand our marketing needs and can ‘run with the ball’. We communicate regularly with weekly calls in the 3 months leading into an event. I never feel out of the loop with our Slack channel, which my boss uses as well. Overall, communication is fluid and transparent.
What did you find most impressive about them?
As the client, we feel very cared for. They’re willing to go the extra mile with personable customer service. Once, I placed an emergency call to our web designer on a Saturday. He picked up while mountain biking and performed triage in real time. That dedication isn’t very common today.
Are there any areas they could improve?
We crave more process, more timeline, and more project management from their end. Having more processes in place would give us higher visibility into the project. I’ve suggested implementing timelines or Gantt charts. However, there has been improvement in this area since work began.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Trust them to guide branding and marketing designs. They are subject matter experts with great ideas for branding and re-branding.
the project
Branding & Content Creation for Coworking & Leadership Program Service
"They always looked for a creative solution and worked with us to come up with something."
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.
MAC6 provides collaborative space for small businesses to grow their business. We have a co-working space, co-manufacturing space, and traditional commercial space for businesses. We help support their growth through the different offerings in real estate. We also have a culture focused leadership program piece of our business, which offers a variety of programs to help leaders and their teams scale and break through ceilings.
I’m the director of programs and COO [Chief Operating Officer].
What challenge were you trying to address with Resound?
We’ve been in business for six years. We started out as a business incubator. We worked with startup companies and took them through a 9-month program to help them scale their business and grow. Through that process, we realized it doesn't matter how great an idea is. It’s the people around the idea that make the difference. We started to hone in on leadership training and helping the people in the business, supporting them, helping them communicate better, solve problems, and work productively. We shifted from our incubator model to more focused on real estate and the leadership piece. We were finding that was the difference between success and failure. It caused a lot of confusion in our network and our community because we weren’t great at communicating the message of the shift we had made.
We needed Resound to help us craft a brand strategy and communication plan that would help us educate everyone in the community what we really do.
What was the scope of their involvement?
There was a wide range of things they did with us. They first took us through their 4-hour brand workshop to figure out our identity, our values, what we wanted, and where our business was going. They then crafted a brand shift story, communication plan, and helped us identify and create the story as people who would be in our demographic. Then we created a plan of what the other things that we wanted to accomplish.
They also helped us with our core program offering and helped us develop the content and facilitation piece. They helped us with content with an editorial calendar and assisted us with blog posts, too. Resound created some print collateral pieces for us as well, including a folder and one-pager sales sheets that help explain each of our programs.
In addition, they made a few updates and changes to our website. We’re going to be doing a complete re-do of our website in the coming weeks, which they’ll be helping us with.
What is the team dynamic?
We worked primarily with Mike [Managing Partner, Resound], who is on the large strategy and vision team. We worked with Eric [Director of Creative Services, Resound] on the project management side, but also on the course content and facilitation side. We worked with Kayla [Brand Strategist, Resound] on the content side who helped us with our writing.
When we work on the website, we’ll be with Nikki [Senior Web Developer, Resound] and Douglas [Web Developer, Resound].
How did you come to work with Resound?
They are a tenant of our co-working space and moved in a couple of years ago. When we realized there was continued confusion in the marketplace of what we do, that they were in our backyard, and heard really great things about them, we decided to talk to them about our marketing and brand needs.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested $27,000 for phase one.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in July 2017, and the work is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Resound helped our team tremendously to clearly articulate what it is that we do. We’ve already seen the results outside in our communities. When we went to events or talked to people, people were finally started to understand what we do and how to engage with us. We saw an increase in leads from our work with Resound.
How did Resound perform from a project management standpoint?
They were great. We had a plan and they even created a portal. We would go in and check the status of what was happening with each piece of the project. They were wonderful in communicating with us when things changed or when they needed something from us, so that we didn't delay the timeline. We were able to deliver all the deliverables on time that we set out to do. For the content and course creation, I met with them once a week. On the rest of the stuff, we had deadlines and we would check in when we needed to.
What did you find most impressive about them?
We at MAC6 tend to complicate things. Resound's ability to uncomplicate them and help us clearly articulate our message was wonderful. Their communication was great, too. We were never wondering when something was going to be done. The creative way that they solved our complex problems was impressive. They always looked for a creative solution and worked with us to come up with something. Resound had a clear process of how they were going to help take us through that process.
As a small business ourselves, sometimes we got overly ambitious and wanted to execute ourselves, and just needed a consultant. They were great at stepping in and offering their help when they saw we were taking on too much or didn't have the capacity. Their ability to transition between consulting, telling us what to do versus doing it, and going back and forth, was really helpful.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, we’ve worked with a variety of different marketing companies over the years. They really have been the easiest to work with.
Do you have any advice for future clients of Resound?
Allow them to work through their process. Sometimes people in a business want to keep control or try to micromanage the process. Resound can really help. My advice would be to let go a bit and allow them some free reign to be as creative as they can, and to not be there undoing that.
the project
Branding & WordPress Web Dev for CPA Firm
“They applied sound strategy to give us something that accurately represents our firm.”
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 marketing at a CPA firm in the Phoenix Metro Area. I oversee two other people and all of the marketing functions here at the firm, including branding, proposals, advertising, collateral pieces, content marketing, and marketing budgets.
What challenge were you trying to address with Resound?
We felt that our visual brand didn’t match who we were internally. We were fun, outgoing, and not your typical CPA firm, and we realized we were communicating otherwise. Visually and verbally, our communications were representing an old, stereotypical CPA firm, so I approached Resound to help us completely redo our branding.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We started with a brand audit back in June of 2015 where we spent 3 months surveying clients and employees. We also did some company research on who we are as a firm, and also audited all of our existing marketing materials.
After we used the brand audit to come up with an action plan, we hired Resound again to do the actual overhaul of the visual rebrand, logo, and tagline. They defined our visual and verbal guidelines, and also developed a Remarkabook, which took a few months. They did some minor logo design, brand guideline creation, and also developed our WordPress website.
We had an existing website that was 5 years old, but Resound created a more responsive one from scratch. It’s an informational website, but it also has a lot of contact forms throughout so prospects can easily contact us. It’s also easy for marketing to utilize now, whereas the old site required an external web person to do everything for us, which was costly. We’re now able to edit 95% of the content by using a CMS, which saves us money in the long run.
We have a form on the front that we can change throughout the site. We can also put e-books on it, or whatever kind of lead generation we desire.
How did you come to work with Resound?
I did a Google search for a local company. I came across one of Resound’s old blogs, and I felt like what they were saying about a brand resonated with our company.
I interviewed them along with two other companies, but still liked them the best. They really understood rebranding. They didn’t just want to give us a cool new logo or website, which is what other companies were offering. They really wanted to help us reshape how we present ourselves.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent $40,000 with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in June of 2015, and we launched our website in October of 2016.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
There’s usually a lot of negative feedback in a firm with numerous partners. However, between the 18 partners and 150 employees, we’ve had nothing but positive feedback from everyone. Everybody loved what Resound did. Visually, everything was great, and the website allowed us to measure success based on session times, page views, number of visitors, etc.
We tracked the first 6 months for the purpose of submitting for an AAM Award, which we won for the website and the rebrand as a whole. With that tracking, we had 1,200 sessions in the first 3 days of the website launch, which is huge for an accounting firm.
We also saw a 23% increase in page views for the first 6 months, a 20% increase in average time sessions, a 620% increase in visits to the services page, and a 600% increase in visits to leadership page. Our new and responsive website has also seen a 70% increase in mobile users in the first month. Resound really made a positive impact, and every single person within the firm was happy.
How did Resound perform from a project management standpoint?
They were great. They were really effective with communication throughout the entire process. We used Google Docs to work on content creation together so we could both have access to it. That’s the only tool we used collaboratively.
They were also very cooperative in working with our in-house team that consisted of myself, a graphics coordinator, and a content writer, which saved us a lot of money.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their ability to work with all kinds of people is impressive. They managed to make everyone within the firm happy, and their knowledge around branding is also commendable. They really understand the whole process from the beginning to end, and they’re also very good at creating a unique design. I didn’t want another stereotypical accounting firm website, because that’s not who we are. They applied sound strategy to give us something that accurately represents our firm.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, because I was able to address any issue with Mike [Managing Partner, Resound] throughout the entire rebranding process. I can’t think of anywhere in which they’re lacking.
the project
Logo Rebranding & Market Research for Civil Engineering Firm
“Without a doubt, the things they taught [and provided] will be helpful.”
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 one of the vice presidents and engineers at a small civil engineering firm. We were established in 1995, and we have around 25 employees right now. Our specialty is flood hydrology and fluvial geomorphology, mostly for government agencies in the Southwest U.S.
What challenge were you trying to address with Resound?
About five years ago, we transitioned from a single owner to employee-owned (about 18 of us). We realized that no one in the company was consistent with the brand, and we all communicated with our clients differently, which made us seem unorganized and scattered. Everyone in the Southwest had a different view of who we were and what we did, so we needed to get organized and consistent. Also, our project manager and I felt our brand had aged and the company had grown, so we wanted to develop a brand and logo that were authentic to what we’d become. Our 20th anniversary was coming up, so we wanted to freshen everything up and get a new site, logo, and maybe even name before then.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The first thing Mike [Managing Partner, Resound] and Jeff [Co-founder, Resound] did was internal and external market research. They surveyed employees to learn what the most important aspects of the company were, and they interviewed clients to discover what they thought of our company and what they liked or disliked. They also did competitor research, brand definition, brand auditing, action planning, and budget estimates.
They came back with a report of how we were perceived from the outside and the inside. From there, Mike and Jeff developed a brand metaphor and potential name options. I’d never heard of a brand metaphor, so they walked us through that and even participated in a strategic planning meeting with the whole company. Resound and another one of our consultants led the meeting and talked about the branding process and how to help us all unify our image.
Resound helped us realize that we’re a services company with a niche and a specialty. Our project manager and I helped shepherd the project, such as leading feedback sessions until we finally developed a new name and logo based on the brand metaphor. Unfortunately, the board thought the changes were too much, so they shelved the branding initiative.
This wasn’t a problem with Resound or their process, though. We had some strong resistance from inside our company to outside help, but they did a great job of overcoming that. Mike and Jeff identified a real problem in our company, that we have a vacuum in executive leadership since the ownership transition, so we've been waiting for leadership to develop before we attempt further branding changes. We tweaked the logo a bit, but that was done in-house.
How did you come to work with Resound?
I knew Mike from church, and we started talking about the branding process. I realized it was something valuable, so we hired his team.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent around $10,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The partnership lasted from May 2014 to May 2015. However, we need to develop a brand for some new software, and we want to hire them again.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
While we weren’t able to apply any of the major brand changes, Resound still left us with some great products. We have a brand metaphor, name and logo options, and market research that, hopefully in a few years, we can look at again and better utilize. Other than the physical products, the project manager and I learned a lot about the branding process. Mike and Jeff wouldn’t just go away, draw something up, and then present it to us. They took time to teach us the process, which was incredibly valuable. Without a doubt, the things they taught will be helpful down the road.
How did Resound perform from a project management standpoint?
Their management and customer service was phenomenal. Mike was great at scheduling meetings, coordinating tasks, and keeping on schedule. In fact, he usually had to wait on us.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their work product was great. They were responsive, and I was humbled by how much better they were at customer service than us. They served us much better than we served our clients, which is saying something. I could tell Mike really strives to help other companies have the best brand and marketing.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Nothing that I can think of.
Expertise and creative energy are demonstrable in mostly on-target results. While development progress is transparent, more process and timeline management are desired. Effective use of communication tools keeps workflow fluid.