A communications project with which Coherent Marketing was involved for four years is at risk. The visibility our communications afforded the initiative attracted more than $1.2 billion in new investments and expansions to North Carolina in the advanced manufacturing sector and helped create more than 6,000 new jobs. You could have read about it on the website, but the website is down, returning a Fatal error.
At the heart of the project was a website that supported the advanced manufacturing training departments of 10 community colleges. The statewide training initiative showcased the specialized equipment, close collaborations with industry, instructor credentials, and technical curricula. It also provided successful examples of how graduates and students were placed as interns in the workplace at facilities across the state. This information gave industry a risk-free method to find candidates for advanced manufacturing positions - a win-win for both candidates and industry. In the same way as complex multi-axis machine tools need maintenance, so too do websites based on database-driven content management systems.

- By: Norman Smit
- In: Projects
- Hits: 986
Many community colleges have extremely limited communications budgets and personnel and have not invested in the capacity needed to provide communications and positioning that results in transformative economic development in their communities. A project with which Coherent Marketing has been involved for several years shows how smart, sustained strategic communications can dramatically impact economic development in 21st Century job sectors.
The North Carolina Advanced Manufacturing Alliance received an $18 million US DOL grant to upgrade equipment and curricula for specialized advanced manufacturing training at 10 community colleges in largely rural counties that had lost jobs to offshoring. Integrated Media Strategies was brought on early in the project in 2011, and provided branding, marketing and communications support. We developed a website and social media accounts and worked with college instructors and staff to sustainably create content in line with strategic positioning goals.
In September of 2015, the return on investment (ROI) on the $18 million has been more than $1.3 billion in new capital investments and expansions in the counties the colleges serve and more 6,600 jobs created.
- By: Norman Smit
- In: Projects
- Hits: 18707
Each year, the African Leadership Institute picks some of Africa's top up-and-coming young leaders for an intensive week-long leadership programme. Coherent Marketing arranged for all of the 25 Fellows to be interviewed on topical leadership issues and the challenges facing Africa. Those interviews now form the basis for an integrated communications campaign that will assist in promoting the work and legacy of the institute, as well as the personal profiles of the Fellows themselves.
The interviews have been broken up into short, bite-sized interviews covering a single subject, topic or issue. These are being uploaded to YouTube and will then be embedded in individualized video pages on the institute's website with all the usual SEO associated with these kinds of pages. These pages will then be shared on social media over time in a staggered roll-out, providing sustained interest and content for the insitute. In total, about 70 videos will be produced, so the rollout over social media will last at least three months.
- By: Norman Smit
- In: Projects
- Hits: 12256