Perspectives

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.  

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. 

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. 

From Our Blog

  • Cost-effective content marketing

    Fresh content on a website is one of the most important ways search engines rank where you will be found - on page one, or buried.

    Content marketing uses online content to increase the visibility of an organization and is an effective marketing method. Done right, it can help you get to page one.

    Many organizations have experienced staff, provide good services, and have everything needed to create great content with the regularity needed for this kind of marketing, but find it difficult to do so. We can solve that for you. We will turn what it is you do into effective web content. In short, we make content marketing easy for you. Contact us to find out about our rates and to discuss how we can help.

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  • Consortiums, initiatives, associations and partnerships

    They all have the same challenge - and advantages. They require everyone to get in the boat, to row in sync together, and to row in a shared direction.

    Integrated Media Strategies has more than a decade of experience working highly successfully with these kinds of communications projects. We have spent hours in committees getting groups of people to come to agree on shared areas where strategic positioning of messaging can benefit all parties. And then working with those partners to implement the communications tactics to make it all work. We like herding cats.

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  • Integrating Communications

    Many organizations are facing the current communications revolution with teams organized to create and disseminate information and grow business for what worked as little as two years ago.

    Coherent Marketing can assist organizations either set up new integrated digital communications structures or help transition communications teams.  This communications revolution is not just about technology, but the way in which organizations should be conceptualizing content, leveraging opportunities for new niche audiences and new business, vetting material, distributing authentic communications, archiving material and reviewing metrics. Social and digital media have empowered people to be able to easily talk about you and share their opinions and experiences. And that includes future clients as can also be deliberately negative from your competition.

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