The new SMS website is optimized for engagement, with easily digestible marketing messages and contact buttons placed liberally throughout. The modern-rustic design supports our brand as one that helps primarily—but not exclusively—small-to-midsize B2B marketers who are looking to complement their existing marketing efforts with a wide range of affordable and customizable services, while treating each client like a member of the SMS family. That’s who we are, who we’ve always been, and who we’re showing the world in a new way.
The SMS difference has always been predicated on a full range of in-house services that maintain creative consistency while avoiding cascading markups, and for the most part that coordinated-services concept still stands. However, digital marketing tools are now available to everyone, and file sharing allows for multiple vendors to—at least in theory—stay on the same page. Still, successfully incorporating new technology requires more than simply plugging things in and making them go. Ease of automation means resources can quickly disappear without lead-generating results, and too often programs are half-implemented and left to flounder. In many cases, digital initiatives are abandoned, allowing the competition to dominate search engine results pages (SERPs) and, as follows, market share.
So, when discussing the update, the SMS team sat down and tried to figure out how to best demonstrate our forty years of accumulated knowledge without appearing out-of-touch. So gone were the dense paragraphs of copy that were okay for SEO but rarely engaged, and in were snippets of marketing wisdom that caught the eye – much like the copy extractions seen in magazine and meme culture. We know that viewers have become more attuned to short, impactful messaging and we wanted to use that. But we also wanted to make sure the messages built on one another rather than create a scattered, disconnected series of thoughts. No matter where you look on the website, you’ll pick up something you can use whether it be a piece of copy, a headline or an image that relates to whatever section of the site you’re currently viewing. There are more general bits to ingest as well, with ideas that are meant to apply to a wider range of marketing perspectives and disciplines.
We also sought to convey our tucked-away family style while communicating a palpable grasp of the various high-tech, industrial and manufacturing markets we primarily serve, and the latest digital tools now available to promote them. We’re fans of effective contrast that serves to highlight the beauty and strengths of seemingly disparate elements, and for decades clients who spent much of their time in the whirring environs of manufacturing facilities or the sterile clean rooms of highly structured laboratories enjoyed meeting with us at our rural location and hashing out marketing plans or cooking up campaign themes. We think we were able to mirror that balance by incorporating a smooth, modern interface that made it easy to slip around the colorful, pastoral backgrounds that frame a wide range of industrial B2B imagery. And when we say “come visit”, we mean it. We’ll head your way whenever you need us—we love a good marketing meeting at the many different facilities of our clients and prospects—but having folks here let’s us roll out our special brand of bucolic hospitality.
All of these design considerations follow a single thread of purpose: getting the conversation going. The tone of the site is conversational for a reason – we want B2B and B2C companies to talk to us, honestly, about their likes, dislikes and concerns. Asking questions, providing feedback, telling jokes; we love it all and want to hear from those folks that spend their days (and nights) working up marketing strategies to increase sales and grow their businesses. Knowing how to affordably strengthen company brands, lay out a complicated catalog design, animate a complex process, or write engaging technical copy is only useful if those activities are informed by a well-researched and workshopped marketing plan. And the best way to get one of those is to start talking.
Above all, we still believe in strong, lasting relationships. We have many, and to show our appreciation we’re offering bundled services that help all budgets market their products and services using both traditional and digital tools where they make sense. That’s always been the SMS difference: in-house, affordable, and coordinated services combining the creative with the practical that keep your company visible and growing.