No more random acts of marketing.

Loving better means loving strategy. Our purpose in every engagement is to help clients communicate as effectively as possible while achieving maximum ROI—but that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through well planned, thoughtfully conceived strategy.

In every aspect of the strategy work we do, we use research to make decisions based on evidence, not on intuition alone. Sometimes our gut is right, but we prefer the confidence—and the success—that comes from consistently planning our work and working our plan.

An oft-quoted New York department store executive once said, “I know I waste half the money I spend on advertising. The problem is, I don’t know which half.”

Our response? Hogwash.

Knowing sooner is better.

Don't be the client who says, "Of course it's a good idea...the Universe will take care of it," then loses a quarter million dollars. Instead, be the client who gets the tough answers to tough questions up front.

Our validation process is designed to help you do just that. In fact, we help budding entrepreneurs and established corporations test ideas for new products and offerings by getting them in front of the right people to gather invaluable feedback.

Before you invest big, invest a little to ensure your idea is a winner. If most people in your market don't think they’ll buy underpants for their pet rodents, you need to know that before you mortgage your house.

Hit the right nail on the head, every time.

Have you ever hit the wrong nail on the head? Nothing is as frustrating as great execution that comes with no reward because it was based on the wrong strategy. It's a waste of time, energy and money.

Targeting is the foundational component of any brand strategy, for upon it hinges everything you do and say--even the way you look and feel.

We'll help you develop an effective targeting strategy by doing the research necessary to understand who you should really be selling to. We’ll segment your audience into targeting personas that bring to life the demographic and psychographic profiles of the people you’re trying to reach.

So whether your market consists of Summertime Moms, C-Suite Captains, Nearly Nesters or Frequent Flyer Execs, trust our strategy team to make sure you never hit the wrong nail on the head...or miss the nail altogether.

Stake your claim.

Your position is the real estate you own in the collective mind of the market. Let the market know who you are and what role you play. If you don't stake your claim, consumers will do so for you. Or worse yet, competitors may relegate you to a position that's advantageous for them.

Through our brand positioning process, we’ll help you establish an effective position that will resonate with your target audience and get you noticed.

Messages targeted for brand success.

So, you've established your target market and you know your brand position. Now you need to effectively communicate a compelling value proposition. If you miss the messaging part of this equation, you'll miss the mark.

That's where our messaging experts earn their keep. We're adept at identifying the core messages that need to be communicated and turning them into creative messaging platforms that consist of headlines, subheads, supporting text and proof points--content that is ready for use on your website or in your next advertising campaign.

Better process, better results.

As good as a hunch may be, it's just that--a hunch. Through our time-proven Brand Effect™ strategy development process, we build better brands that are based on research, not on instinct alone.

Brand Effect™ combines desktop research with first-hand stakeholder research to provide a very clear picture of how your brand is doing and how it's perceived in the marketplace. Based on research, we develop a concise, long-term blueprint for targeting, positioning, messaging, brand architecture, tonality, personality, and strategies and tactics™. All of our vital strategy work rolled into one smoothly executed process.

Whether you're launching a new brand or retooling an established one, Brand Effect™ will remove the marketing guesswork that causes so many businesses to fail. It's a thorough strategy development tool that has helped dozens of companies to increase the impact of their brands and the ROI of their marketing.

What's in a name?

Basically, everything.

Start with all the logos of your competitors, then strip away the colors, designs and font treatments. All you'll be left with is pure, unadulterated names. Some will be unique. Some will be ownable. Some will be eerily similar to each other and easily forgotten.

Good corporate names and product names have the power to make a first, very important brand impression. A clever, memorable name goes a long way in helping a brand to differentiate itself and show leadership.

If you need a new name for your company, product or service, our seven-step naming process will help you establish a name that instantly brings your brand to life and makes it stick.

Make it extra sticky.

The goal of a tag line is to provide stakeholders of your brand with something to latch on to...something their minds just can't let go of. Ideally, a tag line will evoke the feeling of your brand position, but it might also need to be descriptive if the name of your product or service hasn't yet established enough brand power to be recognizable.

Through a multi-stage process that begins with research and ends with screening for trademarkability, our messaging experts will get cozy with your brand and then propose tag line options that powerfully position you.

Trade that shotgun for a rifle!

No more shooting from the hip! And no more blasting away aimlessly when you can be acutely focused on just the right target.

When it comes to marketing, the more focused you can be, the less money you have to spend. We’ll make your marketing program better by powerfully integrating creative strategies and tactics to achieve maximum exposure and conversion within your specific target audiences.

Complete with implementation calendars and budgets, our marketing plans will take the guesswork--and the frustration--out of your marketing. Always designed to build memorable brands while producing measurable results, our plans and campaigns will increase the ROI of your marketing investment.

What would it be like to have a CMO in your back pocket?

Not everyone can afford to have a Chief Marketing Officer on their payroll, but most companies need one--someone to direct the big-picture thinking of the marketing program, to work side-by-side the executive team in setting company strategy and to oversee the effective development and implementation of marketing strategies and tactics.

We've got just the person for you, a CMO for hire who will be on retainer for 10 hours, 20 hours or even 60 hours a month to make your marketing program better by steering the ship and ensuring you never go off course.

You silver-tongued devil, you...

Copy writing is the process of developing content and verbiage for a website, advertisement or any other kind of marketing collateral—and it's absolutely essential to the success of your marketing program.

Even the most beautifully designed marketing piece or website will be ineffective if its message is not written well. If it's not compelling to read and if it doesn't communicate a clear selling proposition or brand message, you've lost.

We'll help you maximize the ROI of your marketing dollars by writing content that establishes a clear brand position and is designed to convert. Our professional copy writers can write for every type of media and for every marketing objective, both online and off.

Don't leave the success of your marketing to chance by making content an afterthought; it's really the driving element of every strategy and tactic you pursue.

If you rank on the fifth page of Google and nobody sees you, do you really exist?

For all intents and purposes, no.

Being ranked tenth instead of first on the front page of Google means being clicked at least 10 times less than the top spot—regardless of how much better your offering might be. On top of that, only 10% of Google users look beyond page one search results, making you effectively dead to the world if you're not ranking.

After you've built a great site that's designed and developed to perfection, don't let it go unnoticed. Whether you're looking for local or national exposure, our SEO team will get you ranked and drive the traffic you need to build your business and your brand.

We do SEO better by not locking our clients into annual contracts and by offering a fair pricing model that reduces our fees as our effort shifts from launch to maintenance.

A creative solution for every challenge and opportunity.

We dedicate ourselves to better by harnessing creativity to solve the unique challenges and opportunities presented in every client project. Most designers want to make things look better, but we want to make them look better and work better. We avidly believe that form follows function, and we love to solve business problems through design.

This commitment to functional design is bolstered by the symbiotic relationship we enjoy with the mobile app and Web developers in our office--further allowing beauty and function to interconnect and build each other. Similarly, we leave agency snootiness to uptight Madison Avenue types and always invite our clients to be fully engaged in the creative process.

The end result? Our philosophy leads to designs that powerfully communicate each client's brand and particular way of doing business. We're resourceful, out-of-the-box designers who genuinely want our clients to succeed, and we do everything in our power to make sure they do.

The all-important first impression.

Visual identity is an outward symbol of the values, culture and promise inherent in a brand. Though logos and identity packages do not create brand loyalty, they are the touchpoints at which first impressions are made, frequently drawing people in or turning people away from further association with the brand.

As brand identity specialists, we work closely with our strategy team to bring brand strategies to life in unique expressions of each client's unique culture and personality.

Maximize the impact of your message.

Your sales tools and other marketing collateral don't just have to look good, they have to be super effective at quickly communicating the exact messages you intend your target audience to receive. Great design makes information easy to understand and remember, naturally prioritizing what the recipient needs most while making it beautiful to look at.

Whether we're working on print advertisements, brochures, trade show booths, catalogs or vehicle wraps—or anything in between—our commitment that form follows function makes our clients' marketing collateral effective in its message presentation and calls to action.

Is your website your worst employee?

Few people would disagree that for today's brands, the website is the most important brand touchpoint. Next only to the people representing you directly, your website does more than anything else to engage prospective clients, serve existing ones, present vast amounts of information and provide tools through which brand relationships can grow.

If your website has been sleeping on the job or has let its dress and grooming standards lag, it's time for a refresh. Whatever state it's in, we can make it better, easier to use, more inviting to look at and more effective in capturing new business.

Intuitive is the watch word.

Whether you're dealing with a website, a mobile app or a piece of software, creating an intuitive user interface is of paramount importance. We believe interfaces can be so much more enjoyable and user friendly than what is typically designed.

How something works, or enabling the user to interact naturally and effortlessly with an environment, should be the first consideration when developing any user experience. After our user experience experts have planned out a website, app or software interface, our designers bring the framework to life by adding functional elegance, making it as easy to look at as it is to use.

Designed to be everywhere.

With smartphones now used by more than half of the U.S. population, mobile apps have reinvented the way people live and the way effective marketers market. Each year, mobile purchases dwarf laptop- and desktop-based purchases because they’re designed to be everywhere, conveniently offering you a new product or service in the very moment you need it.

Drawing on our expertise in UX and UI design, we design mobile apps that help our clients extend their brands by accompanying their users wherever they go. As trends skew further and further toward mobile technology, your brand would do well to consider the endless possibilities that await.

We judge everything by its cover.

Though we were all admonished as children to never judge a book by its cover, it's in our human nature to judge everything by the way it's presented. Well-designed brochures get read more, high-design/high-functionality websites get used more, and richly packaged products have a higher perceived value and sell for more money.

Whether you're selling auto parts, honey, lipstick or golf balls, we'll help you with product packaging that gets looked at first and that rings for more dollars at the register.

Big canvas, big impact.

Physical space has the power to change the mood for good or bad. What effect does your space have on the morale of your employees and on the way your brand is perceived by visitors to your office?

We can help you make a canvas of your culture by branding some of your work environment. Think of your colors, brand identity and messaging all powerfully coming to life on your office walls to create a brand experience that captivates the senses and lets people know that you’re a force to be reckoned with.

We like to move it, move it.

Motion graphics and animation make information easy to consume and very memorable. We take great pride in bringing our clients' brands to life through a signature style of motion designed and created just for them.

Do you have a complex message that needs to be simplified and explained quickly? Motion design may be the solution you’re looking for.

Masters of Technology

So much of our strategy and creative thinking needs to come to life online, so we have assembled one of Utah's leading Web development teams, speaking a combined total of more than a dozen programming languages.

And our crack team of developers frequently participate in the creative process, too, collaboratively helping us espouse technology and creativity to find solutions and develop ideas that are wonderfully simple and powerfully effective.

Specialists in front-end development, complex database programming, Web applications, mobile apps, content management systems and eCommerce, our in-house development team works side by side with our strategists and creatives to help our clients build better brands.

Sell it better.

Have you ever been in a crowded store with flickering lights and a bad smell wafting out the front door? Did it make you want to shop? Lots of factors go into a good shopping experience--and online shopping is no exception.

We have deep experience in designing and developing eCommerce sites on both ends of the spectrum—everything from simple event registration systems with three-step checkouts to catalog sites with thousands of SKUs. In either case, we create great online shopping experiences that maximize sales.

So, if your eCommerce site is providing users with the equivalent shopping experience of unstocked shelves and long lines at the checkout, let's talk about rebuilding your storefront.

Better control. And save time and money.

If you're like us, you probably agree that you shouldn't be forever tied to a Web development firm for changes to a website. To make website maintenance as easy as possible for our clients, we frequently build in content management systems that allow for a wide range of content changes with no need for HTML or other programming languages.

We are specialists in WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Drupal, DotNetNuke and a variety of other platforms. Through any of these implementations, our goal is to create a back-end experience that is intuitive and easy to use for any of your staff.

Whatever you throw at us.

If your goal is to stump our development team with a programming challenge, you better bring your A game. We speak a dozen programming languages and have nearly 200 years of combined experience.

Quite frankly, we love all that the Web has to offer. From quick microsites and WordPress implementations to large eCommerce sites and complex Web applications that take months to build, we’re in our element.

Whatever we're working on, some things are constant, like our commitment to writing clean code that is easy to understand and won't bog down servers, as well as our penchant for making sites work fast and deliver an incredible user experience.

Development on the go.

As demand for mobile apps has increased, our offering has expanded to include iOS and Android development.

We work hand in glove with the design team in planning out the applications we build, making sure that design and development are in sync from step one in creating the optimal user experience.

Create a competitive advantage.

We love to help our clients empower their computers to do the work. If there's a recurring process in your business that is bogging things down and eating up valuable time, let's help you automate it with a software application.

After a study of your business logic and processes, we’ll build some software that helps you save time and money by dramatically increasing the processing power of your organization--often to the point of creating a competitive advantage you didn't have before.

From Jeff Reeves, Co-Owner of Box Home Loans:

"Our main competitive advantage is our technology. Because of the application that Eli Kirk designed and built for us--including a public website and an extensive admin site that was built to our specific business logic--we are able to originate and process seven times the number of loans per employee than the average mortgage shop. Because of Eli Kirk's work, we are able to make money at profit margins our competitors think are ridiculous."