Archive for the ‘Client news’ Category

When Carlisle/Wortman Associates developed and wrote a technology planning toolkit for Oakland County, we pitched it as a story to the Michigan Township Association’s magazine.  At the time, they weren’t interested.  Two years passed.  This past February, I got an email from Jenn Fiedler, editor of Michigan Townships News.  They’d lost the cover story for the April issue.  Could Carlisle/Wortman provide them with a 3,000-word toolkit summary by March 1?   You bet!  Here’s the result 4/28/10

Harvey Ovshinsky’s March 27 “How to produce a career in film and video” presentation at Eastern Michigan University was packed with great career tips, lots of motivation and plain old common sense.  If you want to break into a new field, or understand a prospective client or write a better news release, follow Harvey’s advice:  “Embrace your stupidity.”  Call somebody who knows something – a friend of a friend or even a complete stranger – and ask if they’ll give you 10 minutes of wisdom in their specialty.  People love to talk about themselves and their work.  Ten minutes will turn into 20 and you’ll have a fresh perspective and maybe even a referral to the next best person to interview. 3/31/10

Here’s one of our latest projects:  A new Web site and e-newsletter for Ken Hebenstreit, Bookseller. We chose the developer because they are specialists in online bookstores.  They have a superior back end, but their design parameters were limited.  Still, we used it to serve our underlying marketing strategy.

Among book sellers, with stores and on the Web, even those named for their founder never feature that person.  That’s natural.  They want to expand and need to be able to delegate to others. We wanted to differentiate Ken from the rest.  In his narrow niche, he will always be a solo act.

Our strategy then was to give the site Ken’s personality, using his photo and writing in a breezy, first-person style. Ken’s product line, first edition fiction, is highly specialized and technical.  People spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on a book.  They have to trust him.

Photographer Robert Stewart took beautifully-lit photos of Ken and his books.  Designer Nancy Cohen took her inspiration from Ken’s lavender shirt to create a colorful palette with purple, orange and green.  (OK, it looks a little like Fed Ex, but only if you think about it.)

We revised Ken’s Constant Contact e-newsletter to match and created new business cards and new signage and sports shirts for book fairs.  2/26/10

Municipalities find that privatizing their building departments is one of the easiest ways to ease their budget woes.  Crain’s Detroit Business reports on a new initiative by Carlisle/Wortman Associates.  Here’s the Crain’s article or, if you don’t have a subscription (and, pray, why not?), view it here.