Crescent Brands, the nation’s leading manufacturer and marketer of mat boards and art products, serves artists and framers throughout North America and around the globe. Due to a steep drop in the number of independently owned frame shops, Crescent was forced to shift its sales team’s focus to larger corporate clients and rely on distributors to sell its products into independent frame shops. This left a gap in brand messaging to set Crescent apart from its competitors. That’s when Stevens & Tate Marketing entered the picture.
Before developing a marketing campaign, Stevens & Tate needed to uncover Crescent’s key competitive advantages and pen them in a way that employees and distributors could easily and powerfully articulate. With client input, we crafted six competitive advantages, which together gave Crescent leadership positioning in the marketplace. One of the six advantages, Offering vast selection so every piece can shine, was the starting point for the new campaign messaging, Make it Shine Clever headlines like Make it POP, Make it BRIGHT, Make it LAST, and Make it CHIC promoted numerous attributes of Crescent’s vast product selection .
To attract visitors to the Crescent website, Stevens & Tate communicated the new message through a series of inbound and outbound marketing efforts. Website copy was revamped to be more SEO friendly while adding relevant content to address the specific needs of frame shop owners. We then implemented a blog program with topics that highlighted Crescent’s competitive advantages to keep the target audiences engaged. This content was repurposed for social media posts as well as lead nurturing emails sent to the client’s database. To drive new leads, we partnered with the industry’s leading trade publication to execute emails, run advertisements and publish articles. This combination of public relations, reach out media and inbound marketing allowed Crescent to stay top-of-mind with frame shops without taxing the resources of its sales team.
