Marketing Excellence Awards: The Apostrophe

O’Neal (Greenville, SC), an industrial engineering and construction firm, is taking home third place in the External Newsletter category of Zweig Group’s 2015 Marketing Excellence Awards for The Apostrophe. The O’Neal team’s goal in developing an external newsletter was to establish and position O’Neal as a thought leader and AEC industry expert. They also wanted to provide relevant industry information and knowledge to existing and target clients, and help prospects and customers maintain a pulse on industry trends and activity. Through the distribution of The Apostrophe, they wanted to develop a platform to talk about O’Neal’s projects, project delivery systems, recognition, and advancing technology and processes. Prior to the development of The Apostrophe, O’Neal evaluated competitor newsletters, researched industry trends, followed industry thought leaders, and solicited feedback from prospects and clients on items and topics that were important to them. The piece would be defined by a mix of industry features, project spotlights, and O’Neal news that would create the feeling of the newsletter being a valid source of valuable engineering, construction, and economic information rather than a marketing piece. The Apostrophe has definitely had an impact on people who have become O’Neal clients. To gauge the effectiveness of the newsletter, O’Neal used face-to-face meetings with clients. The O’Neal team found that they achieved their goals with The Apostrophe by increasing awareness of O’Neal and positioning themselves with key points of differentiation. O’Neal has even experienced many of its clients calling to ask for more information or a breakdown of article subjects and how they were handled. For more info on the Marketing Excellence Awards click here.