Atlantic Business Technologies, Inc.

Author: Atlantic BT

The Pain Point: How to Market Honestly without Being Negative
Why Do We Even Have Conflict?

Storytelling 101: conflict is essential to a good story. There’s a protagonist, she wants something, but something else gets in the way. That, in a nutshell, is conflict.

The trouble is, many people who ask writers for marketing stories don’t like conflict. It’s uncomfortable. You take a person, organization, or business that we all like, identify with, and want to succeed. Then you tell me that bad, unpleasant things happened, causing this person, organization, or business to suffer. In marketing narratives, we call these pain points—those specific vulnerabilities and setbacks which a business had to overcome if they wanted to survive.

So if conflict and pain points are uncomfortable and negative, why not minimize or even do away with them? It’s easier than you think. For example, here are the stories of some of last year’s Oscar winners with conflict removed:
1. THE BIG SHORT
2. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
3. THE REVENANT
  
  (via drafthouse.com)
Why Stories Need Conflict

If you went and saw a movie like these three, you’d want your money back. Why? Because these stories aren’t compelling. No one wants to watch a hero at the height of his powers win an easy victory. Instead, we’re drawn to vulnerability, struggle, and hardship—there’s something cinematic and powerful in that moment when the protagonist of a story is truly at a loss, and we the viewers aren’t sure he’s going to make it.

Why? Because we all know what it’s like to struggle. There’s a basic, human connection in seeing likable characters at their lowest point, and a raw, uncompromised joy at seeing them turn it around and—against all odds—win.

And the same principle applies in case study stories. Ironically, qualities that make a company more admirable in real life—like expert management, profitability, or efficiency—can quickly make an audience disregard their stories. It’s not that we hate winners; it’s that dominant companies who never struggle make for boring reading.

In an age of social media chest-beating and self-congratulating advertisements, honest vulnerability is powerful. We the audience are suddenly trusted with intimate details, let into the inside story of what was at stake. And unlike the movies, this story is REAL. When we read about a real company who faced real hardship at risk of losing everything, we lean forward and think: “This can’t be how it ends. How are they going to turn things around?”

How to Avoid Excessive Suffering

A classic critique here is “But isn’t this kind of story too negative?” It CAN be, if the story ends before the company overcomes its challenges. After all, a story that introduces conflict and then forces us to watch while the conflict crushes the protagonist into submission is an even worse story than the boring victory described above. However, telling the story of how a company prevails over its challenges with the help of better technology and management IS a story worth telling—it’s the classic “Come From Behind” victory rather than “Starting Behind and Staying Behind” tragedy.

This is when vulnerability and being honest is critical, because this is when we move past vague, generic negativity and into a specific, tangible place of truth. The entire world might not get better, but this one person/company could and did (and if they can, then maybe everyone who watches this has a shot.).

Now that your audience is leaning forward and attached to your story, just tell them how you helped this company win. And keep the victory personal—numbers and improvement stats are vital to a winning story, but including a short anecdote about when it all came together will make your narrative even more memorable. If this echoes the original “I don’t know if they’re going to make it” moment, all the better.

Pain points are part of life, and your audience knows it. But with a real, vulnerable narrative, pain points can be what make your story powerful, effective, and well-worth sharing.
February 7, 2018
How WordPress Empowered Campbell’s Higher Ed Brand
Ask any brand marketer why brand consistency is important and you’ll get a variety of answers. Most boil down to how a consistent brand allows you to convey your values, manage perceptions, and grow within a framework. When your brand or messaging is inconsistent, there can be an erosion of trust or confidence from your audience. Over time that results in negative returns from any promotional efforts—which is why more and more higher education institutions are taking branding seriously.

66% of colleges have spent more than $100,000 on brand strategy development.

–The Chronicle of Higher Education

Beyond the creative challenges associated with higher ed branding, there are significant technical hurdles to portraying a united brand on a university website with multiple programs and schools. That in mind, this blog post will use my company’s recent collaboration with Campbell University as a working example of how we overcame the technical roadblocks in Campbell’s way. We met the issues Campbell University faced with WordPress’ multi-site installation to give Campbell the digital platform they needed so they could freely focus on performing their best brand work.

Campbell University and the Need for a Shared Framework

First, some background about Campbell University’s legacy site: the university had a website for their main campbell.edu property, and each individual school at Campbell. The central Marketing Communications (CMC) team had limited influence over the content produced by each school and whether it complied with Campbell’s branding or not.

Notice the differences between the sites for Campbell’s Divinity and Law Schools. We needed to unify the brand look across Campbell’s schools and programs.

As you might imagine, this led to a confusing user experience because the look, feel, and tone of a Campbell.edu page could change substantially as you navigated across school sites. Campbell University’s Assistant Vice President of Communication and Marketing, Haven Hottel, described the legacy campbell.edu as “disjointed”:

“The site was a collection of independent websites connected to a central university site. Beyond the top level, there was little visual and navigational consistency; two of our colleges and schools operated outside of the current CMS; and there was not a clear URL naming structure.”

As Campbell’s partner for their site redesign, we wanted to change this situation by balancing university governance with empowering stakeholders across Campbell. This meant changing the web environment from every department having their own tool to everyone having a shared framework from which to produce content for their schools—content that had a universally-branded look and feel.

The key to accomplishing this was a multi-site installation of WordPress. We built each school’s property as their own website within the global campbell.edu domain. This allows each of them to have their own space to produce content, style their pages, and generally retain the control they wanted. As for the CMC team, they are now able to utilize user permissions and workflows for content production within WordPress. This helps achieve their goals for content production and brand integrity. Now they can review and provide direction for all the content their stakeholders produce as well as how pages are styled going forward.

By enabling content managers across Campbell to designate user roles and privileges, we helped university stakeholders contribute to their branded sites without going off-brand.

This shared framework has brought together the CMC team and the content producers at the schools in a new way, and sets Campbell up for success going forward. The results so far have been on par with the original intention: freedom for all to contribute, but within the framework of the core brand.

How We Set Campbell Up for Brand Success on WordPress

Campbell’s client profile is unique. The CMC team planned to own the whole website and brand ecosystem going forward and support it for their constituents—the schools. Within this atmosphere, there were a number of objectives we wanted to achieve throughout the life of the project:
- Position the CMC team as the project lead to their constituents.
- Incorporate the CMC team as a part of the ABT team in all facets of production.
- Give them the knowledge base needed to move forward.
- Help secure traction at the highest levels of the university for the initiative.
To achieve these objectives, we created processes and played roles newer to ABT. One process we implemented was “tearing down the wall” between the client and project teams: the CMC team were at our office weekly for all-day working sessions, participated in our huddles, reviewed work-in-progress, created some designs, and generally worked together with our experts all throughout the lifecycle of the project. In short, we operated as one team. This gave the CMC daily details on the project to communicate to their constituents while enabling us to move at a much faster pace than usual.

We also have now created two permanent documents that go along with the product we built. The first is a product specifications document that outlines all facets of the websites’ functions. Typically we create a specs doc during most projects, but for this product we wanted to make sure it would live on permanently after product launch. The second is an instructions document for the CMS itself. These documents are referenceable by the CMC team, their constituents, and even the ABT team going forward as new features or people are introduced to the product. We continue to keep these documents current so the information is always relevant and useful.

Lastly, we partnered with the CMC team to explain the “why” of this initiative at the highest levels of the university. We presented to the deans of Campbell University, explaining why this web redesign effort was important to their institution, its brand, and its success going forward. Providing an expert voice from an outside party can better position any client to engineer loyalty from their audience. By conducting this exercise early on, we helped earn credibility for the project to secure the proper participation along the way.

The Right Strategy for Your Higher Ed Site

The new global-minded look of campbell.edu helped unify the brand of every department in the university.

The new Campbell.edu has been a big success for both incoming students and the university’s various schools and departments. As Hottel described:

“The feedback from our campus units regarding the website transformation has been overwhelmingly positive. By approaching the project from a “global” perspective, the entire site maintains a consistent visual identity with site-wide structure for search and navigation.”

No two universities’ challenges are exactly the same, and there are a myriad of solutions that could work for you. There may be a different technical roadblock standing in your way that we can help you overcome. After the success of ABT’s redesign of Campbell.edu, we look forward to partnering with more higher education clients to find the web technology and CMS design that works best for them. If you’re interested in working with ABT, we’d love to talk about your challenges and what technology ABT can provide so you can have the best possible foundation on which to succeed.
January 23, 2018
ABT Modernizes Site for NC Department of Revenue
Atlantic BT is proud to announce the launch of the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s new website. A partnership that began in 2015 (as ABT was collaborating with NC.gov) has come to fruition with a stronger and more streamlined DOR site that provides easier access for both taxpayers and DOR staff.

Because of the many rules and processes of NC tax policy, the restructuring of the DOR site required ABT to tackle complex situations with nuance and care. Our team conducted extensive research to ascertain the needs of taxpayers as well as internal users who maintained the site. This research led us to shift the web experience to focus on the tasks users wanted to accomplish on the site rather than the identity of the users themselves. This task-oriented approach became a defining characteristic of the project.

User Research Provides Answers for State Government

Using Tree Test Diagrams developed from an in-depth persona workshop, our designers created an ideal path for different users to follow when visiting the DOR site. The UX needed to be just as clear for a user looking for general information as it was to a taxpayer who had a specific issue to be addressed.

This tree test shows possible user paths for checking the status of an NC tax return.

Keeping this in mind, we migrated the site over to a new platform powered by Drupal. This gave internal users more autonomy and flexibility, making it easier to update the site as technology and tax laws changed. At the same time, Drupal enabled strong governance over the different internal users to ensure their updates fit the larger vision of the department. Redesigned information architecture, which was now data-informed rather than data-driven, also established much needed clarity to enhance the user experience across the site.

New Offerings on NCDOR.gov

Everyone has a story of a tax situation gone awry. Our Research Manager Randy Earl shared one that he experienced while he was working on this project:

“Resolving complex tax issues can often feel like being trapped in an endless loop of frustration,” he said. “Finding the right information and understanding the process can make all the difference; that’s why making this site stronger and more accessible for taxpayers is so important.”

Data-informed information architecture powered this new user interface for NCDOR.gov.

The new DOR site will now lead users exactly to where they need to be and create opportunities for tax issues to be remedied easily for everyone involved. Atlantic BT achieved this with:
- A reorganized and modernized web interface with user-friendly access to essential pages.
- A shared design platform with other NC Government branches for clarity and unity.
- Mobile-friendly site capabilities.
- Updated technology with the ability to maintain pace with ever-changing user needs and tax laws.
Tax related stress is no joke. That’s why the DOR wanted to ensure that its new design prioritized the user, making the entire process as simple as possible and perhaps even enjoyable. Atlantic BT is proud to work alongside the DOR and looks forward to future collaborations to build NC.gov sites that support and empower the people of North Carolina.
December 14, 2017
ABT Launches Award-Winning Site for Training Industry
We are proud to announce the launch of the new TrainingIndustry.com. As a trusted source of information on the business of learning, Training Industry, Inc. provides in-depth articles, videos, blogs, and other rich content on the latest business trends and technology for corporate training professionals.

When Training Industry developed the requirements for its new site, its leaders focused on ensuring the website would deliver the highest-quality user experience on all devices and create an environment that would make its original editorial content and resources easily navigated and useful to its audience. The new TrainingIndustry.com has already received a Gold Medal by the International Marcom Awards.

The new interface of TrainingIndustry.com

What’s New for TrainingIndustry.com

Here’s how ABT designed the new TrainingIndustry.com with a stronger focus on empowering users both inside and outside the company:
1. Created a new content platform for the Training Industry team on WordPress, which provided substantially more control and agility for its content team in the development and publication of new articles and posts.
2. Improved the site navigation and usability, making it easier for visitors to locate and engage with the content they want to find.
3. Achieved a dramatic improvement in page load times by integrating the site with Amazon Web Services CloudFront. This CDN helped the new TrainingIndustry.com achieve a AA rating from GT Metrix.
4. Optimized mobile performance using CloudFront to deliver faster loading on small screens. This includes “lazy-loading,” which makes the page only load images inside the viewport. Images below the viewport will not load until the user begins to scroll, speeding up load times.
5. Enhanced user experience with custom code that displays calculated read time for each article (based on word count, images and inline content) and a dynamic progress bar measuring how far the reader has scrolled in a post.
6. Updated the magazine section adapted from Training Industry Magazine; this section include featured article templates allowing admins to select multiple layouts and typography options to emulate the rich graphic layouts of Training Industry Magazine when articles are presented on the website.
7. Implemented a more dynamic and flexible ad layout system that allows Training Industry admins to target ad zones based on custom terms, taxonomies and other properties.
As one of ABT’s longest client relationships, we are excited to help power the future of Training Industry with this new dynamic design for their site. Experience the new TrainingIndustry.com for yourself and let us know what you think.
October 25, 2017
ABT Brands New MacGregor Software Products

Since its founding in 2012, MacGregor Partners has made a major impact in the supply chain and logistics space. What began as a one-man consulting operation under CEO and founder Jason Ziegler has since become a multi-state business fulfilling logistics consulting contracts across the globe for brands like Kraft, Makita, and Kellogg’s.

As the company expanded, Ziegler and the rest of the leadership team wanted to move beyond consulting and into the software space. MacGregor developed two new software products designed specifically for supply chain analysis and document sharing. While the company was proud of their new products and their capabilities, they needed to craft a powerful brand for each product that would match its potential to transform how companies handled their supply chains. Because of our background in developing marketing strategy and site design for their company, MacGregor’s chose Atlantic BT to handle this branding project.

Designing the Brand for Logistics Toolbox

Logistics Toolbox is MacGregor’s new data analysis software. Designed as a unified platform for supply chain oversight, Toolbox pulled data from warehouses, manufacturing facilities, transit operations, and a host of other supply chain touch points in order to equip logistics stakeholders with a shared view of their operation.

To find the right brand mark and design for Toolbox, we began by researching more about the industry MacGregor serves. This involved a deeper dive into the language of the supply chain space as well as the types of design and brand imagery that most resonated in this landscape. Because the product thrived in its ability to bring together unstructured data, we designed a geometric style and topography that matched the imagery of mathematical diagrams.

How e-Doc Became Folio, the Signature Document Solution

MacGregor’s new document software presented a different brand challenge. Known during development as e-Doc, this product enabled supply chain personnel to digitally sign multiple shipping documents with one signature. It also created a digital depository for all bills of lading and other documents related to the movement of a shipment across a supply chain. Users could use e-Doc to search for and analyze any document from any part of their logistics operation. However, the generic-sounding name e-Doc did not capture the unifying potential of this MacGregor product. To create the right brand, we needed a new name.

Choosing the right name for this digital document software required both research into the supply chain industry and outsider creativity. The product’s essential function was consolidating paper files into an organized, secure collection. That in mind, we wanted a name that would be recognizable to supply chain stakeholders who were used to sorting through numerous papers and trying to make sense of them. At the same time, we wanted something more memorable than on-the-nose names like “digital file cabinet” or “smart binder.”

Our answer came from literature. As we explored “portfolio” as one of the possible words to use in the product name, one of our team members with an English degree pointed out that Shakespeare’s original play manuscript was called the First Folio. Because MacGregor’s document repository acted as the definitive collection of original files, what this new product represented was essentially their version of Shakespeare’s ultimate manuscript. The name Folio struck the right balance between familiarity and originality to truly engage MacGregor’s audience, and inspired us to come up with a brand mark that evoked the product’s online document origins.

Partnering for the Future of MacGregor

In addition to these new product brands, Atlantic BT also worked with MacGregor to design their new homepage and network of sites. The new MacGregorPartners.com not only delivered a new navigation and look, but also focused on the new products which MacGregor would treat as integral parts of their company strategy. The result is a more cohesive online experience of this new breakout company in the logistics and supply chain space. Atlantic BT and MacGregor look forward to future collaborations toward their brand, site, and other marketing endeavors.

October 23, 2017
ABT Launches Quick Start Program for Cost-Effective Insight

Data-driven insight. This phrase shows up so often in B2B content marketing that it’s nearly a cliché. The phrase inspire images of a massive enterprise having an army of analysts dig into huge masses of data and then present 90-slide powerpoint presentations about the state of the market. In short, data-driven insight seems complex, expensive, and time-consuming.

ABT aims to change that. Our new Quick Start programs make deep data-driven insight available to organizations of all sizes. From workshops to detailed reports, these 3-week programs give all our clients trustworthy and cost-effective digital insight at the right price for any company.

“We designed our Quick Start program to adopt our in-depth discovery process—which we’ve used for large clients like NC.gov, Campbell University, and Global Knowledge—into a condensed and quick-to-execute format. It’s exciting to take our love of data analysis and make it more time- and cost-effective for all our clients.”
–Eileen Allen, ABT Chief Marketing Officer

Here are previews of our first four Quick Start programs. Click each link for more information about how to begin.

The First Four ABT Quick Start Programs

Lean Website Discovery – Rapid insight to kickstart any digital project

Our Lean Discovery program delivers data-driven answers to strategic technology questions questions. Our experts will deliver quick, cohesive analysis and documentation of the challenges and possibilities you face with any new website project. This helps prevent costly mistakes in implementation and sets up your site to be more successful and reliable over the long term.

Application Portfolio Diagnostic – Deep report into your utilization of key business apps

Our Application Portfolio Diagnostic helps you assess the health of your organization’s application portfolio. Using this structured, objective mechanism for collecting user feedback about your application suite, we analyze the effectiveness, criticality, and utilization of each application in your business.

Digital Marketing Audit – Fast-action plan to analyze, execute, and evaluate digital campaigns

Our Digital Marketing Audit reveals ways to improve your tactics, reduce waste, and increase your return on investment for customer outreach. Our proprietary, multidisciplinary approach examines your marketing program from the ground up—providing a 180-day action plan to improve your bottom line.

eCommerce Launch on Shopify – Start your online store on an easy-to-manage platform

Our eCommerce Launch on Shopify is a streamlined process that gets online stores set up and ready to sell on an easy-to-manage platform. In addition to launching your online store, this program offers a long-term analytics and marketing plan to maximize conversions over time.

To keep in touch with our ongoing updates to the Quick Start program and other news from ABT, follow us on Twitter or sign up for our newsletter.

October 20, 2017