Client Challenge
Extreme Microbial Technologies (EMT) had been mainly serving clientele in the food manufacturing and restaurant industries with its active air purification technology to prevent e-coli and other bacterial contamination in food production facilities.  They came to us in early 2020 to quickly increase brand value and gain market share as a proven solution for businesses across the country to protect people and processes as the COVID-19 pandemic ripped through the U.S. 

Client Objectives

• Help EMT develop different methods to accurately explain its complex technology and how it works in an easy-to-understand way.
• Elevate EMT brand as a trusted versatile and effective COVID-19 solution throughout the U.S. market
• Increase customer base through positive earned media coverage throughout the U.S.

Our Process:

We use a four-step process to help clients achieve their goals:
Analyze – Strategize – Execute – Amplify

Analyze: We began our work with EMT by analyzing their current situation to create a baseline position before starting our efforts. We evaluated:

• • Current communication methods
  • Communication frequency
  • Most recent messaging
  • Press releases and other communication tools
  • Media coverage over the previous 12 months

From that evaluation, we identified EMT’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to help us begin building out a short term 6-month communication strategy.

Strategize: Once we identified EMT’s baseline position and analyzed how the air purification market was being talked about, we began to lay out messaging that helped breakdown how the systems worked, why they have been effective and supporting messaging around the global pandemic.   Once that foundation was in place, we identified and built a strategy to effectively reach media targets in a way that would resonate with how they were covering the pandemic. 

• • We implemented a strategy that focused on EMT clients – their problem and how EMT systems helped.
  • We worked EMT to identify clients in targeted media markets
  • We worked with those clients ahead of media outreach to understand why they turned to EMT as a pandemic solution and used that knowledge to build localized story lines and media pitches

Execute: Once the strategy was built, we immediately transitioned into the execution phase by identifying strategic media targets and audience channels to effectively communicate with.  As we looked for media opportunities, we simultaneously began media training sessions with EMT leadership to ensure people with public speaking roles were prepared to deliver newly developed messaging.  We also worked with each EMT client to ensure they were comfortable with media interviews and they

Amplify: Once a steady stream of organic and current event media opportunities began to flow, we then turned our attention to creating ways to amplify EMT’s story to business owners and decision makers.  We created video animations that demonstrated how the active technology worked and why it was different from other products. We used this animation against a backdrop of different kinds of industries so business owners could visualize the technology in their business.  We also created a targeted digital ad campaign to amplify the earned media stories and target core audiences who were looking for pandemic solutions.

Results:

 Implementing a media strategy that focused on EMT clients rather than the company itself proved to be incredibly successful at engaging media outlets throughout the country that were covering the effects of the pandemic on local businesses and communities.  These stories not only mentioned EMT as the solution but were valuable testimonial pieces used to attract other interested businesses.  As a result of earned media coverage and other amplification efforts, EMT business increased by 300% in 2020 over the previous year.