Partner Stories | Acehigh Promo
Elevating eCommerce to Empower Client Connections
How a Small B2B Company Conquered Uncertainty to Thrive Online.
Summary
Acehigh Promo, a small B2B promotional products company, was blindsided by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With insufficient brand equity and a heavy reliance on in-person sales, the company risked falling behind in an increasingly digital world.
From 2020 to 2021, I worked closely with the company President to address and adapt to these challenges; reimagining Acehigh Promo’s customer journey, optimizing internal processes, and revitalizing the brand’s identity. This transformation not only ensured the company’s survival during a challenging time; it positioned the brand for sustained growth, and allowed Acehigh Promo to continue doing what it did best— redefining the world of promotional products.
Improved workflow productivity
70%
First brand guidelines in
30 Years
Increased click-through rate by
2.2x
Background
Acehigh Promo stands out in the crowded promotional products industry as a visionary company driven by a simple mission: helping brands make a lasting impact. Specializing in top-quality, unique, and durable products, Acehigh Promo not only reduces waste but creates opportunities for elevated storytelling; fostering deeper connections between brands and their audiences.
However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic posed an existential threat to this vision. With the sudden shift to remote work and all-digital interactions, Acehigh Promo’s traditional sales approach—heavily reliant on in-person events and trade shows—was no longer viable. To effectively navigate these challenges, my mission was to adapt and strengthen Acehigh Promo’s digital presence; ensuring they could not just survive, but thrive in a post-pandemic market.
Objectives
Strategies
Brand Identity & Strategy
Brand Guidelines Excerpt
To strengthen Acehigh Promo’s brand recognition, I led a comprehensive brand refresh that established a consistent and distinctive presence across all touch points. Over three months, I developed the brand’s first-ever visual guidelines, marking a significant milestone in Acehigh Promo’s 30-year history.
For the first time, the brand could uniformly standardize its use of typefaces, color, and visual styles across platforms— ensuring every brand interaction reflected a vibrant personality and reinforced our value proposition.
In addition to achieving visual consistency, we streamlined the brand’s messaging and sharpened our positioning to more powerfully communicate our mission of delivering high-quality, purpose-driven products.
By defining a clear and compelling brand voice, we ensured our communications would resonate deeply with target audiences. This strategy was essential to increasing customer engagement and cementing our brand’s position within the industry; making it more recognizable, relevant, and accessible.
Lifestyle Photography
A critical element of this refresh was the brand’s first incorporation of lifestyle photography, which played a monumental role in humanizing and modernizing the brand. By showcasing our products in real-life contexts, we brought the brand’s mission to life— helping clients envision how these products could seamlessly fit into their customers’ daily lives.
This strategy did more than just enhance the visual appeal of Acehigh Promo’s offerings— it built a cohesive visual style that elevated the brand’s narrative, and fostered deeper customer connections with some of our most important stakeholders.
“Very Nice Work! Love the new materials!”
David H.
CEO & Key Client
Enhancing Online Shopping
As the pandemic reshaped consumer behavior, the need for a seamless and engaging online shopping experience became critical. To keep client relationships strong in the absence of traditional in-person sales, we developed multiple interactive digital publications, including shoppable catalogs and lookbooks, which made browsing and purchasing products easier and more enjoyable for customers.
Interactive Digital Publications
With intuitive navigation and interactive elements that allowed customers to explore each product in detail, these publications played a pivotal role in streamlining the online shopping journey: significantly reducing friction to drive higher conversion rates. By providing a visually appealing and functional shopping environment, we ensured that Acehigh Promo could continue to connect meaningfully with its customers online.
Dynamic Product Showcases
Understanding that customers needed the means to trust the products that they were purchasing before seeing them in person, we introduced new forms of product visualization such as 360-degree product photography and motion graphics. These dynamic visual assets offered customers a comprehensive and realistic view of our products, which built greater trust and encouraged purchases.
Building this trust was particularly challenging as we launched new post-lockdown products like the Sequoia 2.0 Power Bank. As most of our client base preferred to experience our items in person before purchase, we faced a huge barrier to building trust with these new products. In response, I developed several targeted assets, including a promotional video that quickly generated the second-highest number of views in the company’s history. Leveraging an effective mix of in-studio and creative outdoor filming, this video placed the Sequoia 2.0 in relatable, real-world contexts; successfully fostering confidence, driving interest, and boosting engagement.
“Love the video… You've pleasantly surprised me yet again.”
James G.
President, Acehigh Promo
Digital Marketing
Email (Before): 13% Open Rate, 3% CTR
Optimizing Emails
Recognizing the critical role of email marketing during the pandemic, I worked to revamp Acehigh Promo’s email strategy and optimize customer engagement. This new approach involved crafting targeted email campaigns with visually compelling content and clearer, more compelling calls to action. By leveraging our updated brand guidelines, we also ensured that every email was consistent in tone, messaging, and design, which helped reinforce a stronger brand identity.
Our updated strategy led to a 39% boost in open rates, and a remarkable 2.2x increase in click-through rates. By meeting customers where they were—online—we successfully kept our brand top-of-mind while encouraging deeper, more meaningful engagement.
Email (After): 20% Open Rate, 10% CTR
Email (After): 23% Open Rate, 11% CTR
Content Marketing
Beyond email, content marketing also played a significant role in increasing brand visibility and engagement. I produced a range of content designed to captivate audiences and effectively convey our brand’s value proposition.
To support our affiliate marketing partners, I also developed branded social media assets that were easy to share and well-aligned with our updated visual identity. These assets helped us boost our reach and brand recognition significantly— ultimately generating a 2.7x increase in digital engagement, further solidifying our position in the market and improving customer retention.
Results
During the pandemic, the promotional products industry weathered one of the most devastating downturns it had ever experienced. Against the odds, Acehigh Promo conquered this uncertainty to emerge stronger; successfully adapting to a dramatic shift in consumer behavior by addressing the online customer experience. These strategic adaptations not only ensured short-term survival, but also paved the way for sustained growth in a post-pandemic market.
Top 5 Achievements
70% Boost in Productivity
By streamlining digital workflows, we achieved a 70% increase in productivity. This optimization increased customer satisfaction, reduced operational costs, and enabled a more efficient use of resources.
Brand Refresh Completed in 3 Months
We executed a comprehensive brand refresh within a tight 3-month timeline, creating the brand’s first-ever set of guidelines in its 30-year history. This effort established a consistent visual identity with well-positioned messaging across all platforms.
Email Click-Through Rates Increased 2.2x
Our revamped email marketing strategy significantly enhanced customer engagement, leading to a 2.2x increase in click-through rates. This improvement was a direct result of more targeted content, consistent branding, and compelling calls to action.
Content Marketing Engagement Up 2.7x
Our content marketing efforts resulted in 2.7x more engagement, greatly increasing brand visibility. This surge in interaction was pivotal for strengthening the brand’s presence amidst a competitive digital landscape.
Fresh Lifestyle Photography for 50+ Products
A primary strategy for strengthening Acehigh Promo’s brand equity, we renewed the photography for over 50 products. This visual upgrade greatly elevated the brand’s image, aligning it with modern, aspirational aesthetics.