Acquity Group expanded over 1000% during five years with BIGfrontier
“Bigfrontier Communications has been instrumental in helping us raise the visibility of our firm and increase the value of our brand. With creative ideas and tenacious avocation they have established our presence in prestigious media outlets and industry events to help promote our services. The impact of Bigfrontier’s efforts is immeasurable.”
Chris Dalton , CEO, Acquity Group
Acquity Group: An IT consulting and managed services company
Services provided:
Media relations
Event development and execution
Speaking circuit
White paper development and placement
Awards programs
Regional media relations
Acquity Group founders Chris Dalton and Matt Schmeltz approached BIGfrontier in early 2002 with a challenge: help them grow their IT consulting company through PR during IT’s biggest downturn since the 1980’s. At the time they were employees one and two out of ten.We began with a series of targeted industry media placements utilizing existing intellectual assets. Within six month we had planned and successfully executed their first Chicago event: Digital Asset Convergence, featuring speakers from client McDonalds, an analyst from Doculabs and a speaker from partner Day Software.
Our relationship with Acquity Group grew organically in accord with their business. We began with targeted byline placements (see client news page for a complete archive), specifically in publications read by potential Acquity Group clients. As we learned more about their company and where they were headed we expanded our services to include placing Acquity personnel at industry events for speaking engagements. Their company grew and soon ten had turned into 60 and one office had become two, then three.
In late 2003 Acquity Group sponsored BIGfrontier speaker Lester Thurow, who was touring for his new book, Fortune Favors the Bold. Later Acquity would sponsor Robert Herbold, former COO of Microsoft, in Chicago as well as their regional offices in Kansas City and Orange County. These events created unparalleled high level professional validation for Acquity Group within the business community.We followed this by placing Acquity Group on CNN and CBS Marketwatch as experts in the online retailing space, an area of specialization they were aggressively moving towards.
Between 2004-2007 BIGfrontier increased Acquity Group’s exposure nationally and regionally with a sophisticated combination of speaking engagements, byline placements, events and opportunistic media placements. This visibility was used successfully by their sales team to attract and land new clients. The multi-year effort enabled the firm to capture several significant industry awards:
One of the nation’s top consulting firms by Consulting Magazine (where BIGfrontier had placed a feature story)
One of Chicago’s fastest growing companies in Crain’s Chicago Business (where BIGfrontier had placed Acquity Group several times)This type of continual multi media exposure backed with industry outreach and regional grassroots campaigning has helped Acquiity Group garner a roster of A list clients and grow to their current size of over 400 consultants.
