Marketing

You can have the best product offering, most beautiful website, and world-class customer service, but without the right marketing support, none of it really matters. As a full service, non-conventional agency, Sidebar has an extensive network of marketing specialists which enables us to offer a wide array of best-of-breed services for every output in a full 360-degree or laser-focused marketing strategy.

Campaigns

A well-timed and thought out campaign can have an significant business impact. A great campaign is always rooted in clear strategic objectives, strong messaging, a deep understanding of target market, and the right channel and tactic mix.

Sidebar Marketing Campaign solutions include

Creative Strategy

We live for creative ideas that give goose bumps and make eyes light up – the ones that make your competitors wish they’d thought of that. We don’t do flashy creative if it isn’t going to be effective in achieving set objectives. Everything we do is carefully considered, and creatively inspired.

Print and Outdoor

If your audience is best reached through select print and outdoor media, we’ll find it, book it and execute effective creative to specification.

Digital

The right digital campaign touchpoints give you exceptional reach and unmatched targeting – for a fraction of the cost of traditional channels.

Branded Content

Branded content that connects and resonates will give your campaign heart, soul and most importantly – results.

Audio and Video

Some content is best executed as audio, and we have the tools, resources and creativity to help you do it exceptionally well.

Google Display Network, mobile and social ads

We make sure your message finds your target audience in the right moment and the right format.

Events and Experiential

When you can’t beat face-to-face interaction, we’ll help you create the ideal event or brand experience.

Content

Content is all about connecting with your audience in a way that makes them want to interact with you. Because no one wants to be bombarded with hard-sell messaging all the time – that’s a sure-fire way to get someone to hit ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘unfollow’. With Sidebar, you have a full content creation studio at your service to take your content marketing to the next level.

Sidebar Content Marketing services include

Video

Sometimes a well-produced video can do more for your brand or business than a detailed pitch deck or complex website. From storyboarding and scriptwriting, to shooting, animating, CGI, voice overs, photo and art production, post-production editing and finalising services, we’ll take you from early concept, to expert execution.

Audio and podcasting

If you’ve got something worth saying (or need an actor with a voice like butter to say it), we’ll help you conceptualise, storyboard, write, produce and edit.

Emailers and newsletters

Create effective email communications that work across mailing platforms and result in trackable conversions.

Copywriting

What can we say? We have a way with words. We craft your brand tone and personality through our copy. Because nothing kills a lead like a glaring typo or poor grammar. And because when you know the rules, you can break them (like the way we started this sentence with ‘and’ and ‘because’).

Online banners

Banner advertising is an art in itself. We understand the formats inside out and can guide you on the best options to find your audience wherever they are online.

SEO and PPC

Use keyword research and search trends to improve your search ranking through optimised content and smartly targeted ads.

Print

Blank print advertising is only effective 0.0001%* of the time. We make print pop. Whether you need editorial content, or want to book the biggest billboard on the highway, we’ll make it work.

*not an actual fact.

Social Media and Public Relations

We’re the agency who will tell you if you shouldn’t be on social media. We’re also the agency who will give you expert guidance on making the right channels work for your business objectives. We don’t do fluffy stuff for vanity metrics. We do strategic communications (that may or may not occasionally involve a hilarious cat meme, but only if it’s 100% on-brand and on-strategy).

Sidebar Social and PR solutions cover

Communications strategy

We define your audience, your channels, what you need to say, and how to say it (and show it).

Social Content Plans

We produce content in advance on your preferred schedule, while remaining nimble and reactive when we need to be.

Facebook

Establish a strong presence on the biggest social network in the world. Create a community around your brand and reach new audiences through the right content and ad tactics.

Instagram

You can’t be on the ‘gram without a defined visual aesthetic and something worth saying. You’re competing with pictures of everyone’s breakfast and exotic holidays – but if you work with us, we’ll make sure you stand out.

Reporting

Everyone loves a good graph with an upward trajectory – and we’ll make sure you have a lot of those. But we’ll also make sure you have the insights to match. We’re about real results that impact your business, and it shows in our reports.

Influencer Engagement

We know the difference between reach and real influence. We source and collaborate with macro and micro influencers who speak to your target audience.

Technology

Successful digital marketing requires a solid grasp of current technology combined with a future-focus and willingness to constantly learn and experiment. At Sidebar we’re always considering new possibilities for our clients and looking for the technology to make innovation happen.

Interactive Chatbots

Artificial intelligence (AI) has fundamentally shifted what’s possible for digital customer service. Sidebar has experience in designing, building and deploying sophisticated, customised chat bots across websites and social platforms. This technology significantly cuts down time spent on customer service while simultaneously making it more cost-effective for your business, and more seamless for your customers.

The Sidebar Chatbot solution includes

UX and UI design

Custom, user-centric functional design that ensures every interaction is clear, engaging and helps to facilitate your desired objectives.

Wireframing and prototyping

We’ll define the blueprint for chatbot logic-flows to ensure you’re comfortable before development begins.

Design

We translate your brand identity into the chatbot design to make it look and feel authentically like your unique brand.

Development

Our developers can build across multiple channels and ensure deep integration with existing CRM tools.

Monthly Maintenance

Technical and content updates on a monthly basis to ensure optimal functionality at all times.

Digital Design

In our ever connected lives, there’s very little we look at or engage with that doesn’t contain an element of digital design. It’s integral to the way we navigate different platforms and how we consume information. For businesses, strong digital design has become a non-negotiable for effective customer communication, lead generation, service delivery and so much more.

Sidebar offers the following Digital Design services

Web Design and Development

We’re passionate about not letting bad websites happen to good businesses. We create highly cost-effective, beautifully functional and scalable websites that apply best-practices every step of the way.

UX and UI design

We’re user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design experts. We use design to ensure the user journey on a digital platform is logical and aesthetically pleasing. From button placement, to colour palettes and content hierarchies, everything we design is intentional and user-centric.

Wireframing

Building a new website or application is a major undertaking. Wireframing ensures all parties are aligned on the exact functionality and content every step of the way before development starts.

Development

Our designers and developers work closely to bring ideas to life across platforms and browsers. We employ all the latest technologies to ensure your digital properties are easily scalable and future-proof.

WordPress

We’re WordPress specialists who can do both bespoke builds and template customisations. We keep our builds cost-effective without compromising on functionality.

Shopify

Set up and customise your Shopify e-commerce site for a quick and highly efficient way to get your online business running (and booming).

Monthly maintenance

We offer affordable solutions for website maintenance, including content updates, CRM, on-page SEO, bug-fixes and database management.

App Design and Development

Whether you need a bespoke mobile app across operating systems, or a responsive web app, Sidebar offers complete solutions that really work (and don’t take years to build). We’re not afraid to tell you when something really shouldn’t be an app. We simply love creating products people enjoy using.

UX and UI design

If an app isn’t user-friendly, it’s never going to be opened again after first use. We make sure your app has a clear and intuitive user journey – supported by smart user-centric design.

Wireframing and prototyping

Clear mapping out of app functionality and content to ensure alignment and to allow for amendments before development stage. Know what we’re going to build before we start building it.

Design

Aesthetics are everything. We make sure your app is as beautiful as it is functional.

Development

Our developers can build for any app store or deploy responsive web apps that work across devices. Working closely with design, we ensure the final product works exactly as it should.

Monthly maintenance

We’ll handle your monthly app updates both from a content and technology perspective – on a retainer that works for your needs.

Sidebar has design in its DNA. As ex-agency art directors, we know the power good design has to completely transform a user experience. Design-thinking permeates everything we do. Our design work is purpose-driven and user-centric.

Brand Identity

Strong brand identity makes you instantly recognisable to your existing and prospective customers. It’s what sets your business or apart – and it sets expectations for what product or services you offer. Weak brand identity can confuse customers and make it so much more difficult to sell what you’re offering. Brand identity is about looking the part and matching your aesthetics to your brand purpose and target audience.

Sidebar Brand Identity solutions include

Logo Design

Start from scratch or give a tired logo a new lease on life. After an ideation session, we’ll give you various options to choose from and will further refine until you have a logo you can’t wait to show the world.

Brand Assets

A logo alone doesn’t define a brand, brand assets are the visual devices that help make every output feel on-brand. This includes fonts, colour palettes, image libraries, and other visual elements.

Corporate Identity

Your Corporate Identity is a handbook that ensures your brand translates all contexts – no matter who’s working on it. It is a guide that includes how your logo should be applied, colour usage, tone of voice, key messaging, image guidelines, and other design rules for consistent branding.

Stationery

Put your best branded foot forward with branded stationery including email signatures, letterheads, business cards, invoice templates and more.

Packaging Design

At Sidebar, we simply adore playing with packaging design. There’s nothing quite like touching, seeing and feeling design in the 3D world. Over the years we’ve worked with numerous brands and businesses to bring innovative design-thinking to the products they sell.

Sidebar Packaging Design services include

Labels

From once-off projects to setting up templates for full product ranges, we’ll do exactly what you need.

Outer box and case design

We work with you to design something that pops on shelf and in the hands of your customers.

Inserts

We say ‘no thank you’ to intimidating inserts with tiny text and a million folds before you can find the sentence you’re looking for. We make package inserts that get your message across clearly and look good at the same time.

Point-of-Sale Design

We have extensive experience designing POS elements and can easily marry eye-popping creative with practical requirements and spacing considerations. We help imagine the brand experience in-situ and make sure you stand out. Sidebar can set up print-ready designs for all collateral and work directly with printers and suppliers to ensure it all comes together.

Sidebar POS Design services include

Indoor and Outdoor

Exhibition displays, billboards, gazebos, banner walls, pull-up banners, table covers, bunting, flags, and much more – including custom designs to specifications.

Experiential

Need to create an interactive brand activation? We’ll design all elements and promoter collateral.

Retail Environment

We understand the different requirements of retail partners and design printed and digital retail POS elements. Including shelf wings, wobblers, shelf strips, counter-top displays, end displays, counter mats and so much more.

Editorial Design

Print is every designer’s first love. At Sidebar it’s no different. We get excited about receiving print proofs (and can’t promise we won’t give them a sniff).

Sidebar Editorial Design services include

Annual Reports

Template design, content placement, print set-up and proofing. Digital and print.

Brochures

We’ll advise on the best structure based on your required content and will assist with printing.

Magazines

We can layout and print and digital magazines of any type. We also do design for magazine ads and advertorial content.

Fliers

Design, content creation, print set up and guidance on ideal size and paper types.

Posters

From street pole ads, to event and in-store posters, we love a big canvas to play with.

Infographics

Make the complex simple with the smart graphic representation of ideas and data for use in print or online.

We love applying our knowledge and experience to new challenges for our clients and partners. We offer consulting services across our different areas of expertise. Whether we’re helping to guide an internal team on design and digitisation, or if we’re getting a pitch across the line for you, we can act as both the thinkers and the doers.

Creative pitches and presentations

Make the idea land with our creative support. Whether you need a fully designed presentation, a pitch video or new product mock-ups, we bring that ‘wow’ factor.

Ideation and innovation

They say the only way to have good ideas is to have a lot of ideas – and we have those on tap. We bring fresh eyes (and minds) to business problems.

Web and app development

We have the capability to design, build and deploy multipurpose websites and applications across industries. If you have an internal team to manage the execution, we can assist with design-thinking and will integrate with your team for the best possible outcome.

Web audits

An assessment of your website’s usability, user interface design, technical performance, search rankings, and content quality. Includes recommendations for quick fixes and longer-term strategies for improvement.

Secondary research

Assistance in compiling research findings and case studies to help support an idea or new digital approach. Ideal for internal presentations to secure funding for projects.

We’re single-minded in our mission to deliver results. And there can be no results without sound strategy. When you work with Sidebar, you can trust we have your best interests at heart. We will never sell solutions that won’t work for your objectives. With our global, multi-disciplinary experience, we’re able to give holistic and tactic-specific strategic guidance.

Brand Strategy

Your brand is the way your business is presented to the world. Whether building brands from scratch or reigniting existing ones, we love a brand challenge. Defining a clear brand strategy is the framework on which we can build effective marketing tactics for your business – always tied to a clear purpose.

Our Brand Strategy services include:

Brand Audit

A thorough audit of all brand properties and your competitive landscape to identify opportunities and areas for improvement. Includes recommendations for approach to brand channels and collateral.

Brand Positioning

By establishing clear brand differentiators and ‘reasons to buy’, we’re able to craft a unique brand positioning that will resonate with your target audience and get you the results you want.

Brand Architecture

A well-structured brand architecture simplifies the way your overarching brand, sub-brands and specific products and services speak to each other, and to your customers.

Employer Branding

To attract the best talent, your business needs to present itself as an employer of choice among the people you would like to hire. If you’re not actively defining your employer brand, it will be defined for you (Spoiler alert: the former is better than the latter).

Employee Engagement

Every business is only as good as its employees. This is why motivated, passionate, engaged and happy staff members can fundamentally change a business. Effective employee engagement reduces staff turnover, improves productivity and has a direct impact on your bottom line.