We work for local, statewide and national businesses, nonprofit associations and governmental organizations on a wide array of projects, from brand development; communications consulting; crisis management, response and recovery; marketing and advertising; project/program management; research; strategic planning; targeted and public outreach; training; and web design.
Our media department handles the whole process – from receiving and negotiating rates, putting together a mix that fits the client’s audience and budget, placing schedules, verifying invoices and performing post-buy analyses. Our social media department manages Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube and Flickr accounts and keeps abreast of the conversations happening about our clients.
Our graphic design department handles all print, broadcast, collateral and web-based graphic design and production. We also utilize several outside production firms and suites. We use Adobe Creative Suite software including InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. We have designed everything from a 320 by 50-pixel web banner to a 14 by 48-foot outdoor billboard!
Our public relations department offers strategic planning, regional and national press release distribution and clip tracking, special event planning and event management.
We have accumulated over three decades of experience in brand development and implementation.
We build our clients’ brand equity through an integrated approach that incorporates a synergy of media, publicity and awareness that maximizes market presence and name recognition.
Our award-winning graphic design team has, collectively, over 50 years of experience with logo creation; corporate identity packages (stationery, business cards, etc.); support materials (posters, banners, PowerPoint presentations and more); brochure and information graphics design, layout and finished production; communications mapping tools; interactive content development; and audiovisual needs.
The creation of a comprehensive style sheet to establish and ensure brand consistency across all formats is a standard component of our client work.
We do whatever it takes so that people — organizations, individuals, stakeholders, anyone and everyone — productively and effectively talk to each other.
SIDES leads strategic operational planning processes, bringing together prospective stakeholders of, and participants in, organizations in the private and public sectors.
Examples of our strategic planning consultations and/or plan developments include a national education initiative, a regional financial institution and lots of nonprofit and government work, including a statewide hazard mitigation initiative, a statewide network of comprehensive information and referral centers, a public information association, federal disaster response and recovery initiatives, federal disaster training program development, and the only facility of its kind in North America offering leading-edge visualization and high-performance computing technologies.
From the development of by-laws to the identification of stakeholders and articulation of organizational models, SIDES succeeds at bringing organizations together by providing a road map for them to articulate and achieve their goals.
From an award-winning video we produced on the history of the sugar cane industry in Louisiana that, through a partnership with history teachers, runs in state classrooms, to bioterrorism initiatives used in 10 states, to partnering with industry association groups to provide dedicated funding for tourism promotion, we build strategic partnerships between our clients and corporations and the communities they serve.
We are a nationally recognized leader in the fields of community outreach and education, disaster preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation.
After a community is devastated by disaster, our staff provides communications and recovery planning support services to local, state and federal agencies.
Activated for deployments with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/FEMA for Emergency Support Function #14 Long-Term Community Recovery, we provide embedded and remote outreach, event coordination and other disaster recovery support services along the Gulf Coast and nationwide. We have served North Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Iowa and more.
We are a sole-source provider of comprehensive emergency guide kits that educate citizens about public health threats in the states of Louisiana, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, Maine, Oklahoma, Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico and Georgia. The kit series addresses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most likely public health threats to the American public: anthrax, botulism, tularemia, viral hemorrhagic fever, plague and smallpox, as well as kits for pandemic flu, hurricanes, chemical release and radiation release. Each kit is designed for use in the event of an actual incident, as well as state and local preparedness and training efforts. Kits are currently available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Marshallese and can be translated into any language and/or customized as needed.
Whether you need an integrated multichannel campaign or a brochure, full-page ad or billboard, SIDES’ award-winning creative team provides our clients with innovative design that takes their marketing to the next level.
We recommend advertising strategies that are tailored to your needs, and we execute unique campaigns – from broadcast TV placements to grassroots efforts. Or what works best to get your message out.
We are a full-service agency and take your campaign from strategies and concepts, through design, copywriting and approvals, to distribution of your message.
We are experienced in running successful advertising campaigns for a multitude of clients, including political candidates and issues.
We can design and coordinate the release of direct mail and email messages to your target audience.
Our media department handles everything from receiving and negotiating rates, putting together a mix that fits the client’s audience and budget, placing schedules, verifying invoices and performing post-buy analyses.
We also look for added value in any media buy, through bonus placements, extra impressions or discounted rates.
Our social media department manages Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube and Flickr accounts for clients and keeps abreast of the conversations happening about our clients. We run social media and online ads and employ search engine marketing to keep our clients at the top.
We also put together earned media strategies, including public outreach and TV and radio interview coordination, as part of our public relations services.
SIDES has a track record of pioneering approaches to both traditional and new media strategies.
SIDES can help develop and manage marketing, training and outreach. We research what works and doesn’t work in an existing program, and offer suggestions on improvements that can incorporate best practices and innovations to achieve measurable results.
We develop programs from initial concepts to launch, implementation and beyond. We’ll help build the infrastructure, test the mechanics of programs and develop an outcome-based communications strategy to allow it to grow quickly.
We are experienced managing internal company processes, staff training, media and stakeholder relations and special events – from putting together informational documents, organizing testing and training sessions and providing fact sheets, to managing event coordination, promotion, logistics, staffing, participant registration and execution. We also develop and evaluate all feedback to help you determine successes and plan for future efforts.
We can help you manage your program after launch and make any necessary adjustments to ensure its success.
We utilize the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) Research Services, Lifestyle Market Analyst Profiles, Audit Bureau of Circulation, Louisiana Press Association, Arbitron and Nielsen, among others, to provide in-depth research.
Research is a core competency we utilize to create effective strategic plans, communication tools and media, issues management and public relations campaigns for clients in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. We address their research needs, create analytical tools and evaluate data gathered.
The kind of research and methods of data collection and analysis are tailored to best fit the needs of each client.
Tools commonly used include online and telephone surveys, customer intercepts, market polling, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, direct mail, online and newspaper inserts and innovative tools like interactive kiosks at high-traffic locations, community outreach events that invite participation and more.
Comment cards and feedback forms are also tabulated and analyzed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a workshop or public meeting.
Our public affairs experience began with national companies who called on us to respond to helicopter crashes in the Gulf of Mexico, a plant explosion in the United Kingdom and multiple pipeline breaks that led to oil spills in residential and commercial areas of Texas.
Our corporate experience led to involvement with joint industry projects involving the U.S. Coast Guard and then to hands-on work at every level of government.
Our work in planning for disasters came from being on the ground in real-time disaster response, which has given us perspectives to bring added value to that work.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, SIDES was the U.S. Department of Homeland Security communications contractor, providing FEMA’s Emergency Support Function #14 with long-term community recovery and technical assistance for the LOUISIANA SPEAKS web-based planning tool application.
All of this work is grounded in our agency’s ability to provide strategic planning, high-level consulting, in-house management and direction for research, communications, marketing and operations.
SIDES offers targeted and public outreach experience within the private sector and for governmental agencies at every level.
Our public relations department offers strategic planning, regional and national press release and clip tracking, special event planning and event management.
We write and provide media advisories and alerts, compile contact lists, track coverage and response, and monitor discussions related to client projects.
We handle outreach for important community issues and work to get stakeholders in the community aware and involved.
We offer public outreach for comprehensive and recovery planning initiatives, including development and implementation of communication tools that empower participants to develop recovery plans that result in safer, stronger and smarter communities.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, outreach work produced by SIDES resulted in facilitation and materials preparation for 19 government workshops, 46 open house events in Louisiana and 10 other states, giving 1.4 million hurricane evacuees the opportunity to be included in recovery planning for their individual communities.
As part of that effort, we created a first-of-its-kind “host your own” outreach program involving United Way of America, Salvation Army and National Council of Churches to reach displaced storm victims, an initiative considered a template for innovative and affordable disaster outreach.
As a subcontractor at the federal level, SIDES provided facilitation leadership and outreach development and implementation to execute meetings FEMA/U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regions across the country to solicit, analyze and report input from key stakeholder groups regarding the development of the National Disaster Recovery Framework, a White House initiative to improve community-based recovery from significant disasters.
We define and address organizational, staffing or methodological barriers to success by establishing and maintaining cross-programmatic communications, providing customized training to build internal capacity and develop innovative outreach strategies that inform new avenues of approach. We train for successful outcomes.
We provide customized professional development, capacity building training on an as-needed basis for our clients.
We have extensive experience educating both targeted and general public audiences on pre- and post-disaster hazard mitigation opportunities and actions, including how to apply for and keep federal mitigation and Public Assistance funding; organizational development, public policy and planning initiatives; and public health threats.
We create and implement program-specific training both in the field and at every organizational level for federal, state, local, nonprofit and private-sector partners.
We offer public speaking and workshop, event and presentation development and staff training. Our media training courses are tailored to each client’s needs.
We are experienced trainers. The development of a crash course, written and produced by SIDES under a FEMA contract, immediately following Katrina Rita later became the basis for the ESF #14 How to Build a Field Communications Function.
Our training materials and on-site presentations have been called on in 16 states and in over 80 communities.
We provided innovative online strategies and styles.
We review your current materials and website, research your audience and then plan and propose your new digital strategy.
Our experienced designers create or enhance the look and feel of your brand, resulting in a stylish, performance-based website.
We integrate e-commerce, find the right content management system, add mobile content, design custom applications and produce web video – whatever works best for your needs.
After the site is launched, we analyze search engine results/ and strategize any needed search engine optimization adjustments and search engine marketing options, plan and integrate social media, and create and deploy email marketing to get your message out. Digital strategy is an ongoing process and, in our experience, essential in creating performance websites and maintaining momentum for digital campaigns.
Our work has received national and international recognition, including a Planetizen “Top Ten.” Most importantly, it works.