OVERVIEW
ShipBob, a technology platform offering simple, fast, and affordable e-commerce fulfillment to small and medium businesses, came to us with several challenges. They had emerged from startup mode with a need to raise their profile among a variety of stakeholders – media, potential customers, current customers and investors. Additionally, one month into our engagement, ShipBob informed us they were opening a new warehouse in San Francisco and were on the verge of announcing $17.5 Million in Series B funding.
SOLUTION
Wyecomm managed a coordinated press effort between ShipBob, Bain Capital Management and six other funding partners to announce the investment in top tier media. We developed all press materials, messaging and media trained ShipBob’s co-founders. When the announcement went live, we had articles run simultaneously in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Fortune, Axios Pro Rata and Crain’s Chicago Business. In addition to the funding announcement, we wove the San Francisco warehouse opening into the key messaging for ShipBob’s co-founders, who worked it into every story.
Since the funding announcement, we have managed all of ShipBob’s communications efforts, including:
- Interviewing customers and writing case studies for ShipBob’s website and media efforts
- Media training additional senior executives
- Leveraging national expansion, thought leadership, corporate news and new offerings to garner news and attention and place stories and thought leadership pieces across business, trade and consumer publications
- Coordinating the opening of ShipBob’s fifth warehouse in Dallas, Texas, which resulted in 15 new clients for ShipBob as well as stories in the Dallas Morning News and Dallas Business Journal
- Building industry leadership by positioning ShipBob leadership as experts in e-commerce logistics
- Ongoing content development and vertical market media relations efforts to generate additional awareness for ShipBob
- Announcing ShipBob’s $40 million Series C funding round led by Menlo Ventures, corresponding with the announcement of their first warehouse expansion in Chicago
RESULTS
From early 2017 through 2020, we assisted in the company’s explosive growth – 300 percent – and the company’s most successful Q’4 ever, increased new business leads (more than 500 in one day during the Dallas warehouse event) and supported recruiting new talent in a highly competitive technology market in Chicago.
Our efforts from the Series C announcement resulted in four exclusive articles with The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago as well as nearly 25 additional pieces of coverage in a variety of outlets, including Fortune, Chicago Inno, WGN Radio, Ecommerce Times and Axios. The story also led to 10 interview requests with ShipBob’s founders, which resulted in several articles in trade press. On the day of the announcement, ShipBob’s website saw an increase in unique viewers and traffic. The articles brought awareness and interest to ShipBob as an up-and-coming technology and logistics company and generated new ecommerce customers and partnerships.
