Jet Tool
“It was really cool to see what Marketing Metal put together–we feel it’s a much better representation of the business Jet Tool is growing to become.”
– Chris Soule, President of Jet Tool.
Chris Soule purchased Jetool, a small tooling manufacturer in Chesaning, MI, from the company’s second-generation owners. With a bachelor’s degree in Weld Engineering, decades of manufacturing leadership experience, and the old entrepreneurial spirit, Chris was the perfect guy for the job. He had a big vision and was excited for this opportunity to breathe new life into the place.
Since day one, Chris has been investing heavily to upgrade and modernize the company’s processes, machines, workforce, and systems. Just a year and a half in, Jetool was not the same company anymore. So, he decided that it was time for them to leave behind their decades-old website and build a brand that would reflect this new direction.
Initially, Chris was thinking he should diversify–as the previous owners were forced to do during the pandemic–to become more of a general precision machine shop. But after watching the team execute the type of projects they do best (and attending one of Emily’s workshops [link to Proshop]), he came to the opposite conclusion. The ground support tooling that Jetool has become known for manufacturing in the aerospace industry is highly specialized and in-demand, which gives them a better story to tell, and will help them attract more of those ideal customers.
Like many shops these days, Jetool had plenty of work, but workers on the other hand, were hard to come by. Being in a small town, Chris joked that most people who live there have already worked at the company or at least knows someone who has. Convincing good people in a small town to join the team when they have an outdated perception of the company is a hard thing to do. And he’s determined to build a culture where people enjoy coming to work and feel proud to be part of the team.
Chris wanted Jetool to be cool.
In order to help him realize his big vision of running a happy, healthy, cool, and profitable shop, he needed a Radical brand and Stupid Simple marketing machine that would position them as THE go-to shop for machining and assembling large, complex tooling for aerospace manufacturers.
Not only was the website was in dire need of a revamp, but the logo felt outdated and the singular “t” in the name made Jetool weird to pronounce (no, it’s not French). They were also using the old name, Chesaning Manufacturing DBA Jetool, on social media profiles, which was confusing to their audience. The proper pronunciation of “Jet Tool” was always a super cool name and it’s well-suited to the type of work they do, so we officially changed the spelling and designed a new “cool” logo with a subtle throwback to the old one using a bold retro color scheme. We purchased jettoolmfg.com and updated all of their social media handles to match.
Jet Tool’s brand as a whole needed to showcase the new improvements and talk about the level of expertise and skill on the shop floor. It needed to illustrate how important the work they do is and how much pride and care their team takes in doing it.
To do all that, we used bold colors, professional photos and videos of the staff, and carefully curated stock photography of aerospace ground support tooling. We organized the content that they had on their website–company history, capabilities, quality specs, etc.–into three simple navigation items and presented the information in a way that leads visitors on a clear journey using compelling calls to action, especially in the Careers section. We humanized the website’s copy and confidently and specifically described the type of work Jet Tool does and the type of people they are. We upgraded their job descriptions to be a lot more exciting and focused on the big picture.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Jetool had been posting occasional pictures of people and work on Facebook and Linkedin, but their messaging, company name/logo, and imagery were not super consistent across platforms. As part of their Buildout, we also created some branded graphic templates, set up a social media scheduling tool, and gave their team a custom content marketing training session that focused on Linkedin, Instagram, and Facebook. Every great brand has a killer swag that people love to sport, so we designed a few t-shirts, hats, and stickers along with a brochure and business cards.
All of these things together will help their kind of people–the humans who will vibe with them the best–see themselves in the words and want to pick up the phone.
Want a website as RAD as this one?
Schedule a quick 15-minute call with Emily HERE to figure it out. No hard sales pitch, no gimmicks, just a quick intro to see how we jive.
Learn more about our Radical process here.