While public relations is our primary focus, many clients consider Zapwater a true partner and extension of their team. Many of our clients depend on us to handle and help manage most of their total marketing efforts. From branding to marketing collateral, we provide input in a variety of areas. Take Zapwater client, Barton Healthcare.

As the largest caregiver in the state of Illinois providing support for individuals requiring assisted living, mental health, skilled nursing and intermediate care, Barton wears a lot of hats. After engaging Zapwater as their first public relations firm in February 2009, they quickly determined that in order to achieve their visibility goals and present their brand in a more cohesive way, they would need to develop new marketing materials, revamp their website and revisit their overall strategy when it comes to marketing themselves to the Illinois health care community and potential consumers.

We also helped develop new logos for some of their operating units.

Zapwater led and project managed the development of the website by sourcing a local Chicago-based web company to create a site that reflected all of the Barton facilities in a visually appealing and functional way. Zapwater managed this partnership throughout the entire design process and also created new content for each page.

The result was a user-friendly site that encouraged visitors to experience Barton through an integrated community page, organized content and helpful search tools. The new website launched November 2009 and has since seen a 29 percent increase in monthly visitors. Furthermore, Zapwater was recognized for its work at the Publicity Club of Chicago’s annual Silver Trumpet awards. Through this success, Zapwater has been pulled in to help coordinate other marketing efforts for the organization. Most recently, the team helped drive the development of an advertisement that ran in a local community newspaper as part of an overall community-relations strategy driven by the brand.