Small Business Spotlight – January 2017: Swagbot
Company name: Swagbot Creative
Person in charge: Shawn Matthews, Chief Creative Officer
Year founded: 2008
Describe your services and your history:
We are a digital agency that specializes in video production, experiential marketing & promotional logistics.
We started Swagbot in 2008 after moving here from the Washington, D.C. area. We chose Springfield for a variety of reasons, the biggest being the quality of place and ease of doing business. We had put a business plan together for Swagbot in the D.C. metro area, and we figured it would cost around $250,000 when you factored in long-term leases, taxes, labor costs and a higher cost of living. We got going in Springfield for $5,000 and have never looked back.
We have always been a creative marketing company offering services ranging from branding, design, copyrighting, media production and other traditional creative services. Living in both the Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles metro areas, we had clients from all over the country who knew Swagbot for these services. As a "click and mortar," Swagbot became synonymous locally with custom t-shirts and helping to kickstart the local t-shirt movement in 2009. Over the past few years we have primarily focused on video production, social media, experiential marketing and promotional logistics.
What makes your company unique?
We understand the complex nature of modern business as well as dealing with regulatory environments such as HIPAA. We also approach our client’s needs focused on ROI. Combine this with more than 25 years of experience and we are well-suited to help clients achieve even their most difficult marketing and communication goals.
I have written songs professionally, toured with bands across the 48 contiguous United States, written for magazines and newspapers, worked with television bookers and producers, pitched national stories (Today Show, SiriusXM, Howard Stern), written screenplays and optioned a show to Fox Television in 2011. I understand the balance between business and creativity - I refer to it as creative commerce.
We have worked with a wide variety of clients offering services ranging from logo design to fundraising and everything in between; we like to think of ourselves as a SWAT team of creative service providers. Past and current clients include CoxHealth, O’Reilly Auto Parts, eHarmony, Upwork (formerly O’desk), Fox Television, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, SBDC, The Taney County Partnership and Mercy Research Institute.
What exciting recent news do you have to report?
We recently began offering promotional logistics services to bridge the gap between production, experiential marketing, social media and product fulfillment. Since 2012, we have worked on a variety of projects with the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia. We have produced video and fundraising projects and have managed and fulfilled orders for their online store with a .0008 error rate. We created processes, produced merchandise and were responsible for shipping orders worldwide over the past three years. The project has been an amazing opportunity for us to expand our skills and build great internal systems that we will use to serve clients both locally and nationally.
What does the future hold?
I want to continue to help attract talent to southwest Missouri and build our business regionally while working with national and international clients. We love building experiences for our clients and are excited to continue to grow this area of our business along with video and promotional logistics.
