By Grace Silipigni
Owner: Max Greenhood
Founded: 2013
Location: 623 High St., Portsmouth
Employees: 6
Situated on the iconic High Street of Olde Towne Portsmouth is the brick-faced storefront of RocketBike Digital Agency, LLC. The boutique creative shop consists of only six team members but offers premium advertising services from creative and graphic design, strategic planning and consulting to full-scale marketing campaigns complete with photography and videography.
Company Founder and President Max Greenhood first launched RocketBike as a small, freelance DBA in 2013. In conjunction with his freelance work, Greenhood also assisted his parents with managing Olde Towne’s former Brutti’s restaurant. The managerial skills Greenhood gained in the restaurant industry, combined with his experience working at an international firm in Egypt and small agency in Harrisonburg, established a strong creative foundation on which Greenhood could build RocketBike. His first employee and current lead developer, Christian Roof, served as Greenhood’s primary confidante while launching the agency from the spare bedroom of his Portsmouth home.
Among the agency’s first clients was a technology company based out of Los Angeles, Calif. Several out-of-state clients followed suit and requested RocketBike for their advertising needs, increasing not only the agency’s clientele but also its employee population. Greenhood was then forced to expand the operations of RocketBike beyond his spare bedroom and into a larger and more permanent workspace in Olde Towne Portsmouth.
On any given day, the modern office now manages the marketing operations of 10 to 15 national and international clients. Some of RocketBike’s clients include the Shenandoah Beerwerks Trail, the Florida-based Gator Cases and Philip Morris International. The small team is divided into four distinct departments to include Creative, Strategy/Consulting, Advertising and Photography and Videography. While the divisions of RocketBike are clearly marked, its team members are versed in nearly every area of expertise. “We’re a small team, so we all wear a few hats along with our core competencies,” explains Greenhood.
On the creative side, RocketBike focuses on website development, a self-taught skill Greenhood acquired during his undergraduate career at James Madison University. The team regulates every aspect of a business’s online site from coding and design to implementation and analytics. RocketBike also offers paid search services, boosting company’s online presence with Google campaigns and paid social media.
To enhance brand identities, RocketBike offers custom logo creation and a variety of design materials to promote businesses both online and in-print. Their product selection includes digital product catalogs, brochures, bus wraps and car dealer-specific candidate books. For a more traditional advertising approach, RocketBike also curates effective print and digital ad placements. “We do pretty much everything short of Super Bowl ads,” jokes Greenhood.
The exceptional services provided by RocketBike are not only effective but grounded in a principled business method. The intimacy of the six-member office translates seamlessly into the personal relationships the agency cultivates with its clients. “Trust is an asset that is very difficult to build and easy to lose, and I take that very seriously,” says Greenhood. “We really do care about our clients. So many companies from small shops to big agencies put out expensive, but ineffective products, so the big thing we strive to do differently is to do right by our clients.”
RocketBike’s holistic approach has proved true in its home base of Olde Towne Portsmouth as the agency that successfully rebranded the city as a tourism destination and captured its historic waterside charm with a new logo and website. “Olde Towne is an awesome place to work and live, and I’m fortunate enough to do both,” says Greenhood. “Portsmouth, and Olde Towne especially, are some of the most undervalued real estate in Hampton Roads, so [they] provide a big opportunity for a lot of people.”
Taking advantage of Portsmouth’s rising interest, Greenhood and his staff are currently drawing out plans for their new multi-story office space on Court Street.
Learn more at ItsRocketBike.com.
