For TPEI, Technical Process & Engineering in Lehighton, PA

Brand, web and social · Lehighton, PA

Marketing and branding for TPEI

Since the fall of 2025 we've handled TPEI's brand, built their website from scratch and run their Google search and LinkedIn, and in August we built a set on their shop floor to photograph the machines.

By Tony Ellis Martinez · TM Productions

A complete TPEI line with a blue steel base, red gearbox and white touchscreen arm, photographed on a black backdrop on the shop floor — A complete TPEI line on the black backdrop.

Technical Process & Engineering, Inc., better known as TPEI, has been building continuous mixers, extruders and compounding lines in Lehighton, PA, since 1979 for plastics, rubber and compounding plants across North America, and they machine their own rotors and parts in house.

They first reached out to us about video in the spring of 2025, and by that fall we'd signed on to do pretty much all of their marketing, from the brand and a new website to Google search and, starting this summer, their LinkedIn page. The newest piece is the product shoot we did in August, but first here's some B-roll we filmed in their shop on another shoot.

B-roll from TPEI's shop

It starts on a pair of rotors sitting in an open mixer, and the longer clip after it has the lathe cutting flights and one of their machinists running parts on the mill, with coolant spraying everywhere.

A pair of rotors in an open mixer, 52 seconds.

The lathe and the mill in TPEI's shop, 2 minutes 39 seconds.

Building a set on the shop floor

Machines this size don't fit in a studio, so we brought the studio to Lehighton. We put up a freestanding wall of black velour on pipe and stands, so nothing had to hang off their building, and brought in our own lights and a small crew to run them. Every setup got its own light, kept tight so it hit the steel and left the drape black, because that's what makes machined metal actually look like machined metal on camera, and we covered all of it on photo and video, from the complete lines down to the rotor flights and the plumbing.

Several TPEI machines lined up on a dark shop floor in front of a black drape, under the wooden roof trusses of the shop — The black velour backdrop on pipe and stands, with TPEI's machines in front of it.

A complete TPEI line with a blue base and a white touchscreen on the black backdrop, with a bright light on a stand showing behind the touchscreen — A complete line on the backdrop, with one of our lights showing behind the touchscreen.

A TPEI line with black cabinet panels and a blue base in the open shop, with blue light across the ceiling and shelving in the background — A full line out in the shop, with blue light across the ceiling.

The rotors

The rotors are where a continuous mixer does its work, and TPEI machines them in house, so we spent a good part of the day on them, with the chambers opened up and the light raking across the flights so every curve of the steel shows.

A twisted steel rotor with bronze rings sitting in an opened mixer chamber, with one bright light glowing on the drape behind it — A rotor in an opened chamber, with one of our lights behind it.

An opened mixer chamber with a polished twisted rotor lying in the lower half, lit warm against a bronze drape — An opened chamber with the rotor sitting in the lower half.

A close view of polished rotor flights glowing in warm light — The rotor flights up close.

Two rotors side by side in an opened chamber, shot from above with yellow end blocks and steel lines around them — Twin rotors in an opened chamber, shot from above.

A rotor with a bronze ring sitting in a machined steel block, surrounded by braided steel lines — A rotor up close inside the machined block.

The details

We went close on the parts a buyer studies when they're comparing equipment, like the heater bands on the barrels, the plumbing, the touchscreen controls and the TPEI logo on the electrical cabinets, because those are the shots that end up on product pages and spec sheets.

A mixer with its top section opened, photographed straight on against a bronze drape — A mixer straight on against the bronze drape.

A steel barrel wrapped in rows of band heaters with wiring running underneath — A barrel wrapped in heater bands.

Steel braided lines plumbed into one end of a mixer block, photographed against a black drape — Braided lines plumbed into one end of a mixer.

A white touchscreen control panel with red and green buttons mounted on an arm above a yellow and blue machine — The touchscreen controls.

The TPEI logo on an electrical cabinet.

Looking down into a stainless steel feed opening at a curved screw flight inside — Looking down into the feed opening.

TPEI's team

We also photographed the guys who build and service these lines, working on the machines and standing next to a finished one, because equipment photos with people in them feel a lot less like a catalog. The customer service shirts say Compounded Daily across the back, and we made sure that one made the gallery.

Two TPEI employees, one in a gray shirt and one in a yellow TPEI shirt, standing on either side of a complete line on the black backdrop — Two of TPEI's team with a finished line.

A TPEI employee in a bright yellow shirt and green cap holding a wrench while working on a machine — Working on a machine with a wrench.

The back of a gray TPEI customer service shirt reading Customer Service, tpei.com, Compounded Daily while the wearer works on a machine — The Compounded Daily shirt.

Hands working a yellow angle grinder against a steel part inside a machine — Grinding a part inside one of the machines.

A brass fitting and blue braided lines on the end of a machine, lit in deep blue — A fitting on the end of a machine, lit in blue.

The brand

Before the website or any of the posts, we worked out what TPEI should actually be saying about itself. In October 2025 we wrote their brand voice guide, a BrandScript and a master reference guide the whole team can work from, along with the keyword research everything after it was built on.

The big shift was getting them to talk about keeping a plant running instead of just selling machines, because most days a plant manager isn't shopping for a new mixer, they're trying to keep the one they've got up and making product. So the brand leans on rebuilds, spare parts, 24/7 service and the fact that they've been doing this in Lehighton since 1979, in a voice that sounds like a senior engineer who also knows how to sell, with no hype and no talk of “solutions.” We set their colors and type around a dark teal with black and white, and we made the logo files that now run across their website, their LinkedIn and their trade show graphics.

The website

Their old site was static HTML that had been up for years, so we built tpei.com again from scratch on Squarespace and wrote every page ourselves, with the BrandScript and the keyword research as the outline. Every product line has its own page now, from continuous mixers and extruders down to the lab-size lines, and so does every service, rebuilds, spare parts and the 24/7 emergency calls included, with capabilities, news, an FAQ and a blog on top of that.

When the domain moved over we pointed the old pages at their new ones, so the links people had saved over the years kept working. You can see it next to the other sites we've built on our websites page.

The tpei.com homepage.

The tpei.com Continuous Mixers Platform page with an overview of the mixers and the FR and FRE variants on dark teal cards — The continuous mixers page.

The tpei.com Equipment Rebuilding and Repair page with a photo of an opened mixer chamber under the headline — The rebuilding and repair page.

Google search

A new website doesn't do much if nobody can find it, so the search work started as soon as it went live. We set up Search Console and Google Analytics, submitted the sitemap and wrote every page title and description around what engineers and maintenance managers actually type into Google, things like continuous mixer rebuild services and spare parts for continuous mixers.

We also claimed their Google Business Profile, which nobody at TPEI knew who'd set up, switched it from Machine Shop to Manufacturer and cleaned up their listings across the directories Google checks against. There's a new post on their blog every month, built from the presentations TPEI's engineers give at industry conferences, and we keep the site maintained the whole time by testing the forms, fixing broken links and refreshing pages, with a private report page on their site that walks their team through how search is going in plain English.

The TPEI technical blog page on tpei.com with topic filters for recycling, compounding, machine configuration, strategy and service and rebuilds — The blog on tpei.com.

Since this summer we've run TPEI's company page on LinkedIn too. At the start of each month we build all of that month's posts at once, copy and graphics together, and send TPEI one PDF to approve, so nobody over there has to click through posts one at a time. Then we schedule them, handle engagement from the page through the month and send a short report at the end.

Since August most of the graphics come straight from the shoot, and those photos are on their Google Business Profile now too, so TPEI doesn't have to bring a photographer back every time a post needs a picture of a machine.

A TPEI LinkedIn graphic in dark teal over a photo of the machine lineup, headlined Sized for where you are today — LinkedIn posts we made for TPEI from the August shoot photos.

A TPEI LinkedIn graphic in dark teal over a photo of two rotors, headlined Two rotors. One machine. — LinkedIn posts we made for TPEI from the August shoot photos.

If your company builds equipment and your website still runs on phone photos from the shop floor, give us a call. We can take on one piece of this or all of it, and it's a lot easier when the people who shot your machines are the same ones writing your website and your posts.

Thanks to the TPEI team for opening up the shop and the machines for us.

Company details via tpei.com. Photos, website and LinkedIn graphics by TM Productions.