Big Sea Review Insights

Overall Review Rating

4.9

Quality 4.8
Schedule 4.6
Cost 4.7
Willing to Refer 4.9

Top Mentions

Review Highlights

Impressive Web Development Skills

The company is recognized for their web development expertise, creating user-friendly, responsive websites that meet client expectations. Their work often results in increased traffic and improved user engagement.
Positive Impact on Business Growth

The company's efforts have led to tangible business growth for clients, such as increased leads, brand awareness, and sales. Their strategic approach often results in improved ROI and market share.
Strong Marketing Strategy & Execution

Big Sea has been praised for their strong marketing strategy and execution, catering to diverse needs like brand positioning, digital advertising, and social media management. Clients appreciate their ability to enhance brand awareness and increase reach effectively.
High Client Satisfaction

Clients express high satisfaction with Big Sea's services, highlighting their professionalism, creativity, and ability to understand and align with client needs. The company's ability to integrate into client teams is also noted.
Effective Communication and Collaboration

Big Sea's team is noted for their excellent communication and collaborative approach, ensuring clients feel involved and informed throughout the project process.
Room for Improvement in Communication Tools

While generally effective, some clients suggested improvements in communication tools like Asana for clearer expectations and better tracking of deliverables.

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Content Marketing Email Marketing Social Media Marketing
$10,000 to $49,999
Apr. 2026 - Ongoing

5.0

Quality: 5.0

Schedule: 5.0

Cost: 4.0

Willing to Refer: 5.0

"Big Sea's team is collegial, enthusiastic, and easy to work with."

Jul 14, 2026

Executive Director, Creative Education Foundation

Beth Miller

Non-profit
Duxbury, Massachusetts
1-10 Employees
Online Review
Verified

Big Sea provides marketing strategy and execution for a nonprofit organization. The team's work includes content development, website messaging, email and social media marketing, and campaign asset creation.

Big Sea has expanded the client's reach and improved engagement across social media platforms. Their work has transformed the client's marketing capacity and impact. Big Sea's project management is excellent. Moreover, they deliver on time, efficiently, and with great communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director of the Creative Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides programs and resources to teach creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills. We also host the long-running Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) conference.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Big Sea?

We needed help segmenting and marketing to people seeking professional development in deliberate creativity skills.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Big Sea provides us with a combined strategic and execution retainer through their Vision & Velocity program. The engagement includes executive-level marketing leadership, weekly strategy sessions, and ongoing guidance on positioning, messaging, audience clarity, and campaign prioritization.On the implementation side, Big Sea delivers content development, website messaging refinement, editorial calendar support, email and social content creation, campaign asset development, and toolkit/template production.

What is the team composition?

We work with 2–5 teammates from Big Sea.

How did you come to work with Big Sea?

Someone referred Big Sea to me. I chose them over other options because they had high ratings, were a great culture fit, and had company values that aligned with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $10,000 to $49,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Big Sea in April 2026, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Big Sea has been an essential marketing partner for us. Since February 2026, they’ve delivered a full CPSI campaign, rebuilt our paid media structure, strengthened our email segmentation, and established a consistent social content system across LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Their work directly expanded our reach — for CPSI 2026, 32% of attendees were first-timers, and social content reached thousands of non-followers for the first time.Big Sea has also produced a 90-day strategy, audience personas, optimized our registration page, built multi-segment email campaigns, launched targeted LinkedIn ads, and created tools our team can use year-round. They’ve also identified critical website and conversion issues. Their partnership has transformed our marketing capacity and impact.During the CPSI 2026 campaign, Big Sea’s work produced significant increases across our social channels and audience reach. On Instagram, views increased 61%, unique accounts reached grew 139%, and non-follower reach rose 182%. Facebook saw a 38% increase in views, a 103% increase in unique viewers, and a 483% jump in non-follower interactions. On LinkedIn, impressions increased 4,722%, driven by targeted paid media that generated 106 clicks to the CPSI landing page.Email engagement also improved, with a segmented campaign sent to 7,586 contacts, contributing to a strong first-timer turnout — 32% of CPSI attendees were new to the event.At this stage, we don’t have reliable website traffic or conversion data that can be directly attributed to Big Sea’s work. Before this engagement, our analytics setup and registration flow were fragmented across multiple systems, which made accurate tracking difficult. Big Sea has helped us configure and verify GA4, improve conversion tracking, and identify structural issues in our website and registration experience. We hope to generate the funds to retain them to lead a full website rebuild to fix those barriers.

How did Big Sea perform from a project management standpoint?

Big Sea’s project management is excellent. They deliver on time and with efficiency and excellent communication. We communicate via virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The depth of talent across an array of marketing areas is impressive. Big Sea’s team is collegial, enthusiastic, and easy to work with. I was looking for a marketing thought partner, and that’s exactly what I got.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Big Sea to improve.

RATINGS

5.0

Other Digital Marketing
$50,000 to $199,999
Sep. 2015 - Ongoing

5.0

Quality: 5.0

Schedule: 4.5

Cost: 5.0

Willing to Refer: 5.0

“They're always willing to ... figure out how they can meet our needs.”

Nov 16, 2017

Assistant Dean, Nonprofit University

Anonymous

Education
Florida, United States
501-1,000 Employees
Phone Interview
Verified

Big Sea created and executes an inbound marketing strategy, using the HubSpot software. Deliverables include SEO as well as content creation for email, web, blog, and social media.

Applications have increased in terms of quality, diversity, and volume. Uncompromising responsiveness and flexibility is a core strength, as well as the ability to capture the institution’s voice.

A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an institution of higher education.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Big Sea?

The software system that we'd been using was antiquated, and we wanted to move to an inbound marketing software. We didn’t want to just increase the volume of applications; our goal was to improve quality and diversity of applicants.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a ton of background research on who we are, our strengths, and weaknesses. Big Sea helped us figure out our value proposition, and then articulate it to prospective students from different walks of life.

They oversee our entire inbound marketing strategy. They create content—including smart, or dynamic, content—for the website, blog, email, and social media. They also execute an SEO [search engine optimization] plan.

What is the team dynamic?

Our lead contact is Maria [Content Director, Big Sea]. We’ve also worked with several other copywriters and designers.

How did you come to work with Big Sea?

We found them through the HubSpot website for certified marketing agencies. They were one of several vendors we sent an RFP [request for proposal] to.

What stood out in the proposal was their expertise with the entire HubSpot software system. They also had knowledge and experience working with other institutions of higher education that we didn’t find in other vendors.

We brought 3 vendors to campus and selected Big Sea. We liked their familiarity with our location, and their ability to talk without using technical jargon.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work began in September 2015, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve seen improvements in the metrics used to measure class quality and diversity, as well as an increase in the total number of applications. The HubSpot software allows us to track year-over-year click rates, opt-out rates, open rates, and SEO performance data.

Big Sea has done a great job figuring out who we are as an institution and targeting our message to attract the right applicants.

How did Big Sea perform from a project management standpoint?

They use an Agile method of working in sprints, which we’ve found very helpful. They send weekly reports, quarterly reports, and hold bi-weekly phone calls. Day to day correspondence is done through the product management software, Teamwork. It allows us to go in and see what's going on, to make edits, and to send emails. We also use Google Docs. If there’s an urgent issue, we can reach them on their cell phones.

Maria is very responsive and flexible. If we ever asked them to change direction, there’s no resistance. She’s always willing to talk about our deliverables, figure out how to meet our needs, and not need to charge us more.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they took time to learn about the institution and figure out our voice. They create content that speaks to prospective students using language we would normally use.

Everything they do is custom. Their corporate culture is very much aligned with ours.

RATINGS

5.0

Showing 21-22 of 22 Reviews

Our Story

Big Sea is a 20+ year old, woman- and minority-owned Certified B Corporation with roots in St. Petersburg, FL and Asheville, NC. Our fully distributed team of 30+ strategists, designers, developers, and storytellers serves changemakers: nonprofits, community health centers, cultural institutions, and purpose-driven companies.

We hold ourselves to very high standards: nearly 6 year average client tenure and 90% team retention say more than we ever could about our culture.

Locations (2)

136 4th St N, Ste 238 St. Petersburg, FL, United States 33701

21 - 30

Contact Big Sea

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Creative Education Foundation

(1)

Beth Miller

Dickinson State University

(1)

Michael Cullinane

The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation

(1)

Erin Vermilye

Wallace Welch & Willingham, An IMA Company

(1)

Joshua Ferret

Big Sea

Amplify your purpose.

Pricing Snapshot

What Clients Have Said

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Big Sea Review Insights

Overall Review Rating

Top Mentions

Review Highlights

Impressive Web Development Skills

Positive Impact on Business Growth

Strong Marketing Strategy & Execution

High Client Satisfaction

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Room for Improvement in Communication Tools

Reviews mentioning:

Big Sea Reviews

Content Dev, Email & Social Media Marketing for Nonprofit

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

RATINGS

Digital & Inbound Marketing for Nonprofit University

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

RATINGS

Our Story

Locations (2)

Creative Education Foundation

Dickinson State University

The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation

Wallace Welch & Willingham, An IMA Company

Big Sea

Amplify your purpose.

2 Locations

Services

Focus

Industries

Clients

Pricing Snapshot

What Clients Have Said

Most Common Project Size

Select a service to see pricing information

Reviews

Big Sea Review Insights

Overall Review Rating

Top Mentions

Review Highlights

Impressive Web Development Skills

Positive Impact on Business Growth

Strong Marketing Strategy & Execution

High Client Satisfaction

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Room for Improvement in Communication Tools

Reviews mentioning:

Big Sea Reviews

Content Dev, Email & Social Media Marketing for Nonprofit

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

RATINGS

Digital & Inbound Marketing for Nonprofit University

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

RATINGS

Portfolio & Awards

About the Team

Our Story

Location

Locations (2)

Contact

Connect with Big Sea on Social

Connections

Creative Education Foundation

Dickinson State University

The Howard C. Liebengood Foundation

Wallace Welch & Willingham, An IMA Company