East Coast Catalyst

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a software company that sells SAS [software-as-a-service] solutions to businesses, so we're a B2B [business-to-business] SAS software provider.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the vice president of worldwide marketing for the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with East Coast Catalyst?

We were looking to them to help us rebuild our website, solely for the design component. We expanded our relationship with them to include both design and development for us. They give us input on general marketing practices as well.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

It started as Web design and then moved into Web development also.

What was your process for selecting East Coast Catalyst with which to work?

I Googled design firms in the Boston area and ECC came up. I saw that they worked with other companies similar to ours, B2B, high-tech software providers. I reached out to them, and we went from there.

It wasn’t critical for us to work with someone local. We don’t always need to meet in person, but I like to be able to have that face-to-face relationship.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

It was from $20,000 to $50,000.

When was the work completed?

We began working with them last summer in July 2014. We now have a retainer with them for now through the end of the year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

I don’t have anything readily available.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

We are very satisfied. Everything we reach out to them for, they have no trouble handling it. We even throw projects their way that we didn’t scope initially. They’re incredibly flexible and helpful in many different ways.

Is there anything unique about East Coast Catalyst that really makes them stand out, compared to other online marketing companies?

The thing I like about them the most is, they’re a boutique agency. So, they offer a lot of different expertise, but you’re not working with many different people every day. 

I like that they’re really accessible. We have access to the very people who know how to solve our problems. They’re truly an extension of our team, almost like having them in-house rather than going through that agency relationship. I wanted to work with them because of their broad experience.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I don’t think so.

What advice would you give to a future client of theirs?

Be transparent. Even if it doesn’t make complete sense, they’re great to bounce ideas off of. They help walk you through things and will work with you in a partnership rather than just taking our tasks and not sharing knowledge. Let them help you.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We’re a privately held, for-profit education company. We own and operate approximately 50 trade and vocational colleges and institutes around the country, where we prepare people to become nurses, medical assistants, dental assistants, truck drivers, and other vocational hands-on careers.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the marketing director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with East Coast Catalyst?

We approached East Coast Catalyst to do a full third-party digital audit of our digital marketing practices. We’re in an industry that’s facing some stiff headwinds and some serious challenges across our space, and we’re no different from our competition. So, we needed a qualified third party come in that was independent, who could assess our practices and our efforts, and make recommendation on where we could improve things, or what we were doing right, and where the chances for improvement were.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

What it involved was a deep dive into all of the digital and website channels and practices that we have, from evaluating our website for certain technical features and SEO [search engine optimization] practices, down to how we had pages tagged, to developing and enhancing our content marketing strategy. They looked at what our efforts were in organic search through SEO, in paid search, and with our digital display ads and retargeting efforts. They evaluated our relationships in the third-party affiliate lead generation part of the business, which is a big part of the education space. So, they basically looked at all of our digital channels and the way that we were doing business, and made recommendations on areas where we could improve, expand, and contract. They let us know how our website stacked up against our peers, and against certain standards.

What was your process for selecting East Coast Catalyst with which to work?

We did a fair amount of research. We’re owned by a private equity group in New York, and they had suggested some high powered, large consulting agencies. We weren’t a large enough enterprise to go with a big consulting firm like that, so we were looking for a mid-cap size consulting group. Their name came up a couple times with people that we were speaking to, so we engaged with them and they ended up in a shootout with somebody else, and they got the job.

Can you provide a sense of the size of the project with a cost or work-hour figure?

All I can say is that we felt we got a pretty good price compared to the quotes that we got from the big guys in New York, and we certainly felt they put the right amount of hours against it.

How long did the project take?

The project started early in 2013, the kickoff meeting was in March. From start to finish, it was about a four-month engagement, but they have been involved more recently and have maintained a relationship with us. When we have questions, Tim [Bourgeois, founder and digital strategist at East Coast Catalyst] is always willing to give us some time and let us bounce things off him, including when we are bringing in new talent. He actually helped us evaluate our digital agency of record as we were making that decision. So, while the formal engagement may have lasted 120 days, they’ve continued to maintain a relationship and have some involvement, and have had some stake in what we’ve been doing since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the work?

We made a change in who our paid search group was, which East Coast Catalyst vetted. The group that we brought in, who they felt was the right group, we’ve had a very good year of paid search with them. We’ve actually grown our results, in terms of leads and enrollments, almost 50 percent on a year–to-year basis. We still think we have challenges elsewhere, but some things worked out very well, some things they told us we were doing well and didn’t really need to change. Some other things we still remain challenged with. So, it’s kind of a mixed bag, but all in all, we felt we got a fair audit from them, and it was exactly what we were looking for, to be able to report to our capital partners.

How would you describe their performance throughout the work?

I thought their performance was professional, on time, and their work was insightful.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

They were an outside third party that didn’t have any financial vested interests in the advice they were giving us. That’s why it was important for us to get their opinion. Our vendors were telling us things that we should do, but we didn’t know if it was in our best interests or theirs. We knew that the advice and recommendations from East Coast Catalyst were in our best interests.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

No. There were certain areas of our business where they had a lot of learning to do, and they were upfront about that. The affiliate space wasn’t a space that they had a great deal of depth and experience in. But, for what we got from them, no. I thought they did a fine job.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Apperian is the leading enterprise-class mobile application management and app store platform for the secure delivery of critical apps to 100% of users across an organization.  Apperian provides fine-grained security and dynamic policy controls at the individual app level for deployments where mobile device management approaches are not possible or desired, such as BYOD, contract workers and other unmanaged devices.

Apperian’s easy to use interface offers a private, branded consumer-like enterprise app store that greatly increases mobile app adoption and a comprehensive app management back-end for administrators to easily protect and manage their business apps and data.  The company has helped IT and line of business professionals secure and deliver more than 1.2 million enterprise apps to organizations such as Maxim Integrated Products, NVIDIA, Nationwide, New Balance, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

What is your role at the company?

I am the chief marketing officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with East Coast Catalyst?

We were in the process of overhauling our messaging platform. That led to the need to rebrand and reposition the company, which also required overhauling our fundamental design and creative strategy, website and collateral. They helped ultimately with a holistic view of messaging, strategy, and then the creative execution.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We began the initial messaging platform overhaul ourselves, since it’s tied quite closely to our platform capabilities, and that’s something that’s hard for anyone other than an employee to deeply understand. So, we made an initial pass at that ourselves. Then we engaged East Coast Catalyst to challenge some of the points, and to help translate those into more easily digestible public messages. Often when internal teams do this kind of work, it tends to be pretty self-centered. So they brought an outside, fresh perspective to the language, and positioning, and the way that we were telling the story.

Then, they facilitated the process by which we looked at how that message platform aligned with the current branding. The degree of disconnect then led to the decision to change the creative strategy, and ultimately some of the core branding elements in the platform. So, they began engaging with us halfway through the messaging process, and then through creative strategy and creative execution. The big pieces that they provided were logo redesign, website overhaul, online and offline creative asset design and development, and conversion optimization.

What was your process for selecting East Coast Catalyst with which to work?

I have done some work with them before and I had a good experience. I gave them an opportunity for this project because of that previous experience. What I like about them over the other people that we had considered was that they seemed to have a real compassion for the challenges we had. They had a willingness to be open and listen to what we were saying, to want to spend time and interview people throughout the team and company to truly understand our challenges and what we were trying to do in the target audience, more so than other creative and digital teams that often seem to come with some preconceived notions and be a little strong-willed about that.

They were open, and flexible, and had worked with us to adapt designs and strategies based on the feedback from me, and from people on the executive team, and people in the sales organization. So, it was their work style, their demeanor, a really good cultural fit with the team here, and their ability to produce really good creative work at fair rates.

How long did the work take?

The majority of the initial project, from the creative strategy to website redesign, was done in a six- to nine-month period of time. With this kind of project, there’s a lot of follow-up work that happens, so we’re continuing to do that. We have been working with them for almost two years now. Soon, we’re going to be pushing forward another home page refresh. So, they continue to be a close partner of ours.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the work?

I continue to get comments about how the brand elements are tied really tightly to our core messaging, and the values we project as a company. We constantly get comments about how cool the logo is and the color palette and how well the design reflects our story and value. The design choices are really tightly aligned with how we project the company. So, I think they did a really nice job aligning our story with the visual way of telling that story.

All business metrics in the company are up and to the right. Revenue, pipeline coverage, web traffic, press coverage, social media coverage, all of that has significantly improved during the last two years. It’s hard to attribute that the revenue lift is from the brand overhaul, but we basically changed everything about how we describe and show the company. I think we’re really tightly aligned with our messages, which are aligned to the target audience we’re trying to reach and their challenges. I think we’ve got good alignment, which leads to good efficiencies and effectiveness with marketing programs.

How would you describe their performance?

I think they’re a true partner. I consider them an extension of the team, not a vendor. We give them access to our office, they come and go and meet with people as needed to move their projects ahead. I think they are one of the most, if not the most, collaborative group that I’ve ever worked with. I trust them with the team, and the work product is always good. They’re flexible and they take feedback well. Some design-oriented people can be rather strong-willed, but they’re flexible. So, if we don’t believe that something is working for our purposes, they’ll redo it and they’ll work with us. They don’t want to rest until they get it right and until they know that we’re happy with it.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I think they’re a quite practical group. Since they are also a small organization, I think they understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes with limited budget and trying to do big things. They seem to have an appreciation for looking to make investments where it’s going to pay off. Even though there are hundreds or thousands of things we could do with our website or collateral or design, I think they want to focus their time and projects on the things that are going to make the biggest impact. I don’t feel like they’re ever out to try to gouge me for increasing the retainer or taking on projects that I don’t want. There’s a very high level of trust when working with them.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Not from their standpoint. It has to do more with the way that we manage the project. We ended up pushing some things off for budget reasons. When we ended up doing them, it had a big impact, and I wish we had benefited from it sooner. That’s mostly to do with me, not them. I’m not sure I would change anything with them.

BACKGROUND

The reviewer is a consultant and was working for a one of the largest for-profit, secondary school organizations in the United States. As part of that work, he referred East Coast Catalyst to his client to audit and improve the client's digital marketing strategy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

The client organization had a strong traditional marketing strategy, but lacked digital marketing strategy. The consultant selected East Coast Catalyst because they preferred to work with a smaller, more nimble company, rather than engage with a large agency that might be encumbered by media buying and other interests. Of the companies he interviewed, East Coast Catalyst was clearly able to articulate their digital strategy expertise, and was one of the few shops that is both small and focused on digital strategy.

SOLUTION

East Coast Catalyst completed a thorough audit of the client's marketing efforts and provided actionable recommendations to improve their digital marketing. East Coast Catalyst assessed the client's budget and processes in order to articulate a new digital marketing strategy. The work took place during six months in 2013. The work was significant, costing about $250,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Both the consultant and the client had a positive experience working with East Coast Catalyst. The client was able to reach their intended audience, who is not necessarily tech savvy, and cohesively connect their offline and online marketing efforts through East Coast Catalyst's recommendations. The East Coast Catalyst team articulated the problems and recommendations very well to the client executives, who gave positive feedback. Overall, the client appreciated the highly structured approach to executing their marketing strategy.

The reviewer reports that East Coast Catalyst was very easy to work with, saying that they are one of the few small firms with a high expertise in digital marketing strategy. He would highly recommend them to others.