Teal Media

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the website editor of a lab nonprofit. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Teal Media?

We have worked with them on several projects, including a branding project for our organization. We had a number of different looks and wordmarks; yet there was no consistency, so we brought in Teal Media to help us with that. One goal was to make the information architecture on the site more streamlined and more focused. We hadn’t worked with a branding and design agency before Teal Media.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Teal Media’s work led to a branding and style guide, which was done in advance of a website redesign. We used their team for a lot of the mockups, wireframing and compositions. They were valuable partners in that project, and have also built a couple of microsites for us.

We had multiple menu categories, and had to define what users were coming to the site for, so that we could address their needs. This was done by looking at analytics and working through some user profiles. It had been 4-5 years since we did a redesign;  the site was old and moldy at that point.

We went through a lot of discovery in-house. Going in, we knew that we’d need the most help on doing the wireframing for the site. We provided the comps for the desktop and mobile versions.

I had worked with Teal Media on a couple of projects before this one. I knew that their work was solid, and that they were easy to work with. We brought them in for the branding project, which carried over to the wireframing and comps for the website.

We had discussions about some of the new categories of pages. There was more of a narrative flow to them, and a parallax design. Teal Media helped with the imagery, and with thinking through the narrative piece.

What is the team dynamic?

There were 2-4 primary resources, as well as a couple of others, as we ramped up the project. We generally had a single point of contact. We used a project management tool, and most of the communication was done via email. Jessica Teal would come in from time to time, to get a sense of how the project was going, and to make sure our needs were met.

How did you come to work with Teal Media?

Much of it was based on my previous experience of working with them, and their familiarity with Drupal, which is what we were going to use as the platform. Teal Media had knowledge and experience with other progressive organizations, which was a big factor. They’ve consistently done good work, and we liked their style.

How much have you invested with them?

Confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial project started in May or April 2013. We don’t have ongoing work on the website, but we have built another microsite with Teal Media, which will be launched shortly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Just having a new website was a success. Anecdotally, people have liked it. We have a new feature which connects users to organizers, and have generated hundreds of leads through that piece. There is not much correlation between the metrics of the old site and the new one, just because we’ve streamlined content. Side-to-side pageviews don’t really matter, and they’re vanity metrics anyway. We’re not a for-profit institution; we’re not selling ads, so time-on-site matters more to us. It has improved by about 33%.

Much of the development was done in-house, and there were 2 different streams for taking the design and implementing it. The backend has been simplified, as was the frontend, in terms of site focus and depth. There were many layers on the old site; getting to a piece of content required clicking through 5 menu items. We can now get to it with a couple of clicks.

How did Teal Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered what they said they would, in the timeframe promised. Our organization is fairly big, and there are multiple layers, so many of the delays were due to us waiting for approval and reviewing the work done by Teal Media. In general, they were great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to take a project brief, listen to the stakeholders, and synthesize work into something beautiful and useful. Teal Media completely understood what we were going after, and delivered on that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The project management tool we used wasn’t the best, although we’ve used it forever. Teal Media may have used different software with other clients. It could have been better, but it’s not really on them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I highly recommend them, but I don’t have any specific advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president and editor-in-chief of Rewire, which is a daily online publication.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Teal Media?

We were rebranding our entire identity, in terms of name and website. Since we are an online news publication, the web piece was critical. We were moving to a name which better fit to what we were doing, so it was a whole identity package as well as a website redesign. The goals were to have a name and product which more effectively relayed who we are and what we do, as a news organization—something which would be easier to remember and refer to.

I hadn’t worked with an online agency before, yet our aim was to have a much more functional website for our readership. There were multiple additions around both multimedia and print media.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The branding part was started from scratch, with Teal Media doing a deep dive into who we were, who our readers were, what their demographics were, etc., and understanding our current audience and the ones we wanted to reach. Over the course of a month, they made a deep investigation into key informants, having detailed interviews with our board, as well as with readers and people in the fields we focused on. Teal Media put together a bunch of focus groups, and worked with our staff. Through that process, they began to develop an identity package for us, which they felt would more effectively represent who we were. Those phases then moved into everything: from choosing designs and a name, to the very granular parts of completely redesigning the website.

All of this was done over a period of a year, and it radically improved the functionality of our website: from the vantage point of user-friendliness, as well as our ability to keep up with news productions (multimedia slideshows, podcasts and print journalism). Teal Media handled everything. They made the site function as we needed it to, gave us functionalities we didn’t previously have, designed everything on it, and went through the months of discussions around choosing our name.

What is the team dynamic?

There was a total of 5 people assigned to our project, and the team pretty much stayed the same throughout. I am not a person who thinks that throwing more people at something will make it better. We had the people we needed, when we needed them. One of the things I noticed in other proposals, was that we would be charged more money, but would actually get less people time. With Jessica, I felt that this was a personal interaction. I am comfortable working with a small team, especially if I know that they’re going to be responsive, because we are a small team ourselves; we’re a team of 30 people, but we’re a nationally-known publication. We do work which can rival others’, who have much larger budgets and exposure.

We worked through a system by which we could connect to different people for different things. There were multiple aspects of the work, so the tech person interacted with ours on the coding side, and others were responsible for the design side. Jessica was the lead.

How did you come to work with Teal Media?

I am connected to a large number of people in the broader progressive community. I was literally sending notes out to various groups and lists, asking for recommendations of different branding firms. We received 15-20 recommendations, and looked at the work of all of those online, in terms of their websites and developed products. We narrowed the choice down to 6-7 which we’d actually want to get on the phone with, and we talked through our project with them. We selected 3 for proposals. In the meantime, I had met Jessica at a venue, and, by talking to her, I got a strong gut sense that she would be the person we should work with. It ended up being the case. I felt that Jessica understood us in an organic way, unlike the other firms we interviewed.

I knew that the project would be a big deal and a lot of work. It would put extra pressure on our staff. We were all prepared for this, and reminded ourselves of it through the process. It had nothing to do with Teal Media; it was akin to running a hotel while renovating it.

How much have you invested with them?

The entire rebranding effort cost us $160,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Teal Media in April 2015, and launched the rebrand in the last week of March 2016. We’ve continued to work with them on other things.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a much easier way of loading content onto the site, multimedia slideshows, video capacities, podcasts and better search functions. The layout and readability of our site are profoundly better, not even comparable to the old one. Although the content we’re producing is of the same high quality as before, the site previous site did not look high-quality.

We only get one chance to make a first impression, and looking at something which doesn’t seem high-quality will make people assume that the content on it is also not of high quality. Immediately after the rebrand, this changed.

We received huge feedback after relaunching the site. Quite literally, everywhere we went, with every interaction we had, people were complimenting the site, the new name, the look and functionality. This continues—I will talk to people I haven’t interacted with in a while, and they will tell me the rebrand was amazing. Even though our work was the same, the look became so much more professional. It automatically got us attention from larger publications citing the work. There were several articles written up about the rebrand, and there’s also an incalculable amount of legitimacy it brought us.

If the best product ever made has a shoddy package, people won’t buy it. Once the box is changed to something more appropriate for the level of quality, people will look at it differently.

How did Teal Media perform from a project management standpoint?

Teal Media gave us a fair budget, and stuck to it. They always told us beforehand about approaches which might affect that budget. We never found out anything after the fact, and there was no huge amount of overhead built in. They were incredibly responsive.

We had weekly calls, but we interacted all the time. When spoke whenver there were questions, task check-ins, work reviews, etc. We used a project management tool which enabled us to communicate securely. We also used email and had weekly calls and in-person meetings with the board and with our staff, at certain critical junctures. I can’t imagine the process being any better. I would work with them in a heartbeat.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that they are incredibly talented, but are also the most down-to-earth people you can imagine. Teal Media is a pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn’t have any issues with how things went. The process was smooth, and any problems which arose, did so on our end.

Advice for prospective customers?

People tend to think that large firms are better, just because they’re big. This isn’t necessarily the case; I think that there are different kinds of firms for different purposes, and the ability to communicate clearly and honestly with people is very important. I would be reluctant to hire someone I felt wasn’t able to communicate issues, problems or concerns upfront. I had a sixth sense about Jessica, and knew we’d be able to enter into this as partners. She wanted us to succeed as much as we wanted to succeed. She really listened to what we needed.

There are many firms which can work with non-profits like our own, and do a nice web redesign, but dealing with a publication is a profoundly different thing. She understood this, and I didn’t get the sense that the other people we were talking to did.