Big Sea

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.