Consciously®

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Analyst for Engagement of (a/an) Financial services

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

AskSustainable is an online platform that has identified over 230 Climate-Friendly financial products totaling nearly $50B. These products provide funding for technologies and projects that help reduce harmful impacts on the climate or increase climate resiliency.

We seek to connect an informed, inclusive, and active community committed to funding our climate-resilient future.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Consciously® to accomplish?

• Establish a brand identity
• Create social media content
• Develop a marketing pitch

SOLUTION

How did you find Consciously®?

Referral

Why did you select Consciously® over others?

Great culture fit, Referred to me, Company values aligned

What was your primary form of communication with Consciously®?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Content marketing services were provided as based on the scope of work including content creation for digital media, logo design, and brand identification. Deliverables included a partnership marketing template, a marketing communications template, graphic files, and a style guide.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• N/A

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Generally, the team was highly responsive and took feedback well, however, the team was inconsistent in meeting deadlines at times. Overall the management style was flexible with at least two points of contact provided for regular communication.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Great knowledge and awareness of the market and strong innovation and creativity.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

Improve management style so that it is consistent and well oganized.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product at a nonprofit data center.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Consciously®?

We launched our brand in September 2020, and although I didn’t work at the company at that time, Consciously® designed our branding and visual identity. Once I started working here, Consciously® took over our website design, search engine marketing (SEM), and SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first project Consciously® developed for us was our company’s branding. They’ve created our brand guidelines, which they’ve used to design our platform’s UI/UX. Consciously® has designed our entire website from the ground up; however, the development was in charge of another service provider. 

In addition to the site’s UI/UX design, Consciously® is working on our SEO and content strategy. They’ve worked directly with our content team on our site’s copywriting and assisted us with optimized texts for SEO. As part of our SEO strategy, Consciously® also creates blog posts, identifies new content opportunities to boost our search engine rankings, and monitors the keywords and key search terms our customers use to find us.

After Consciously® launched our site, they’ve assisted us in creating marketing assets, including social media graphics and templates for our email marketing and presentations. 

What is the team composition?

I work mostly with 3–4 team members from Consciously®, and I occasionally work with other teammates, depending on the project’s needs. 

How did you come to work with Consciously®?

I’m unsure how we originally found Consciously® since our engagement with them precedes my employment at the company. However, when I started working here, Consciously®’s contract was about to end. I decided to extend it because they were thoughtful and methodical with their work, and their company values aligned with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $150,000 with them so far. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I’m unsure when our engagement with Consciously® first started. The contract I’ve been part of began in May 2022, and we’ve just renewed it until December 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Consciously®’s work is just top-notch. When they presented their design proposals for our site, our staff was blown away by how they incorporated dynamic elements. Our previous site’s design was flat.

Another element that has really impressed our staff and colleagues is our logo. They get impressed when we tell them the reason behind our logo’s design and what it represents. Consciously® thought about every detail in our branding, and their design is stellar. 

Although the SEO and marketing projects have just started, Consciously® has also shown their expertise and knowledge in these areas.  

How did Consciously® perform from a project management standpoint?

When I first engaged with Consciously®, I was under tremendous pressure since I was already behind schedule in releasing our platform. Consciously® noticed this and executed everything really quickly. They work around the clock to meet our deadlines and treat us as if we were their only client.

We use Jira and Asana for project management. For communication, we use Slack and email, and when there’s an urgent matter, we reach Consciously® through phone calls. 

Moreover, Consciously® has become a trusted part of our team. We lean on them as our design team, and a teammate from Consciously® is always present at our company’s daily stand-ups. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with Consciously®’s level of accountability and ownership. For instance, even though they weren’t responsible for our site’s development, Consciously® stayed with us and assisted us during its launch. 

Moreover, Consciously® is really good at figuring out the project’s end goal. They’re meticulous and methodical when developing a solution and outcome to reach that goal. Other marketing companies I’ve worked with are unable to hit the mark of what the client is looking for or don’t take the same level of ownership. 

Overall, Consciously® embeds in a way I’ve never seen and turns around high-quality work. They’re mission and goal-oriented and take extra time to meet our goals. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Consciously® to improve. The only thing that can improve our project is having a better task-tracking system. However, this isn’t a constant problem, and Consciously® has offered to assign us a project manager, but we didn’t take it. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve with your project. You also need to be open to listening to Consciously®’s ideas; they have a lot of expertise in marketing, SEO, and design. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director for an online learning platform for professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Consciously®?

We wanted to pivot our company in a new direction, one grounded in intentionality and that was actively antiracist. We wanted to instill in our students a sense of inclusive leadership, but it became clear that we were running into the challenge of being able to communicate what we were doing and how we were doing it. 

We were also struggling to address some of our narratives, infrastructure, how we see ourselves as a business, and how we presented that to the world. We hired Consciously® to help us clarify that vision and be more specific about what we were doing, how we were doing it, and how it set us apart to be successful in the market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been giving us a holistic experience and have been great about educating us and delivering the items we need. We’re in the process of refining our brand strategy and our user journey, and so at this point, we’re focusing on infrastructural issues. 

We’re taking a slow approach to our rebranding effort at this point because we want to get a little more clarity on what we’re looking for before jumping into a complete website redesign. So far, Consciously® has built and launched a landing page from scratch. 

They used a design tool to show us the landing page, and once we had agreed upon the details, Consciously® hired a developer to write the code that would go into GitHub to be installed onto our website. Our website was previously built on HTML, so they had to bring someone in to write the custom code. 

Consciously® has also been providing us with guidance on our social media strategy. They post to our Facebook and Instagram accounts, and run ads on those social platforms and search engines. We’ve scaled back on the social media ads because we weren’t seeing a great conversion rate. 

They’ve given us a brand map that explores our user journey, and we’re working on revisiting an email sequence that we previously developed. It was very low-tech and text-heavy, and we’re refining it while clarifying our vision and messaging. Consciously® has been sitting down with our CEO to have conversations making sure that we’re taking the right approach to things given the current circumstances of the market. 

Consciously® is also developing blog posts for us that we are hoping to start releasing soon. 

What is the team composition?

We meet weekly with Rai-mon (Founder & CEO) and Stephanie (Operations & Project Planning). We also work with a team of blog writers, and we know there are other people behind the scenes that we’re not interacting directly with. 

How did you come to work with Consciously®?

They were a referral. We initially hired them because we wanted to work with a company that understood our perspective and wanted intention to be at the center of what they were doing. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $50,000–$100,000 with Consciously®. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we started working with them, we have been able to claim one new application through the programmatic end using search. We’ve launched our landing page and are happy with how it looks, and we’ve developed a content machine to churn out blog posts and other content. Their strategy has been sound, and they’ve been helping us navigate our core messaging and narrative to represent ourselves in the way we want to be shown. 

We initially believed that we were going to pursue one avenue, but then we decided to change that because we realized that what we were looking to do was not going to be fruitful for our company. We changed strategies at that point, so we’re still in the process of developing content that will deliver us measurable results. 

How did Consciously® perform from a project management standpoint?

Mostly, they have stayed true to the dates and timelines they’ve given us. If there are ever delays, it is normally because we go back and forth and refine everything to ensure we’re happy. We typically communicate via Slack and use Google Docs and  Microsoft Excel to manage and track progress. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve gotten to know our company, which has helped us tease out our messaging and narrative. They listen to what we’re looking for and are open to feedback. Consciously® has adapted their approach because we like to get into the data and want to know all the details. Our conversations are never condescending; they are always collaborative. Consciously® has also been very patient with us. 

They’ve been a great partner in helping us identify how we will succeed in the market and how to communicate what we’re doing while also staying true to our values because that is a key component for us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We wish they had a little bit easier way of streamlining information and managing the flow a little more effectively. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take time to get clear on what you’re asking them to do, and be open to their initial perspective. They’re a friendly group of people, which can be a little bit different from a corporate experience. They’re not stiff in their approach, but that isn’t something that reflects on their ability to deliver.