DesignStudio

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing for Feed the Children, and we’re a food relief organization that does work in the US and in eight other countries. We’ve been in operation since 1979.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DesignStudio?

We needed help refreshing the overall brand and completely redesigning the website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the beginning of the project, they had a dedicated team that worked with our team to assess the current state planning and conceptual framework. This was done to help us determine what new content we needed and push over. We had three phases of the design process, and they did all the testing in conjunction with our team before handing it over to us for launch.

Their tasks included site mapping, content auditing, setting up the navigation, graphic design, creating the style guide, and providing us with wireframes. The main purpose of our site is to promote our brand and acquire donations, so DesignStudio had to build it with those in mind. They came to us with mock-ups of the homepage, headers, and different elements for the site.

They used Hotjar to track movement on the site, and Blackbaud for our backend CRM service. Additionally, we do all our email marketing and donation forms through one of Blackbaud’s products called Luminate.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager, but their VP of marketing and owner were heavily involved. They also had multiple people working on the project behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with DesignStudio?

I know and worked with one of the owners of DesignStudio from the American Red Cross for several years. We kept in touch and I know that they’ve done some really great work for other nonprofit organizations — and that’s how I knew I could count on them. We knew they would be able to do the project in a short time frame, and they would be budget-friendly.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–November 2017. It was a quick project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we started working together, we’ve increased our digital revenue by 94%, our social engagement by 98%, and our social impressions by 340%.

DesignStudio likes to support and help causes move forward — I know they still do a lot of work for the Red Cross as well. It’s been four years since we worked together, but we still use the general framework they gave us. If we needed to outsource something, I would definitely go back to them.

How did DesignStudio perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent to work with. They managed everything really well, and I had a dedicated project manager on staff that managed the project on our end, to help keep things moving — especially since we had a short time frame that we had to deliver. 

We used the Microsoft Project to manage the project, and we typically communicated through emails and weekly meetings that became daily meetings towards the end. They were super responsive and we never had a problem.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t know how big they are now, but the fact that they were a smaller shop made the partnership great, because they were really all-hands-on-deck. DesignStudio was really vested in the outcome along with us, and they really became more than a vendor and more part of our team. They also went above and beyond the scope of the project and didn’t charge us extra.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s been so long ago that I can’t really think of anything they could’ve done differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say to take advantage of the fact that they can conduct themselves as a partner.