Epicosity

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the marketing specialist at Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union.

What challenge were you trying to address with Epicosity?

Our credit union was transitioning from a closed institution to a community charter and we wanted to increase our local visibility.

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start of the partnership, Epicosity helped conceptualize our brand and designed our first billboards and local television commercials. As our budget, and their capability, grew over the years, we started collaborating on more projects. They now guide our strategies on different marketing avenues such as digital advertising, script writing, web redesign, branding, naming, email outreach, HubSpot, SEO work, and any other areas we wish to enter. They produced an internal ad to help introduce and train our new employees. Additionally, they helped develop and launch a coffee brew brand to raise money for our community. In the last two years, we have raised $20,000.

What is the team composition?

I met with an account executive at least once every two weeks for status and progress updates. I also communicate with a digital strategy team on a more regular basis, depending on the complexity of the task.

How did you come to work with Epicosity?

Our president and CEO hired them and I inherited the relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

I estimate we spend around $260,000 each year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2008 and the partnership is ongoing.

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

Epicosity helped increase our social media engagement with millennials. We currently have the largest following on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter out all of our local credit unions and financial institutions. The commercials they produced for our brand won Credit Union National Association (CUNA) Diamond Awards, Telly Awards, and Addy Awards. Internally, the team has helped us keep our number in the black, increasing wallet share and products per individual for all members.

How did Epicosity perform from a project management standpoint?

They are extremely responsive, I can expect an instant response to calls and emails. Epicosity has a very hands-on and professional approach to our account. Their team is extremely collaborative in discussing multiple options and strategies to ensure everyone involved feels heard. We educate each other throughout each task so that we can mutually grow and improve.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They actively educate their clients on the marketing process. It is not a one-sided project, they familiarize you with each step and show you how to make the changes or updates in-house. They are very honest with their work and I am always confident that we have the same goal in mind.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. We have a great relationship.

Any advice for potential customers?

Clients shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions because the Epicosity team will willingly answer to assure you are both on the same page.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I oversee marketing and communication for South Dakota State University.

What challenge were you trying to address with Epicosity?

We wanted help marketing to prospective students, as well as for enrollment and retention. We also wanted help with overall brand awareness of the University.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Typically, higher education uses traditional public relations and marketing. Epicosity was brought on because of their expertise in digital media and digital strategy. They help us to identify demographics and track prospective students. In terms of marketing, the targets range from sophomores in high school up until they enroll in college. Epicosity is working on a variety of new campaigns as we head into next academic year. A big campaign for us is trying to reach admitted students in order to get them to enroll. They also target students that are looking to transfer and adult learners.

What is the team composition?

I work with an account manager and a digital director.

How did you come to work with Epicosity?

As a public institution, we had to go through an extensive RFP process. We put a bid out for the services and asked faculty and students to sit on a review committee. They selected three finalists to deliver presentations. Epicosity was the clear winner because of their in-depth understanding in all areas of digital marketing.

How much have you invested with them?

We're spending about $400,000 annually.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in May 2016 and it's an ongoing engagement.

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

The last two years have been our highest numbers ever of applicants for freshmen students. They absolutely bring a lot of creative and innovative new ideas to us that have really helped us. We’re very happy with the work they've created.

How did Epicosity perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive. They use a handful of different project management tools, and we’re in touch by email or phone on almost a daily basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re innovative. They always have a new idea to bring to the table. They put a lot of thought into the proposals they bring us, and it’s usually an idea we hadn’t thought of ourselves.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We were one of their first major higher education clients, so there was a bit of a learning curve in terms of understanding the industry.

Any advice for potential customers?

Trust the process. What they brought to us was really not traditional for higher education, so it took some of our people a bit of time to catch up and understand. They know what they're doing and will deliver positive results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Practice Liaison for a group of 16 independent physicians specialized in orthopedic care and pain management. I help manage social media and marketing for the group, which is the largest independent one in the region.

What challenge were you trying to address with Epicosity?

We knew that social media platforms were exploding. As an independent group, we felt that we could better compete with the hospital groups if we could get the word out. Hospitals in our area have so much to focus on that they can't target a specific market like ours as orthopedists. We wanted to see the potential value we could get from social media as compared to other platforms like TV or radio.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Epicosity manages social media campaigns for us including developing content for posts and for our blog. They’ve also helped us to optimize our website for marketing purposes.

They use data analytics and research to design our campaigns. They provide statistics and background information as well as the analytics to track the impacts of our campaigns.

What is the team composition?

We have an account representative that serves as the team manager as well as a digital strategist.

How did you come to work with Epicosity?

We interviewed multiple people around the area. We picked Epicosity based on their background and expertise in social media.

This year we did an open bidding process for a short-term campaign that Epicosity and multiple other agencies responded to. The other agencies couldn’t compare to Epicosity. They came in at the budget we asked for with concrete evidence and detailed examples of what they could provide for us, e.g. a 5% increase in new patients per month online. They told us honestly and forthrightly how we could best position ourselves within our limited budget. None of the other agencies did that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2015 and it’s ongoing.

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

We’ve increased patient engagement—our number of followers, numbers of shares and likes, etc.—tremendously across all social media. For example, we now have people message us through Facebook when they have questions or issues, like scheduling an appointment. It provides an additional channel for them to communicate with us and avoids them posting negative reviews online.

We’ve been able to maximize the use of our website. For example, we used to share informative pamphlets with patients in paper copy and online. With the tracking that we’ve done, we now know that posting these on our website isn’t useful. The analytics we have allowed us to utilize those areas of our site more effectively and to stop printing these documents.

How did Epicosity perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings, often in-person and sometimes by phone. We know that they work on our projects on certain days of the week, like Friday afternoons and Monday mornings. Our correspondence is put in a queue but they’re very responsive via email or phone if we need something done quickly. The longest I’ve had to wait for a return phone call is about an hour. They’re easy to reach because they’re here in town though I don’t think it would be a problem if they weren’t. I love working with them.

Our account representative has a background in healthcare which helps him to understand us and us to understand him. Healthcare is a very sensitive market around this area; him having that background has worked very well for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication is key and that they back up their work with data is fabulous. Their analytics desk can drill down and get you almost anything that you need. The physicians in our group like to have things to that are concrete so they appreciate the statistics and tracking metrics. Companies we worked with in the past didn’t provide this type of analytics.

Everything that we've kind of asked for they have done and they've even been ahead of the game on a couple different things. They always share information with us about new things that are coming out, both for social media in general and specific to healthcare. It’s helpful for me to know about these new trends and tools so I can speak confidently about the strategic decisions we’re making for our campaigns.

They're generally a great group to work with. They’re an up-and-coming company with a lot of young workers. They try to ensure a fun environment for their staff and it shows in everything that they do. They're excited to be doing what they’re doing and to learn new things. The amount that they learned in just the first six months of developing our blog was tremendous.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have experience beyond their years. Trust them to lead you in the correct direction. Whether or not you have a marketing or social media background, you won't have to second guess them all the time. They’ve blown us away with what they’ve come up with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital and social media officer for Coast Hills Credit Union. We are a credit union on California’s Central Coast with members from Santa Cruz to Ventura County. I manage the marketing department’s digital advertising and website data analytics, PR, photography, videography, social media, blog curation, and content creation.

What challenge were you trying to address with Epicosity?

We wanted to improve our digital advertising.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I first met with them, presented what we already had and were doing with another agency, and asked how they could improve the service. They presented really impressive strategies and philosophies and had the experience to back up what they proposed.

We use them primarily for digital advertising, like Pandora digital and audio ads, YouTube and Facebook pre-role, SEO keyword performance, and advertising on social media sites. Most recently, they have produced our call tree. I’ve been so impressed with their professionalism, that I’ve handed them multiple projects with the confidence that we’ll receive top quality work.

What is the team composition?

We have an account manager and digital strategist, who we speak with on a weekly basis.

How did you come to work with Epicosity?

We were working with another agency, and while we were satisfied, we still felt that there were opportunities to improve the quality. During the time when we were looking at our options, Epicosity approached one of my colleagues at an industry conference. Then our senior vice president of marketing recommended that I get in touch with them. I met with them to gauge how they would improve on the services we were already getting. I was impressed and immediately felt like we understood each other—like we were on the same wavelength in terms of philosophy—so we moved forward from there.

How much have you invested with them?

I wouldn’t be able to tell you any numbers off the top of my head, but I can say that we’ve had two annual contracts with them and upgraded our commitment to them for the second contract. We did that because we were happy with their work during the first contract and we were confident in the partnership. We’re increasing our relationship, and spending, with them as we go and are on pace to have continued work growth.

What is the status of this engagement?

We met with them and engaged them months before we actually began working together, but the work officially started in March 2017 and is still ongoing.

When we first reached out to them, we had moved away from having one agency do everything and toward doing a lot more work in-house. We weren’t really sure—and had to take time to figure out—how they were going to fit into the agency since we were in a time of transition. That’s the reason why there was so much time between our first interaction and when we officially started working together.

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

Since working with them, we’ve improved our conversions and seen that our advertising is more effective. Through refined digital targeting and strategy, we’ve seen our digital campaigns go through the roof, significantly outperforming previous years’ campaigns. Our video pre-roll on YouTube and Facebook has significantly surpassed campaigns that were done before working with them, and the same can be said for our display and search campaigns.

How did Epicosity perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always available and responsive. Whenever I have an issue, I call or email them and they will either respond immediately or as soon as they’re available. Nothing falls through the cracks.

We have weekly meetings with our account manager and digital strategist, which gives me the opportunity to ask questions about all of our campaigns. It’s a collaborative meeting where we brainstorm solutions and I receive project updates. Because of these meetings, I can speak authoritatively to people all throughout the credit union about our progress and strategies.

Additionally, we have a monthly data analytics reporting call where they update us on the performance of all our digital campaigns, including SEO keyword performance, our Google displays, and online advertising for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and many more sites.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with how they collaborate, communicate, and strategize. They are knowledgeable and experienced in the industry. In the past, we’ve worked with agencies that tried new things to see if they worked, but Epicosity knew what to use for different solutions, had already worked with the technology, and gave solid recommendations and strategy based on their experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing, in particular, I can think of. Any time there was an obstacle, I would sit down with them and we would lay out a plan for the next time a similar situation happened. There haven’t been many instances where that’s happened, but they’ve always been responsive to my feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear and direct about your goals. Epicosity is flexible and will do business the client’s way, but the key aspect to accomplishing that is having a detailed vision.