Kahoots Creative Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former head of marketing at Arcadia Data, a B2B enterprise software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kahoots Creative Group?

I was trying to improve our brand and our look and feel. I wanted to create a more engaging digital presence as well as a presence at our physical events.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on retainer for us. Their scope extended to all design aspects, such as the look and feel of the website. The developers there were also responsible for the operational backend for the website. They did some work for integrating our Marketo software into marketing operations and all the reports and operational backend. Kahoots also did all of our branding for our tradeshows and social media, as well as all the design work for that.

We did a website redesign for our homepage as well as other subpages. Our team wanted to freshen up those pages to represent our products. We’re a visual analytics product and wanted to have more interactive components on our website so that when you come to the homepage, you can actually see some of our visual analytics in action that is more engaging.

We had a scoping call with them and explained areas that we wanted to improve. They collected our input from a couple of key stakeholders. Their team would always come back with wireframes or mockups of what it would look like. I liked that they’d show us the designs in a way that different stakeholders could comment on it in real-time. I didn’t have to take a screenshot and mark it up. It was a very collaborative way to mark up the different changes. They handled all the backend design work to put it into templates and push it out directly on the backend as well in WordPress. They had the expertise at the frontend for the UX and design, all the way back to the web development implementation of the look and feel for the site.

Kahoots also made a video for our sales kickoff where we just wanted to have something that would pump everybody up and was exciting. It had really good music and motion graphics. They built it for us in a custom way, pretty iteratively, and a quick turnaround. We gave them the project 1-2 months before the sales kickoff and they were able to produce something that was fantastic. They got everybody jazzed up and excited.

What is the team composition?

Our day to day person was Jill (UI & Graphic Design Lead, Kahoots Creative Group). She works closely with Sherrie (CEO/Co-founder, Kahoots Creative Group). They’re the only two people I’ve interacted with.

How did you come to work with Kahoots Creative Group?

They were working with us before I got there.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015. The contract ran until 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re a small team able to handle fairly large projects and do it quickly, within budget, and on time. Every project I’ve thrown at them, they’ve exceeded expectations.

I didn’t like the initial designs they came up with and brought in another firm to make an attempt. Kahoots Creative Group then did some additional designs after it turned out the other vendor I brought in wasn’t as good. For the video project, I wasn’t quite sure. However, we gave them a chance and they totally exceeded my expectations. I wasn’t deliberately putting them to the test but I wanted to see and they continued to impress me.

I’m pretty confident they’ll be able to up our game in terms of branding, be more efficient, and help us scale the business.

How did Kahoots Creative Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They make it easy to work with them because I didn’t have to talk to multiple people. It’s been good. They’re flexible. It can be as simple as an email with a request. They manage the requests log and prioritization. They can work within a project management software if you use one in-house. We used Trello. I had them switch it to just a simple Google document that we could look at. We were able to keep in pretty good sync on things and we have a weekly check-in call on operation in making sure everything is on track for different projects.

We had a weekly check-in call on operations and making sure everything is on track for different projects. There were never any concerns around project management. In all fairness, I’ve worked with larger agencies that have dedicated project managers that are much more deliberate and more formal in terms of how they run a project. That’s all well and good but you end up paying for that. I’m very happy with Kahoots Creative Group where it’s a little bit more fluid. It can be faster and less overhead. The person project managing is also helping do some of the design work. You can get direction changes done more quickly.

I’ve worked with cheaper agencies as well where the quality and the project management and communication weren’t as good. The quality we get is high value.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality and breadth of their work are most impressive. It feels like other agencies I’ve worked with might be really good in one specific thing like managing design but they can’t handle web development on the backend. I was always surprised by how deep Kahoots Creative Group could go in different areas. They had an experienced staff that had been working together for a long time and are easy to work with. I never had any staff turnover on the account.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Project management could be formalized more. Sometimes being more proactive on the communication of status updates for projects and almost a push notification of where we are on things versus waiting to have a call. Getting email updates on a more frequent basis would be good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a point person internally that is driving the agenda and projects with Kahoots Creative Group.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are TransUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. I work for the rental screenings department. We do tenant background checks on potential renters for landlords, typically independent landlords of one to five properties. These landlords want to find the right tenant but they don’t want to go through a big management process, get a membership, or pay fees. We offer a quick, legal way to have renters push their credit reports and criminal and eviction background checks to a landlord.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kahoots Creative?

We were trying to move away from centralized corporate marketing or a creative team. Instead, we wanted to embed a creative team within each of the verticals at TransUnion. I was hired on as the UX designer of the team. That role traditionally wasn’t on the team because we didn’t have any creative services at the time. My VP brought me in and there was an abundance of work for me to take on. I needed some assistance developing UI prototypes, or clickable HTML prototypes, for our internal development team to stitch together to our APIs. These will let us build out different platforms and software for our individual products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

From the user end, Kahoots Creative helped us with the ones for independent landlords. They can go on, join our product, create an account, and run their potential renter applicants through our system. This would then allow the landlord to get those reports back and allow them to make a decision. They can understand if there’s anything that they may have missed during their interview process with the applicant. Anything outside of software development was taken care of on our end. They would provide light usability tests and offer UI recommendations that were sometimes outside of the scope of the project, which was good. For the most part, we handled a lot of the strategy on that project while Kahoots did the execution. From our side, it was probably 15–20 developers in two Scrum teams at that time.

How did you come to work with Kahoots Creative?

Sherrie Hablitzel, the CEO at Kahoots Creative, worked and headed TransUnion’s corporate marketing team in Chicago. Eventually, she left and started her own company. My VP made the connection with her and her new team at Kahoots. He felt that she was a pretty good vendor and recommended her. We had to test Kahoots on a small piece of the project to see how they did and how my relationship was with them. After that, I could decide if I needed to open it up to a couple of other agencies. I had additional vendors that I looked at, but we considered the cost savings and the relationship with my VP.

How much have you invested with Kahoots Creative?

 After everything was said and done, we spent $30,000–$50,000 on their services. It was actually lower than what I expected for the amount of work that they wound up producing.

What is the status of this engagement?

It started at the end of 2014, with a portion of it ending in 2015. The majority of the work was backend and linking up the UI from that point forward, which ended in 2016. The project is live.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have an affiliate program that white labels the site in the system that we built and in the website portal. Players like Zillow, USAA, or Farmers can put their logo on and have their own co-branded version of the site. At an anecdotal level, people were quite pleased because it was a responsive designed site. Previous iterations of this product did not work on mobile at all, both from a functional and usability standpoint. We did get rave reviews from our partners on that. From a ticket problem analysis, we had a 30% drop in defects and users calling in about confusing UI, bugs, or technical aspects. From a quality control standpoint, it was a much cleaner process, from the code to the visuals. This helped our organization focus on building new features rather than trying to tackle defects, which was a new thing for our product. The previous iteration was plagued with defects from the day it launched to the day it was shelved. That was a very big victory for our group.

How did Kahoots Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

There were times that they would not only come in early, they would also include additional rounds of revisions. They did this even if the needed revisions were outside of the scope of the project. Because we are a credit bureau, we have a pretty extensive legal process to get a lot of these platforms up and running. There were times where we would have legal come back and ask for additional revisions or verbiage, and Kahoots would always comply with that. I give them a lot of credit for beating the initial due date with that added additional scope. I’m very pleased with that. They always met the quality that we asked.

What did you most impressive about Kahoots Creative?

They’re willing to be very collaborative. With Kahoots, there’s this lack of ego—they have the ability to be flexible without necessarily being a pushover. They are able to find the best solution and get through the political spectrum that other development teams struggle with. Other developers or agencies would often have a strict point of view and they are not flexible outside of those bounds. Usually, they are also not personable. That’s where Sherrie and her development team are different. They are very easy to work with while producing great work, which ultimately is what you want. They get put in front of not just directors or VPs, but also some of our developers as well. For them to mesh pretty well with them is pretty unique for a development or UI agency.

Are there any areas Kahoots Creative could improve?

Honestly, no. I can’t pinpoint one thing. They know what they’re good at and that’s what we hired them to do. We’ve had no problems.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is a business intelligence firm for people with large amounts of data, generally on Hadoop. I do digital marketing which includes anything from our website, marketing operations, sales operations, etc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kahoots Creative Group?

We had recently reworked our website with another agency who had not done a good job with the design and the hard-code on the backend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They completely rebuilt the website and made it easier to use and change. Our site was on WordPress and with it being hard-coded, if any changes needed to be made, you had to go into the code. Kahoots set up the Page Builder plug-in inside of WordPress, which is more flexible and makes it easier to manage the website. The scope has now expanded and they are now helping with designs for conferences, style guides, and slides for our sales teams.

How did you come to work with Kahoots Creative Group?

Kahoots had done some work for our company before I was hired. We didn’t vet any other agencies because we knew them from the previous work.

How much have you invested with Kahoots Creative Group?

For the website project, we spent between $5,000 and $10,000 a month with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2016 and it was completed in September 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The new site has been working very well. Bounce rates have been down and we’ve had people spending more time on our pages. A lot of people internally have complimented the site. We recently got a new VP of marketing that has been talking to other companies about our site. They have looked at it and are very big fans of the work that has been done.

How did Kahoots Creative Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They do really well. I still meet with them once a week. The communication has been good.

What did you find most impressive about Kahoots Creative Group?

They’ve done good work and they’re willing to compromise and work with you. We were initially working with an outside designer that had a lot of input and wanted to use his own developer, but we knew that it would be more hard-coded. Kahoots also wanted to develop it and we didn’t want two people developing the site and making it more unmanageable. Kahoots cooperated in working with the designer and with our needs and were very patient with us as we tried to figure out what we wanted to do.

Are there any areas Kahoots Creative Group could improve?

No.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing at Gilda's Club Chicago. We’re a nonprofit free cancer support community. We serve anyone living with cancer or someone who’s lost someone to cancer, including men, women, teens, children, friends, family, and caregivers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kahoots Creative?

We needed to update our website and, more specifically, make it mobile-responsive. Also, we were looking for a vendor who was already familiar with our organization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kahoots was responsible for an overhaul of our existing site and content management system. All the development was on their end. They did convert us into a much more backend user-friendly site. That let us make more updates than we have ever had done in the past. Their involvement also included training some for our team members.

They brought a lot of marketing strategy, especially from Sherrie’s expertise. By that, I mean we thought we were just having them update our website. As we worked with Kahoots, we ended up getting a lot of great insight into marketing strategy and how we should present ourselves. They proposed marketing at the time, but we weren’t quite ready to go down that road. We now are looking into marketing and we just met with them last week to incorporate search engine optimization and pay per click into our site.

How did you come to work with Kahoots Creative?

It was through a referral. One of the partners had made a donation to us on behalf of a friend who visited Gilda’s Club Grand Rapids. We became acquainted with them through our development office. Our development officer asked them to come in for a tour to learn more about them. When they came in, Anna from Kahoots Creative mentioned the kind of business they were in and made a connection with myself and the marketing team. I asked them if they could help us out with our website. We had a couple of agencies that had done some work for us, but we felt that we wanted someone who specialized in digital media. It was a unique vendor that we were looking for, and it worked out

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started summer or fall 2014, and the work is ongoing. The new site is live.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They made it so much easier for us to accept online donations. It was a very cumbersome process before, almost nonexistent, and they have made it much more user-friendly. That’s been a huge bonus for us. They did a lot beyond that, but that was a very big part of the help that they gave us.

How did Kahoots Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

Very well. They are very responsive. I think one of the most important features they bring is that they’re very good at translation. I have worked with a lot of web developers who are speaking their own language, and it is difficult to understand what they actually want to do for us or what we should do as a result of what they have done for us. They are skilled at translating it for regular people, myself included. Thanks to Kahoots, we understand the process, its advantages and disadvantages, and what we can do with the site.

What did you most impressive about Kahoots Creative?

I was impressed by their capability. Both Sherrie and Anna have a great mix of skills. Sherrie is great at translating while Anna is great at saying “I can make that happen”—you’re looking up at the screen and she’s making it happen.

Are there any areas Kahoots Creative could improve?

No, I really can’t.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a healthcare information management organization. We also have 700 remote workers who partner with hospitals throughout the country for quality initiatives. I am senior director of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kahoots Creative Group?

We have a very lean marketing team. The company was started with our CEO, our VP of products and myself, so we needed support in every facet. Over the course of three years, we've grown exponentially, but continue to use Kahoots Creative's services substantially for any kinds of graphics work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kahoots Creative has provided graphic design for both online and print material. They've also partnered with us for marketing automation, which includes any email marketing, also SEO [search engine optimization], and social media.

We have launched two websites using Kahoots Creative. The first one is serving as an update to our company's existing page. The second site was created a year later, at a time when we had a lot more information under our belts. It was done with a completely different strategy in mind, optimizing our content, and bringing in our target audience. Kahoots Creative assigned two developers and a graphics designer to the project. We wrote our content. The second site had a one-month development time since our schedule was tight.

Since I partnered with Kahoots Creative right after coming onboard with the company, I consider their account manager to be as knowledgeable as myself. We have worked together on various types of marketing solutions.

How did you come to work with Kahoots Creative?

When I came onboard, we were working with two agencies in New Hampshire, one for our website efforts, and another serving as a more traditional creative agency. Both gave us a proposal for the site, and we also considered two other agencies in Chicago. Kahoots Creative's proposal was the most detailed, giving us as much information as we could have. As a result, we could figure out where some budget variability could be attained. Kahoots Creative was also much more flexible in terms of discussing the site's structure. We could have more informal conversations, instead of creating precise reports.

How much have you invested with Kahoots Creative Group?

Our original website had a cost of between $35,000 and $45,000. The more recent redesign cost around $60,000. It was a longer project and was paid in installments. It was more expensive, but it also featured more content and engagement assets.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Kahoots Creative in April 2014. We have an ongoing retainer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The site created by Kahoots Creative has brought a 400% increase in our leads. This is due in small part to the additional content we've put on the site. Our site is text-heavy, even though we've tried to give it a graphical appeal. Even such, people are mentioning that they've been spending more time on the site than they expected to. It's much more sticky than our previous site and compared to competitor's pages too.

How did Kahoots Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

My work style tends to be crazy. We are a small, privately-owned business with a lean team. Kahoots Creative seems to match our momentum fairly well. It's not uncommon to have late night or weekend conversations, which doesn't happen with many other agencies. Kahoots Creative is great in terms of deadline management.

What did you find most impressive about Kahoots Creative Group?

Kahoots Creative is a great organization for a small business trying to grow at light speed. When someone is in that mode, they won't have the time to create the documentation that most agencies need for their own workforce management. Kahoots Creative is a small agency with a work process in tandem to that of a small business in a hypergrowth state.

I'm always hesitant to give a reference for Kahoots Creative because my fear is that other people will figure out how great they are.

Are there any areas Kahoots Creative Group could improve?

Kahoots Creative has an interesting relationship with us, by which they challenge our group a bit. We tend to do the same, so any improvements have already been addressed.