Westerlund, Co

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Editor in Chief of UrbanMatter.com. I oversee all content strategy, social media strategy, business and brand development for UrbanMatter as well as our affiliate sites of UrbanMatter Chicago, UrbanMatter Phoenix, and UrbanMatter Austin. We are a digital magazine focusing on digestible written, audio, and social content in the entertainment, nightlife, hospitality, and trending news categories.

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co?

We hired Westerlund, Co to fully manage day to day operations of our UrbanMatter Phoenix site. The project itself consisted of writing and editing daily content, managing a freelancer, daily social media posting and engagement, with a total focus on brand enhancement and growth.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase awareness and boost key metric site-wide. Primary target areas were monthly pageviews, social media engagement and following, and brand awareness among businesses in the area.

How did you select Westerlund, Co?

Xiao had been freelancing for UrbanMatter Phoenix for about a year prior to adjusting her into the Managing Editor role.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

After selecting Xiao based off success and satisfaction of her capabilities in her previous role, we had a series of strategy meetings as to how we can grow UrbanMatter Phoenix. Xiao came prepared with goals and plans to be implemented into our current processes to enhance what we were already doing.

From day one on the job, Xiao has been responsible for writing 10+ articles per month and editing another 5-7 from a freelancer to publish. Her day to day role includes managing and disseminating these articles to affiliate blogs and establishments featured in them. She manages our Instagram handle and engages with an audience to grow the brand. We have a weekly email that goes out with relevant content, and her entire content strategy based off pillar and filler content is one we employ across our entire site now.

What was the team composition?

Westerlund works directly with me on a day-to-day basis. Our internal team includes a social media manager, SEO specialist, paid advertising specialist, and graphic designer. I serve as the proxy between Westerlund and the internal team. UrbanMatter Phoenix employs one freelance writer who collaborates with Westerlund and myself.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

UrbanMatter Phoenix's bounce rate has consistently been below 70% while the rest of the site remains around 80%. Our Instagram followers have increased by 70 per week, higher rate than before, and our click and opens rates are higher on our email newsletters.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Seamless. Westerlund Co, is always communicative and keeps tasks moving expeditiously.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Xiao's knowledge of the industry and the eagerness to implement strategies they believes in.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

Pro Deo Youth Center (Pro Deo) was formed 10 years ago because of the keen observations and caring hearts of a law enforcement officer and spouse in Lee’s Summit. They noticed a strong need in the community - teens didn’t have a safe place to hang out after school and on the weekends. Many of the teens had greater needs - they were hungry, depressed, suicidal, pregnant, struggling in school, abused, homeless, and addicted. Pro Deo was established as a 501(c)(3) in 2010 as an extended learning program but more importantly as a program that builds strong relationships with teens in order to meet their behavioral health needs. The new executive director is a long-time educator with a passion for serving youth. Her past experience is key to ensuring financial stability and overall leadership and management of Pro Deo. For example, Pro Deo uses a quality improvement model and evidence-based best practices as a way of meeting the measurable outcomes of this program. A key component of expertise is the staff support from ReDiscover Mental Health (ReDiscover), a community mental health center with headquarters in Lee’s Summit. Through an in-kind contribution and partnership, ReDiscover has appropriated 1 full-time youth mental health coordinator assigned specifically to Pro Deo.

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co?

As Giving Tuesday and Year End approaches, it is critical that we leverage all the tools we have to connect, or reconnect with those who may be interested or who have expressed interested in giving to the organization.

While traditional direct mail marketing is a great way of reminding everybody what is coming up, in this digital age, direct lead generation and impact marketing creates a seamless experience from receiving information to taking action, without requiring any partners or network to go out of their way in order to make a giving.

This project will be segmented into two phases. Phase 1 focusing on directing traffic and call-for-action for the upcoming Giving Tuesday, and Phase 2 focusing on year-end fundraising with more soft lead generation methods.

What were your goals for this project?

The first and top objective for both phases is to encourage people to make a donation to the Pro Deo Youth Center. Detailed objectives are broken down.

Phase 1 (Nov. 18 thru Dec. 3): Making use of social media, website and email marketing to send out blast communication to existing contacts in Pro Deo’s database in order to receive the maximum

Phase 2 (Dec. 3 thru Dec. 31): Accompanied by soft lead generation campaigns, the objectives for this phase is to gain as much reaction as we can for the year-end grand fundraising event, and build a steady system leading into the new year of communication and marketing efforts.

How did you select this vendor?

RFP and scoring guide

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Phase 1 (Now thru Giving Tuesday) Creation of collaterals and content to update the main image on your website, social media cover, and collect articles and information that can be used for social media and email content during this preparation stage.

We will also go through your database and segment your mailing list, and send out the early stage announcement email letting them know that you will be participating in Giving Tuesday this year.

Phase 2 (Giving Tuesday thru Year End) We will again switch out all fixed collateral: newsletter header, website banners, social covers, etc.. to fit the year-end fundraiser theme. The aftercare emails from Giving Tuesday will buy us some time to recollect data of this year and prepare for new content that will be going out.

What was the team composition?

Xiao and Elaine

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Overall, our social media performance has significantly enhanced throughout our campaigns this year. As of Dec. 30 2019, all our platforms are showing amazing growth, especially in terms of engagement growth.

The slight drop in Instagram audience is expected considering holiday season usually affects active user population on social media platforms in general. our page reach, impression and most significantly: click & direct actions were dramatically increased.

Compared to Phase 1 (Giving Tuesday), our page click increased by 172.83%, impressions increased by 65.88% and reach increased by 67.33%. While the majority of page click came from the hiring post, these are still amazing numbers considering less people are active on social media pages during the big family gathering season.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great communication between Xiao and Elaine to keep momentum going for the campaign.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Xiao at Westerlund is a top notch professional with a skill set that was impressive. She learned about our small nonprofit making a big difference in the lives of teens. She used that knowledge to craft a year-end campaign to increase awareness about the work Pro Deo is doing to keep teens safe from harm but also keep them learning beyond the bell at our teen center.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The performance report could use polishing but the content was spot on what myself and the board of directors needed to know about the return on investment for outsourcing social media marketing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and owner of a creative digital agency. We do a lot of digital marketing, but we also specialize in online learning.

What challenge were you trying to address with Westerlund, Co.?

We hired Westerlund, Co. to assist with various digital marketing services for our clients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re a full-service digital marketing firm offering website development, video production, and SEO and content creation services, among other things. Westerlund, Co. helps us coordinate the social media and newsletter marketing packages that we offer to clients. In those cases, we rely on Xiao (Owner, Westerlund, Co.) to manage our clients’ LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram accounts. She has also helped make various website upgrades for a few of our clients.

Typically, people hire us to build them a new website, and we offer an ongoing plan to continue hosting the site and do some maintenance. When clients need a quick tweak to copy or an image, we call on Xiao to make those changes because she will make them faster than we sometimes can. Typically, she is working with Squarespace and WordPress websites.

Xiao has also performed some SEO services for us. She’s helped create content that would bring people to our site and help us rank higher.

What is the team composition?

We’ve only worked with Xiao.

How did you come to work with Westerlund, Co.?

We met Xiao through an intern matching program. She did tremendous work for us in that capacity. When the internship was over, we were eager to keep working with her. The best way to do that was through her company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $10,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in June 2018 and remains ongoing. At the moment, we have Xiao on a retainer to help us manage a certain amount of accounts each month.

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

Because of Xiao’s involvement in our work, we’ve been able to bring on 4–5 new clients for social media and newsletter marketing. We wouldn’t have been able to do that without her assistance and effort.

How did Westerlund, Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

Xiao has been a great resource when we need somebody we can trust to get something done quickly. She’s unafraid to reach out to me if she needs anything, meaning she’s proactive and organized. Her work is always on time for our clients. If there are any problems—such as getting locked out of a client’s Instagram account because of a changed password—she is quick to respond so we don’t have any lapses in service.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have enough things to think about when it comes to running and growing our small business and meeting the needs of all of our clients. Having somebody reliable, who didn’t need a lot of oversight, has helped us immensely.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve really enjoyed working with Xiao.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

She’s a great person to take a project and run with it. If you have a big-picture project, she can usually help break it down into achievable steps.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Outdoor lifestyle brand with an online retail presence that sells beach carts and accessories.

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co, and what were your goals?

SEO that included cleaning up our website, content writing, strategy and social media content. The goal was to improve our organic placement.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Xiao was the most knowledgeable and explained how they would grow the SEO of our website to deliver results. Most others just play buzzword bingo and not actually explain the how.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and marking tools used.

Phase I

• Onsite Optimization & Social Media Integration
• Provide a list of keywords to focus on
• Touch up existing images used on the website (products, general, etc)
• Raise onpage SEO score to 90+
• Fixing existing critical and urgent issues regarding technical SEO
• Success launch of Facebook/IG profile shop Synch, update, and optimize profile shop product categories

Phase II

• Comprehensive Content Marketing
• Brand Guideline & Goal Setting
• Consumer Journey
• Mapping Website
• Content Strategy
• Social Media Strategy
• Email Marketing Strategy
• Short-form blogs ( 12 per month)
• Long-form articles (pillar content) 2 per month

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked directly with Xiao

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Have seen very good improvement in a short period on the organic search results through the content writing that has been done.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication with Xiao is always first class.

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

They are flexible and committed. Their quick responses to my inquiries are impressive!

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Right now we are seeing fast results which is not easy with SEO, so at the moment I'm not sure we could have done anything differently for better results.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is a spa, wellness center, event space and yoga studio in downtown KC

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co?

They helped us with social media, fliers, newsletters, and data tracking.

What were your goals for this project?

Launch our wellness center, create community online and connect with our customers via email.

How did you select this vendor?

peer contact

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We worked closely with Westerlund and Xiao through weekly team meetings, phone calls and emails. They provided monthly lay out of all social media posts for review on time each month. Great quality posts and assisted in engagement and responding to social media inquiries.

Maintained our Mailchimp account and made sure we put out quality newsletters. Suggested more marketing strategies and always came to meetings with more ideas. Clear communication and follow up. Helped keep us on our toes!

What was the team composition?

Worked closely with owners and staff

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

high open rates and engagments

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great. They were always quick to respond and turn around results.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Quick turn around, friendliness, knowledgable about social media metrics, patient

Are there any areas for improvement?

Wish would could've kept them for longer!

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder of a digital consulting company offering services of a huge variety.

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co?

We contracted Westerlund to assist with the UX/UI portions of the contract.

What were your goals for this project?

To deliver a fast turnaround of services to develop a custom authenticated web application ordering website for consultants to track orders and commissions as well as downloadable resources.

How did you select this vendor?

Met the founder of Westerlund at a network event. Instantly impressed with the level of quality of work provided to previous clients. When this project started, Westerlund was the first contractor that came to mind that would be able to adhere to the tight deadline dates with a high level of service that was required.

Describe the project in detail.

We were contracted to provide an authenticated web application to accommodate order tracking as well as consultant commission tracking. This was phase 1 of the project and will eventually lead to a phase 2 as we begin to develop an iOS and android application.

What was the team composition?

Dynamic Daydreams led the project that contracted several parties to accommodate and delver services on a tight deadline that was dictated by the grand first appearance at a highly publicized industry specific convention.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Not at this time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The effectiveness of the workflow was astounding despite it being our first project to collaborate on. The communication between the teams internally was top notch.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The work ethic to get the job completed on time was highly appreciated by Dynamic Daydreams and the client. A high quality of work with a outstanding level of understanding was displayed all throughout the project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At this moment, there isn't anything that comes to mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I own a creative event planning business offering products and services for weddings and family reunions.

For what projects/services did your company hire Westerlund, Co?

I needed help with SEO and analytics for my Squarespace site.

What were your goals for this project?

My goal was to improve my blog’s search engine visibility.

How did you select this vendor?

They were quite knowledgeable about the industry as a whole.

Describe the project in detail.

Westerlund, Co optimized pages and implemented keywords to improve SEO. They also got the analytics of my Squarespace site up and running.

What was the team composition?

The size of the team stayed the same.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They were willing to learn more about my products and services to apply the best solutions.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication process was highly effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their quick and attentive service.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, nothing comes to mind.