Project Management

SALES TOOL

Challenge:
Crain’s Detroit Business is a news organization with more than 150 types of advertising opportunities. From events, to the print magazine, custom content and more, keeping track of the publication’s offerings were difficult for the sales team. No processes or templates were in place for creating proposals, presentations or emails.

Solution:
I worked with developers to wireframe and create a custom technology solution. With this technology, my design team could create a single piece of collateral for each advertising opportunity. This collateral was then uploaded to populate content areas for proposals, powerpoints, the outward-facing web site and a custom-built app. The app served as the main tool for sales, and stored all of the content natively on the device. Screen shots of the app interface are available within my portfolio.

COMMUNICATION AUDIT

Challenge:
Over a four-year period, continual churn with marketing directors left the company without a marketing and promotions strategy or long-term vision. Department employees were completing their jobs to the best of their ability but lacked the ability to measure the progress or effectiveness of their work. Sales, event attendance and customer engagement were waning.

Solution:
I mentored with overseas communications experts to create and execute a communications audit plan, modeled after the processes of GM China. This audit included a matrix of every way in which the company was touching potential customers: emails, social media, in-person events, networking, advertising, and so on.

The second step was to conduct external audits of similar sized/market publications. I audited five publications throughout the Midwest and gathered statistics regarding external advertising and communication and their average success rate. Armed with that information, I was able to develop ideal metrics for our company’s communications. This allowed us to not only measure the effectiveness of our campaigns, but also to understand how we ranked with our peers and to identify areas that required additional resources, and where resources were being wasted.

This resulted in increased revenue, a departmental cost savings of more than $150,000 and significant additional engagement and email open rates.

ILLUSTRATION CLASSES

Challenge:
As part of a complete redesign of a thirty-year-old print publication, it was discovered that many of the production staff’s technical skills were lacking. The redesign focused on the addition of more art, infographics, diagrams and charts. With the previous design, employees with page layout skills were sufficient to produce the paper. The new design left several holes in in abilities and responsibilities. In addition, the new graphics needed to be translatable for a responsive web format.

Solution:
With the redesign, the move toward visuals and graphics helped point out the areas in which we need to improve. In order to build a cross-functional team, I began conducting art classes, which are called Design Think Tanks. Everybody on my team has a very different set of skills. By conducting these classes, we can teach each other processes, tools and techniques and greatly improve the look of our publication, website, and the speed at which it is produced.

Read more about this in the article Want a more creative publication? Skilled staff?

PRINT REDESIGN

Challenge:
In a city on the rebound, branding matters. The nationwide trend of declining print readership sparked the idea to redesign the Crain’s Detroit Business print publication. In addition, marketplace needs for native/custom content advertising were not being met with the current product. This redesign aimed improve readability and retention, wake up our market of readers and advertisers and provide new and additional transparent revenue opportunities.

Solution:
After creating a design philosophy to serve as a compass for our project, I conducted thousands of online surveys and held many in-person focus groups both with advertisers and readers. This helped identify the things our market liked about the paper and the areas in which we needed to improve. Next, I created a cross-departmental steering committee comprised of production and design employees, sales managers, editors, reporters and our publisher, in order to ensure that each facet of the publication was represented.

Working with the design team, a consultant and our steering committee, a mock issue was created after a few months of designing and reader testing. Additional reader and advertiser focus groups were held after a press run of the mock issue, and further tweaks were made to the design.

Working with the Kotter 8-step process for leading change, we helped roll out the new design and workflow to the team and to our audience. I developed informational branding campaigns that launched a month before the launch, and continued after the launch to inform the audience and generate excitement.

Monthly, I meet with the steering committee to identify areas of continuous improvement and gather additional feedback and process changes.

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