Grantbook
Elevating marketing & CX infrastructure to help a consulting startup become a recognized thought leader in its space.
Grantbook was a 20-person consultancy specializing in digital transformation for philanthropy. It had big dreams of becoming a design-driven leader in the sector. Clients loved Grantbook (referrals drove almost all sales), but Grantbook’s marketing collateral struggled to convey the value of its services to new prospects. Grantbook needed better marketing infrastructure to support its growth—especially if it wanted to become a thought leader in philanthropy tech.
Past clients loved Grantbook’s mixture of philanthropy and tech expertise, but its new prospects didn’t understand this; they saw Grantbook as just another IT shop. Grantbook needed to clarify its value proposition and make this apparent throughout the customer journey.
To figure out how, we conducted interviews with past clients, new clients, and closed-lost prospects. Then, we created a service blueprint, identified key risks and opportunities, and developed customer personas to summarize our findings. This helped us right-size our approach to marketing.
Our research led us to prioritize the following goals:
Working with Marissa Korda as our branding designer, we reworked the Grantbook brand to home in on the metaphor of navigation. To help Grantbook win more lucrative high-impact projects, our brand had to communicate the fact that we weren’t just an IT shop - we were strategic consultants with deep expertise in both philanthropy and tech. We used the new brand to create compelling infographics for our content strategy, establishing Grantbook’s thought leadership.
Building on our new understanding of CX and our refreshed brand, I developed a website that would build social proof and convert curious visitors into high-quality sales leads. I designed landing pages that spoke to specific concerns, case studies highlighting Grantbook’s value, and consultant profiles so that prospects could get to know their future team while reviewing proposals.
A great experience doesn’t end at the sale. It continues into our consulting practice. Grantbook, in particular, had built a reputation for producing visually beautiful deliverables. To ensure deliverables maintained the same level of design as marketing materials, I created templates, artwork, and training for consultants. Additionally, I designed offline materials to instil the new brand and narrative into Grantbook’s conference presence and offices.
One of the main reasons I was hired was to expand Grantbook’s services to include full-stack design. Grantbook’s leadership had realized early-on that change management and turnkey solutions were necessary for our ICT consulting to feel valuable for clients. I worked with leadership and our consultants to prototype processes and deliverables for web, dashboard, & UX design services. A big part of this work involved educating clients on design processes and advocating for design.
The artifacts of Maggie's time at Grantbook, both in the templates and structures she created as well as her presence and influence for nudging GB into more design-thinking, is a mulitplier effect that will continue to enable Grantbook to operate in an elevated manner
