From Startup to Scaleup
Experience
Awardco
Company
Awardco
Category
Team
Context
I joined Awardco in 2018 to build and develop its creative/marketing muscle, and I served as a Swiss Army Knife and VP of Brand for the next six years. There were a lot of jobs to be done for a plucky little startup that was growing fast, but didn't have the world-class brand to play with the larger players in the space. My duties included serving as UX Designer, Front End Developer, Creative Director, Creative Services Manager and Marketing Director.
Awardco made an immediate impact in the role of category-disruptor, but as often is the case with startups, the brand looked/sounded small and the platform looked like it was designed by a developer (because it was!). The primary needs of the business were:
- Create a distinctive visual identity
- Layout a consistent messaging framework
- Develop a strong, positive user experience on the platform.
Working with Awardco's founders over several weeks of branding exercises, we centered on a brand identity that was bright and modern while invoking ribbons and medals that are so prevalent in recognition.
We also created a simple framework of benefit-driven value props that were differentiators in the market and were easy for our ICP to understand.
The original Awardco homepage lacked character and consistent messaging
The original Awardco logo was basic and uninspired
The old Awardco platform lacked modern polish.
Large 3D image
Awardco
Systems & Results
We codified the improvements to the brand in a playbook to ensure messaging and designs were consistent and all deliverables maintained the premium feel we wanted the brand to exude.
Once the groundwork had been laid with a strong brand, my attention turned to product design. Awardco was packed full of features thanks to the vision and expertise of its development-minded founders, but it lacked the polish that users had come to expect from modern SaaS tools. The goal was to create a modern, consistent, and well-designed user experience in the Awardco platform.
Over the last six years at Awardco, I hired and led a team of 15 creatives and marketers, and managed a discretionary spend budget of over $3M. In that time, the team grew to include content production, content marketing, social media, art direction, media production, paid media, marketing operations, SEO, CRO, website development, event marketing, and product marketing.
Achievements and Metrics
During my time at the helm of Awardco's brand/marketing efforts, Awardco has steadily grown from success to success. That has meant new heights in ARR, budgets, headcount, and other achievements.
- Directed the creation of 16 eBooks and whitepapers, 20 webinars, six quarterly virtual summits, 100+ sales one-sheets, 200+ blog posts, 500+ social posts, 2,000+ client deliverables across countless campaigns.
- Grew marketing-sourced revenue 7.7x in three years.
- Grew marketing-sourced pipeline 9.3x in three years.
- Generated over $15M in direct revenue, $30M in influenced revenue, and $110M in pipeline.
- Averaged over $18 PPD (pipeline per dollar) across the past three years.
- Grew monthly website traffic 22x from 5.5k unique visitors in 2018 to 121k.
- Grew monthly lead generation 79x from 24 leads in 2018 to over 1900.
- Grew opp conversion rate from 7.7% in 2021 to 9.3% in 2023.