Creative Transformation

Historically, the team was focused on traditional marketing tactics, like email marketing, newsletters, and technical writing to support the firm’s product offerings. There were a lot of creative ideas percolating, but Chelsea and the team knew they needed a better way to produce work, increase their project output, and bring that creativity to life. Ultimately, Wolf decided to increase their investment in the marketing and creative team and move towards an internal agency model for three reasons, Chelsea explained:

• Strategic Plan. “We have a bold five-year strategic plan where we aim to double in both size and revenue by 2023. Our team was formerly comprised of generalists, so our goal in fiscal year ‘19 was to restructure the team as specialists in order to grow key areas of the department—namely Creative, Digital, Events, and Operations—in order to be able to hit the goals included in our strategic plan.”
• Retention & Succession. “Part of our strategic plan includes recruiting, retaining, and developing top talent. We wanted to ensure that was brought into Marketing by creating well-defined career paths, building more opportunities for growth into senior and management roles, and helping to keep top talent. We also have a succession model on our billable hours teams, so we wanted to also build off that model by developing career paths to internally back-fill rolls when team members were promoted.”
• Entrepreneurship. “Much of our current structure as a firm is due to the entrepreneurship of our people. When someone has an idea, we give a lot of support and autonomy to them, allowing them to make the business case for the idea, and to build the idea out once approved. Many of our niches (Healthcare, Technology and Manufacturing, Distribution, and Retail, for example) were all started by firm members who had interests in those areas. We brought that same mentality to Marketing and began building a new internal agency structure due to the experience and interests of the team members.”

Today, the team completes over 500 projects a year, including email marketing, newsletters, case studies, technical writing, and events. Chelsea described how the team has seen an evolution of the type of work being requested. “We were able to start showing the company that we could bring the design work in-house because of our talent and deep understanding of and alignment with the business. They didn’t realize all that we could do, but now we’re really seeing our requests become much more creative in nature, as the company has seen the potential of our team.” The team’s shift to providing higher-value, more creative work was supported by inMotion Ignite.

Project Management Built for Creative Teams

Initially, the team managed their work manually – relying on spreadsheets and a color-coded calendar to both manage their work as a team and communicate with stakeholders. Proofs were sent out via email. However, as they continued to take on more projects, they realized they needed a single, centralized system to keep track of everything. As Chelsea explained, “One major problem was the lack of real-time updates. We didn’t know where projects were in the process, and it was really hard to collaborate because so much was getting lost in translation. We also didn’t have any ability to report on our process. Our management is really supportive, but we just couldn’t effectively show them what our pain points were. They’re accountants, they like to see the numbers. Without them, we didn’t have a compelling story.”

Melissa went on to describe the gaps in their project management, “There was no one true start to finish record of who did what, when, and how long it took. We also didn’t have consensus on what the process even was, so everything was like starting from scratch with no template, and that made it hard for our stakeholders to understand what to expect as well.”

Chelsea and Melissa began looking for a system that would:

• Consolidate all their communication in one place, getting them out of email
• Provide real-time updates for seamless collaboration
• Track key metrics to provide better insight into their process
• Maintain a start-to-finish record of all activities on a project
• Offer guidance for best practices to develop robust processes for all project types

When Chelsea saw ignite, it was an easy decision, “We felt like we were in a partnership with inMotionNow right from the start. The sales rep really understood our pain points and was able to show us how ignite would solve them. Really, at the end of the day, going with ignite was a no-brainer.”

Taking Creative Workflow to the Next Level

As they started to implement inMotion ignite, the Wolf team saw the opportunity to establish much-needed processes. Chelsea described the experience: “If your process is the foundation, and ignite is the house, we were basically building the foundation at the same time we were building the house. We were just taking it day-by-day, seeing what was working, and iterating quickly.”

Melissa added that the “construction” was ongoing: “During and even after onboarding, we were still finding new ways to automate and streamline the process, like building out templates for frequently recurring project types. The functionality in inMotion ignite inspired process improvements, and in turn we were able to set up ignite to work with our unique process. Developing our process and implementing ignite went hand in hand.”

Overall, even as they built their creative workflow process in real time, the team was very receptive to and excited about onboarding to inMotion ignite. According to Melissa, “We got some really positive feedback on ignite as we started onboarding both the core team and stakeholders. They saw very quickly that this was going to be a huge time saver for them, replacing rounds and rounds of emails and track-changes in documents.”

For the marketing and creative teams, making the switch to inMotion ignite has been the key for them to take their creative work to the next level. As Chelsea emphasized “ignite has made everything easier.” More specifically, she pointed out five areas that ignite has made the biggest impact:

1. A Purpose-Built Solution. “As a manager, being able to set up the system exactly to our specifications was crucial. Melissa was able to set up all the templates and automation just how we needed it, so we don’t have to keep thinking about it.”
2. Streamlined Communication. “My inbox used to be a nightmare. I was getting hundreds of emails a day because of all the back and forth. But now, all the communication is happening in ignite. I get the notifications that I need, but I’m not copied on everything all the time anymore.”
3. Less Stress and More Visibility. “ignite has taken a huge workload off my plate, especially on the proofing side. I’m able to focus more on working with my team and not chasing down feedback. Even with less active involvement, I still know exactly what is going on because in ignite it’s easy to get quick status updates.”
4. Improved Stakeholder Relations. “Our stakeholders understand our process now, so they know what to expect, they know what we need from them. It’s much easier for us to push back now. For example, on low-priority projects, because they know the work that goes into everything we do.”
5. New Possibilities with Reporting. “The reporting capabilities in ignite are the key to making a case for increased headcount and generally balance our workloads.”

More Opportunities for Creativity

The marketing and creative team truly embraces the entrepreneurial spirit at Wolf & Co.  as they move towards a new vision – more creativity, emphasizing the brand voice, and building trust internally as brand experts as they focus more on internal talent and less on external agency partnerships. By using inMotion ignite, they have been able to transform their creative workflow and processes so that they are more organized, efficient, and trusted by their stakeholders. Chelsea summed up what their progress has meant to Wolf & Co., “We’ve been able to earn a lot of trust from the company, which has given us a lot of flexibility and autonomy. Accounting firms – and Wolf in general – have more personality and creativity than people realize. We’re so excited to be able to show that to the world!”

Elise Hauser is a product and content marketer with a passion for telling brand stories. She has produced inMotionNow’s annual Creative Management Report for 4 years, webinars, content sessions for major industry events reaching audiences of 11,000+, and of course, countless blog posts. When Elise isn’t writing about the marketing and creative industry at inMotionNow she is teaching economics and hanging out with her cat, Tucker, at her home in Raleigh, NC.