Grand Rounds Health client review.
“Because they’re a smaller agency, you truly feel like your project is the biggest thing in their world.”
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m Jim Deeken, the senior director of creative services for Grand Rounds Health, a B2B2C company that helps employees of our clients navigate the healthcare system for free. We’re a free benefit provided by our clients to all their employees to help them find the right doctors, receive second opinions, fight bad bills, and offer telemedicine. We also do behavioral health.
We’re looking to be an end-to-end, front door to all things healthcare-oriented as the company continues to grow. We’re a private, for-profit company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Good Stuff Partners?
We brought them in because we had a very outdated and inconsistent brand that we had been working with for years leading up to it. We started with four to six people in a room to build an idea and flush out any components.
The brand didn’t evolve much over that time, so we brought in Good Stuff Partners to help with what our brand should and could be. They also helped visualize our brand into assets like a website, email templates, and other internal and external communication.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We worked with Good Stuff Partners across most components of the rebrand. We did a lot of the research component, which is usually the heavy-lift upfront and something that we handled internally because we have staff that does that and insights already built out. We did a lot of internal interviews and surveys from our members and buyers.
Good Stuff Partners helped us with the name update component, which seemed small but was big in our industry. It was really important to add the word health into our name to distinguish our industry. Their team helped us with a portion of that work, and from there, they helped us develop our personality, which is how we are viewed from our visual expression. They also helped us develop our tone of voice, which is how we communicate.
For example, from the tone of voice perspective, the way we speak to our members and buyers is also down-to-earth and confident. We needed to build out what those meant, why they meant what they meant, how they were effective, and we really had to effectively message our members in a relatable way.
Their team helped us a lot with value proposition work. They took the time to dive deep into not just our brand, but our product. They really took the time to invest and dive deep into understanding the product, having other interviews and conversations throughout. That manifested into the identity design, logo, colors, fonts, brand standards, and more. They helped us establish almost all of those items so they more effectively communicate with both our members and buyers.
The next deliverable was the website, which had a massive scope creep on our end. It was nothing that they did wrong. As we rethought what our site needed to be, we realized that the site needed to be much bigger and more in-depth through their expertise and guidance.
We worked with them to develop the site architecture and strategy behind it. One of their team members helped us with our SEO strategy, user experience, and the interface and flow of pages. In our world, we are trying to get our members, even though we are a free service, to help them navigate the healthcare system in one way or another.
Our teams worked together on site strategy about how to get things above the fold, get the most out of the little time that we have with our members when they engage, and maximize those opportunities every step of the way. They helped us redesign our website and completely rethink it head to toe.
What is the team composition?
There were at least five people from their team that were assigned to our project. There were two principals, Adrian (Founder) and Aimee (Founder), and two designers.
Adrian hits hard on the strategic side of the house, the project management side, and the brand theory work. Aimee’s role is much more of the visionary and the designer, helping things come together, interpreting the work we did with Adrian in the beginning. She also laid down the groundwork for the new brand; all those components of a new brand come together visually and verbally, and that is where Aimee comes in.
The two designers were running support on the project. After we got through the bigger strategic side of the house, the big picture look, and then the two designers also would assist Aimee in executing a lot of the designs once the decision had been made.
The fifth person was an SEO and web development expert. She was great, leading the charge and coming up with an appropriate strategy for our unique business model.
How did you come to work with Good Stuff Partners?
Another employee at Grand Rounds recommended them to us. We decided that we needed some help in the branding and design world.
We started having some of those conversations, and internally, there was a recommendation from our VP of marketing which I believe worked with them in the past on a completely different project at a separate company.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
It’s a little early because we just launched. From a website perspective, we saw even up to double-digit increases in activations and engagement in our website. It was a big boom in increase for us.
I think the time on our pages increased by a little over 6%, and I think our activations increased over 9%. We saw some pretty stout metrics. It’s still early, but the initial impact was almost immediate and substantial.
How did Good Stuff Partners perform from a project management standpoint?
I thought they were great. They were very buttoned up and communicative. It was a minimum of once a week that we met formally where we had a standing meeting on Thursdays. It was scheduled for an hour, but many times, it went over. Between Slack, email, impromptu meetings, and phone calls, we were in communication other times throughout the week.
A large portion of the project management included moving things around, getting answers to questions, and making sure that all stakeholders were updated and current on all development. The main platform that we both used was Asana, and then other communication was done through Google Docs.
We met with them in person for the first time, and we had celebratory dinners when we finished the project. All of this was during COVID-19.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Because they’re a smaller agency, you truly feel like your project is the biggest thing in their world. They give the type of care and communication that customers need. Our project means everything to us. With other agencies, it felt that they wanted the work for the check. But with Good Stuff Partners, I felt that they were truly invested, even to the level that they were invested in our mission and to us as a company in healthcare.
Raising the standard of healthcare for everyone everywhere is such a huge task. We need our vendors and partners to be invested in that. They need to fundamentally understand what people go through when they try and navigate the healthcare system on their own. Good Stuff Partners took the time to understand that, to know that, and to be part of that. They wanted insight whenever possible, which was invaluable.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I think the only thing that can hold them back is their size. It is a bit of a double-edged sword. They’re a small and boutique agency that gives the right attention. I would love it if they found a way to both scale and grow but keep that boutique feel.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Rely on them because you will get what you’re looking for. If you follow their lead and invest in them just as much as they’re investing in you, I think you will get everything that you’re looking for. They want to be a partner.