Archer Education | Rebrand Digital Strategy

I led content strategy development and content production for the agency’s new, fully rebranded site.

The challenge

When Archer Education acquired Circa Interactive, they decided to initiate a full rebrand of the new combined agency. We needed to decide what the next evolution of their brand would look like, while still honoring each agency’s history and roots in the industry. Keeping key stakeholders from both agencies happy was fundamental to our success.

Internal teams across the two agencies were responsible for establishing the new brand, creating a digital strategy, and building an entirely new site. Up to this point, the internal teams assigned to this project had never worked together, so we were negotiating new processes and breaking down silos in real time.

The approach

To kick off the content strategy process, we held a group discovery meeting with key stakeholders from both agencies. This initial conversation helped us gain insight into the agency’s priorities and hopes for the site.

From there, I conducted a more extensive discovery process. I reviewed existing assets from both agencies, and put together a discovery form that we could use to collect information from people across the organization. In addition, I conducted one-on-one discovery interviews with department leads in instances where we needed more information to inform content development.

Before starting production, I worked closely with the creative team to understand our audience and personas, and strategize how to translate the new brand positioning into effective messaging and a compelling user experience.

This early emphasis on cross-team collaboration became a throughline in our work. I collaborated with our UX lead, graphic designers, front-end developers, and CRO and SEO teams to ensure our process was strategically aligned at all points. By breaking down previously existing silos, we were able to function in a way that was much more iterative, allowed for responsive and creative problem solving, and ultimately resulted in a more mature finished product.

The work

I created the initial framework for our content needs, established an information architecture that aligned with our sales funnel and audience needs, and built a site map.

I also led content production for the project, collaborating with a team of writers and editors to bring 25 pages of content to life. I personally edited and revised every single page of content to ensure every heading, paragraph, and CTA aligned with the brand, business objectives, and overall user experience.

The final site—fully branded and optimized for audience needs, user experience, and conversion—launched four days ahead of schedule.

The results

The site not only saw an immediate increase in traffic (compared to the two agencies previous sites), but was celebrated as a significant accomplishment by agency leadership.

As an unplanned benefit, the processes we established also helped the business align better internally. Stakeholders were able to use our framework to understand how to organize newly merged branches of the business, collaborate across teams, and communicate more effectively to prospective clients.