Vertex Inc offers proprietary, industry-leading calculation and returns tax software to enterprise organizations.
Objective: The objective was to develop a comprehensive corporate website that brought the entire organization together under one brand.
Four website goals were established to match the business objectives for the upcoming years.
- Global lead generation
- Creating brand awareness
- Establishing a global presence
- Attracting top talent
Solution: The solution came to shape through a year and half long project that took us from discovery all the way to product launch. The Information Architecture was driven by the verticals of the organization and incorporated extensive user testing to ensure both new and existing customers could find the software features they need.
Throughout this project we looked at the marketing website as a product. We instituted weekly sprints, constant evaluation of features and worked through launch in an agile approach. This Drupal build also included Pardot, Salesforce and Google Analytics integrations.
Role: Lead Project Manager
Client: Vertex
Date: April 2018 & Ongoing
Type: Discovery, User Testing, Design, Development, Website Launch, Integrations and Maintenance
www.vertexinc.com
VERTEX SMB
Vertex SMB offers its small to medium business size clients cloud-based software for sales and use tax automation and compliance.
Objective: The work we did with Vertex SMB focused on a digital ecosystem to support the product. We were working towards an omnichannel approach that allowed users to connect with Vertex SMB in a setting that they felt comfortable with while providing speed and ease to the answers they were seeking.
Solution:
Product Experience / UI Style Guide
We work alongside Vertex engineers to simplify the process for tax professionals by creating automation within the Vertex Cloud product. To create consistency throughout all Vertex products, we established a unified UI style guide. This allowed all engineers to pull from the same codebase and create a dynamic experience for all users no matter which Vertex product they were experiencing.
Lead Generation
A product marketing website was also developed and optimized to support the go-to market strategy. The site focused on lead generation and user interactions including a Tax Rate Calculator and interactive questionnaires.
Help Center
Technical documentation and support are integral to the Vertex Cloud experience. With any complex system, there is more documentation than is easily consumed. We took a high level approach to entirely revamp the look, feel and information architecture for all of their help center documentation. We integrated Algolia search to put answers directly at the finger tips of users.
Chatbot
Taking ease of use one step further, we developed a Chatbot to quickly answer client’s questions using natural language.
Role: Lead Project Manager
Client: Vertex
Date: Ongoing
Type: Product Development
www.vertexsmb.com
Objective: SEI has a vision of working alongside users and helping them to plan for some of life’s largest financial goals. Their objective is to bring the expertise of a SEI advisor to the digital space.
Goal Prioritizer and Goal Investor walk the client through goal-setting and provide personalized advice along the way. This custom advice assists the user in making sound financial and investment decisions.
Goals:
Clean UX - Financial decisions can be complicated. Our goal is to keep the UX clear and concise so that end user can focus on improving their financial situation instead of struggling to work through the application.
Education - In addition to providing personalized advice, our tool works to educate the user through insights and interactive explanation along the way.
Solution: Goal Prioritizer and Goal Investor combine an advice engine developed from SEI’s proprietary wealth management philosophy with an Angular.js web based application. Users first work through prioritizing their goals then after entering a minimal amount of financial data, they are provided financial solutions and advice based on their inputs.
This product is always evolving based on our understanding of the market, user insights and up-and-coming financial technologies.
Come back soon to see new features!
Role: Lead Project Manager
Client: SEI
Date: Ongoing
Type: Product Development
www.goalinvestor.com
Objective: Renew Plastics is a composite lumber company looking to grow their business all while competing with household names such as Trex and TimberTech. Their decks last up to 25 years and require minimal maintenance. The challenge for their website was to make it enticing enough for consumers to ask for their product by name at their local lumber store as well make it a useful site with technical information for dealers and installers.
Solution: Their previous site was filled with technical information and was lacking imagery. We flipped the key audience to focus on the consumer. We added large imagery, inspiration for DIY projects and added a small e-commerce solution so that customers could order samples. To ensure the dealers and installers still had what they needed, we focused their resources into one section that was easy to navigate.
Role: Digital Strategy, Concepting & Digital Project Manager
Client: Renew Plastics
Date: March 2016
Type: Website Redesign
www.renewplastics.com
Objective: With the backing of The Mark Travel Corporation (TMTC) I was given the directive, "create a high-end destination wedding planning business…" It was then determined that TMTC would create a team of Wedding Concierges. These women acted as a travel agent, wedding planner and advocate for couples planning a destination wedding. The challenge was to introduce the brand, explain the service and inspire consumers with an extremely tight website budget.
Solution: Along side a fabulous team from BVK, we determined that the main goal of the website was to get brides and grooms-to-be to contact the Concierges. Given the tight budget, we decided that one continuous webpage that included movement and light boxes was the best route to make an impact. We used this small, yet valuable site to introduce the service, provide inspiration from real couples, display several product options as well as direct the customer to the ad-lib contact form. This project also included building out social channels for the brand.
Role: Brand & Product Manager
Client: Renew Plastics
Date: May 2015
Type: Website Creation
www.weddingsbyfunjet.com
Objective: Funjet Insiders travel to the all-inclusive vacation spots to provide travel inspiration and tips. This program curated content for several channels including: social media, local tv media, YouTube, website content, digital campaigns and more. We were looking to create one house that could store all of the different types of content created by the Funjet Insiders.
Solution: Focusing on the visual aspect of a vacation; Art Director, Austin Kelley, designed a website that was pinterest-esque and allowed the brand to pull in social posts of choice while also featuring new blog content, infographics and quizzes.
Role: Program & Product Manager
Client: Funjet Vacations
Date: 2015
Type: Website Redesign and upkeep
www.funjetinsider.com
Objective: After the decision was made to create a destination wedding planning business, we needed to create all of the elements that make up a brand. We were tasked with finding a name, putting together the creative brief, creating a logo, establishing a voice and design as well as creating a launch plan.
Solution: The wedding industry is saturated with stock photography that all looks about the same. Art Director, Mark Goldstein, determined that original photography and double exposure treatment of each photo would give us a look that would set us apart. To work alongside the imagery, a sleek and elegant design was put together with a comforting and understanding voice. Ultimately, we wanted brides and grooms-to-be to feel that they could trust Weddings by Funjet with one of the biggest days of their lives.
Role: Brand & Project Manager
Client: Weddings by Funjet
Date: May 2015
Type: Brand Launch
www.weddingsbyfunjet.com
Objective: Prevea Rejuvenate offers plastic surgery and aesthetic services. The goal was to differentiate the look and feel of this website from their hospital affiliate as well as concisely explain all of the services they can provide.
Solution: Given the main audience, the team decided it was best to give this website an e-commerce look while driving all CTAs to a contact form. Product sales were given their own features as well as events to encourage potential patients to meet the doctors and further understand their capabilities.
Role: Agile Digital Project Manager - Joining half way through the project my key role, was to determine what was left to finish and to create a plan to get it live as soon as possible.
Client: Prevea Health
Date: November 2015
Type: Website Redesign
www.prevearejuvenate.com
Objective: Create a client work story template that allows for customization but does not require a new page template for each story.
Solution: This full width design allows our creative team to add content, images and video blocks as needed, all stacked one above another. By creating common elements we were able to design and build a template that is quickly replicated after we finish each major client project.
Role: Digital Project Manager
Client: Weddings by Funjet
Date: May 2015
Type: Brand Launch
www.imaginasium.com
One of the greatest challenges of working for The Mark Travel Corporation (TMTC) is understanding the mentality of the “All-Inclusive” customer. They want everything provided to them for one cost, but they also have the desire to get away form the resort. We strongly encourage our customers to get the most of their vacation by participating in excursions in the area. To entice customers and to give them a reminder of all that they can do, we created a series of excursion videos from the Funjet Insider. Since TMTC also manages United Vacations and Southwest Vacations, several videos were rebranded for their websites.
Role: Producer
Client: Funjet Vacations/United Vacations
Date: 09/13-09/15
Type: Web Video Production and Placement
www.funjetinsider.com
When working with the Travel Agent community and their customers, The Mark Travel Corporation is always looking for new ways to bring content to life. This lifestyle and travel magazine was created to take customers beyond the typical brochure information to discover the destination through first-hand stories. I collaborated with a team of writers, publishers, editors and designers on magazine concepts, content creation, editing and ad placements.
Role: Product Manager
Client: The Mark Travel Corporation
Date: March 2015
Type: Print and Web Magazine Launch
www.hereandbeyondmag.com
Local TV integration is important to The Mark Travel Corporation as they are based in Milwaukee. What started out as a few TV segments turned into a robust program with Fox 6. Throughout the year, the program included Live TV appearances, integrated TV segments, digital campaigns, video components, emails and social media posts to raise awareness in the Milwaukee market.
Role: Product Manager
Client: Funjet Vacations and Weddings by Funjet
Date: 2013 - 2014
Type: TV integration and Digital Media Placement
In the first 6 months of launching the Weddings by Funjet brand, it was important to be where the customers were. We found that 1/3 of our customers were checking blogs at least twice per day. One of the first places we decided to integrate ourselves was within in the bridal blogger community. Working along side our media department, we put together a 9 weeklong campaign featuring advertorials, digital campaigns and promotions.
Role: Product Manager
Client: Weddings by Funjet
Date: 2014
Type: Blogger Integration
Role: Digital Project Manager
Client: ESSCO
Type: Website Redesign
https://esscoincorporated.com/
Bridal shows are a key component to bringing in new customers. Pairing an elegant experience alongside the logistics of meeting planners, resort liaisons and all of the other vendors needed for a wedding was the key objective for our events. After just one evening we wanted our brides and grooms to feel welcomed and instilled with trust.
Role: Product Manager
Client: Weddings by Funjet
Date: 2015
Type: Experiential and Media Placement
