Marketing Transformation at Shift SC
Turning process paralysis into agency efficiency with strategic reorganization and workflow optimization
Turning process paralysis into agency efficiency with strategic reorganization and workflow optimization
Shift SC is a nonprofit organization founded on the values of social good and human-centered design, catering to a local tech-focused audience. When I joined as Marketing and Comms Lead, the department was suffering from process paralysis—plenty of planning and procedures but minimal output and engagement.
This case study explores how I transformed an underperforming marketing team into a high-functioning creative agency model. By restructuring the team based on strengths, implementing clear workflows, and fostering collaboration between creative and analytics teams, we achieved dramatic improvements in content delivery, follower growth, and audience engagement.
Transform marketing operations from process-heavy to results-oriented with a focus on consistent content delivery and audience engagement.
One year (January - December 2022)
Marketing and Communications Lead, orchestrating a team of 50+ engineers, designers, copywriters, and AV specialists.
Adobe Creative Suite, Pro Tools, Notion, Google Sheets, Instagram Analytics
When I took over as Marketing and Comms Lead, Shift SC's marketing efforts were hampered by an uninspired leadership approach that prioritized process over results. The existing system was characterized by excessive planning but minimal execution, creating a significant gap between organizational goals and actual output.
I approached the transformation with a vision to make the team function like a professional ad agency. This required strategic reorganization, process optimization, and a shift toward consistent, quality content creation with clear accountability.
The transformation of Shift SC's marketing operations wasn't just about creating new processes—it was about fundamentally changing the team's structure and collaborative culture. Here's how I approached the challenge step-by-step:
I began by discussing team complaints with the CEO, identifying key pain points and structural issues with the current marketing approach. With the CEO's support, I transitioned into the leadership role with a clear mandate for change.
I reorganized the marketing team into specialized modules based on individual strengths: campaigns strategy, copywriting, media production, and publishing. Through strategic negotiation, I successfully merged the design team into our department, creating an integrated creative powerhouse.
I created a streamlined request-to-publication process using Notion forms as the entry point. When teams across the organization needed marketing support, they submitted requests that were automatically routed to the relevant team. The campaign strategy team would develop the approach, which then flowed to copywriting and design, culminating with the publishing team posting the final content.
With the structure in place, I focused on dramatically increasing our content frequency from less than once per month to twice weekly. This consistent cadence became the backbone of our engagement strategy, ensuring regular touchpoints with our audience and providing reliable data for analytics.
The transformation of Shift SC's marketing department yielded impressive results across multiple dimensions, from audience growth to operational efficiency. Most importantly, we created a sustainable system that continued to deliver value long after implementation.
Beyond the numbers, our marketing transformation delivered several key organizational benefits:
One of our most successful campaigns was for the Shift SC speaker series. Our strategic promotion generated exceptional turnout and engagement, as evidenced by these social media posts:
The promotional post for our speaker series event, which generated significant interest and registrations.
The successful transformation of Shift SC's marketing department demonstrates the value of implementing a professional agency approach even within a nonprofit organization. By focusing on specialized roles, clear workflow processes, and consistent output, we created a system that delivered measurable results.
Key lessons learned from this project include:
This transformation project exemplifies how organizational design thinking can be applied to marketing operations, creating sustainable systems that continue to deliver value long after implementation. The agency model proved particularly effective in a nonprofit context, where maximizing impact with limited resources is essential.