MarketFitz

Because of the highly seasonal nature of Northwest Folklife’s operations, the organization had a difficult time hiring and retaining public relations talent. In addition, tight budgets meant the overall compensation package would attract only less experienced public relations professionals. At the same time, the organization was managing dozens of independent designers and other professionals, which was time consuming and caused occasional brand inconsistencies.

Virginia Mason had award-winning communications programs, executed by a 14-person department and a large number of external agencies and independent contractors. However, its expenditures were high. The leadership team wanted to know whether lean approaches could be applied to the department in ways that would not jeopardize the quality of the communications programs, but that would allow the organization to redeploy much-needed funds in areas closer to its mission.

With MarketFitz’ assistance, Dunn Carney had already developed a master marketing plan for the firm, and individual marketing plans for each practice area. Now, the firm needed to staff a department to execute on the plan. Because the firm’s core expertise was in hiring and managing attorneys, not marketing professionals, it recognized that recruiting and retaining the right talent could be challenging.

MarketFitz worked with Jacobson Jarvis’ partners to develop a marketing plan to achieve specific business and financial goals. However, the firm didn’t have the in-house expertise to implement the plan. Due to the wide range of skills and resources required by the plan, Jacobson Jarvis opted to outsource implementation efforts to MarketFitz.