Case Study
Backpack Interactive
Showcasing expertise to make a mark in edTech
services provided
Brand messaging
Voice & tone development
Verbal brand guidelines & strategic documentation
Content strategy
Copywriting & UX writing
Thought leadership
Project Background
Making something smart with
Backpack Interactive
Backpack Interactive specializes in research, strategy, and design for edTech products. Their clients include Scholastic, Lego, MacMillan, Amplify, and the Wharton School of Business.
Over multi-year engagements, I led their content marketing program, developed new brand messaging, and laid the foundations for a successful re-platforming of their content.
AUTHORITY-BUILDING CONTENT strategy
Amplifying a stellar reputation with thought leadership
Backpack Interactive has a distinctive approach to edTech product design, and many of their UX researchers, designers, and project managers are also former educators.
I created a content strategy to leverage the team's experience and point of view across their website, social media channels, and newsletters. Over eight years, I designed and managed systems to capture the expertise of individual team members, including the agency founder, vice president of operations, and the UX research lead.
By using regular interviews to shape articles, reports, and other marketing assets, I helped the Backpack team build a digital reputation that reflected the same levels of trust and expertise they fostered in their client relationships.
In the past year of the engagement, Backpack Interactive exceeded their inbound revenue goals by 131%.
Messaging & website strategy
Improving messaging & SEO for high-intent landing pages
By 2023, the team knew they needed new messaging to clarify their services.
While thought leadership content did a good job driving organic traffic, high bounce rates on service landing pages meant something wasn't clicking with prospective clients.
I audited their services pages to clarify the company's unique value proposition, identify key benefits of their services, and clarify their offer rationales.
Through collaborative workshops, I helped the team re-work page hierarchies to more effectively communicate the value and outcomes of their research, strategy, and design services.
By conducting a search intent analysis on high-intent keywords, I also made recommendations for improving both the information architecture and SEO of service pages.
After implementing changes, we noticed a bump in organic traffic to high-intent pages, as well as drastic improvements in time-on-page metrics.
In the three months after launch, time-on-page for services pages increased from seconds to more than 2 minutes.
CONTENT MODEL
Re-platforming from Wordpress to Craft
In 2025, the team decided to re-platform their Wordpress site to Craft.
I conducted a content audit to support migration needs, collaborated with the design team to find and create opportunities for structured, dynamic content, and modeled major content types and relationships for developers.
With new tools at their disposal, the team can more effectively deliver content that supports prospective clients throughout the buyer's journey.
verbal brand
A verbal brand designed for sales enablement
Throughout 2025, I led the team through a refresh of their content strategy and brand messaging.
I interviewed clients who regularly referred business, used Voice of Customer feedback to narrow in on strategic topics for thought leadership, and audited competitor messaging to find areas where Backpack could continue to differentiate.
Through a series of workshops, we refined their verbal brand and created more messaging frameworks for communicating with prospects about services.
Outcomes
Making a mark, from engagement to revenue
Thanks to a successful content marketing program grounded in sharing the team’s expertise, Backpack Interactive exceeded their inbound revenue goals by 131% in 2025.
We ran a successful newsletter marketing program from 2024-2025, increasing open rates by 37% and click-through rates by 66% year over year.
We also continued to see improvements in branded search, which doubled year over year during a tumultuous time for organic search traffic.
With a new website designed to support prospective customers, a content strategy built to help the team shine, and messaging crafted to support sales enablement, Backpack Interactive is poised to become the go-to design agency for custom edTech products.
exceeded inbound REVENUE goals by
131%
Doubled
branded search year over year, 2024-2025
66%
Increase in newsletter click-through rates
“Kristen has been an invaluable partner to our team for years. She takes the time to deeply understand our industry's nuances, strategically guides our messaging, and has a remarkable ability to align our ideas with what truly matters to our clients. Beyond her expertise, she's an absolute pleasure to collaborate with.”
SEAN OAKES
FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL, BACKPACK INTERACTIVE
HI, I’m Kristen
I help experts build credibility that compounds
I’m an experienced content strategist and B2B content marketer, and I’ve helped teams big and small translate their expertise into content that builds authority and credibility over time.
I work across strategy and execution roles to help busy teams concentrate on the content efforts that will help them most. That way, you can streamline the process of working with subject-matter experts and finally connect your expertise to what your audience really wants.
From research to strategy to writing, we’ll create an authority-driven content ecosystem that gets you the results you want.