Cour Design is a design firm that specializes in stage concert design, lighting, video, and set design for Grammy award-winning artists like Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Kacey Musgraves. Their sister company, Syne Research, is also redefining the way people listen to music on streaming services with enhanced visual displays.

Both companies recently tapped into Dropbox and DocSend to smooth out their business operations and raise funds to expand their direct-to-consumer audio streaming companion.  

The Challenge

Gordon Droitcour, Co-Founder of Cour Design and Syne Research, wanted a simple way to track client proposals and investor pitch decks stored in Dropbox. 

Before Dropbox, Gordon had been sending simple email attachments—and he had no idea what prospects or investors were doing with the files once they were received. Attachments were clunky for artists to view on their phones on the road, and files with sensitive creative IP could easily be shared with competitors—a massive risk for the business. Gordon wanted a way to protect these files from getting into the wrong hands.

The Solution

Gordon and his team turned to DocSend for its rich analytics and advanced controls. With DocSend, Gordon knows when artists and investors are interested in his offers, and he can see when files are shared with other contacts. Now that he has tight control over file permission, he can rest easy knowing that his team’s designs won’t be stolen, their pricing information is kept confidential, and they’ll receive fair compensation for his hard work.

Scaling and running a design agency with Dropbox Backup and Sync

Lighting and animation files are hefty, and Cour Design goes through computers every four months to keep up with demand. Between the hassle of switching devices and wrangling external hard drives, data loss during these transitions was slowing down collaboration with high-profile artists who could make or break their business. 

Cour Design turned to Dropbox as a reliable cloud storage provider that could handle their creative output. With Dropbox Sync, Cour Design sends only one link, accessible to artists from anywhere on the road—no more back and forth on versions, no more searching for the latest file. 

“The reason we like Dropbox,” says Gordon, “is because I can just click on the file on my desktop, copy the link, send, and it’s done.”

And if anyone needs to access a previous version for whatever reason, Cour Design uses Dropbox Backup to retrieve it for up to 30 days. 

Protecting creative intellectual property with DocSend

Cour Design customizes every project for each client—which means their pricing strategy is just as bespoke.

Setting an expiration date on a scope of work with DocSend is huge. Then the offer is only valuable for two weeks, and no one artist can pull it up and ask about outdated pricing six months later.

Gordon Droitcour

Co-Founder, Cour Design

As an extra layer of security, Gordon says he’ll soon be using DocSend’s email verification feature to make sure confidential designs are viewed only by authorized collaborators. “We don’t usually design mockups ahead of a signed contract, but we will if we want the work badly enough,” Gordon says. “But it’s common in the industry for  artists to pick someone else and potentially take elements of your design they didn’t pay for. We’ve found it very hard to protect against that.” 

With DocSend, Gordon and his team have peace of mind that others aren’t copying their work. DocSend takes the agency to the next level—granting them ownership over their creative ideas through advanced controls. 

Gauging interest from potential clients and investors with DocSend’s analytics

DocSend helps Cour Design generate new business, too. The agency sends almost a dozen proposals to potential new clients every month, so it’s safe to say they value speed—but they also needed a way to gauge true interest from potential clients as a boutique design agency with aggressive expansion goals. 

The agency had previously been sending proposals over email, which wasn’t the easiest for artists to view on their phones. The team also didn’t know when someone had viewed their decks and when to anticipate hearing from potential clients. DocSend’s analytics allows Cour Design to track activity on every proposal, so they know what’s working and what should be revised for future engagements. 

When working with high-profile clients, it’s critical to anticipate questions and follow up on them quickly. With clear anticipation of potential client needs, Gordon can easily close business faster and use the additional time to focus on his other ventures.  

Making fundraising easier for long-term growth

We were really excited when we found out Dropbox had a product that would give us intelligence over our fundraising materials. DocSend makes it easy for us to upload the latest versions of our pitch decks and gives us full control over who is accessing them.

Gordon Droitcour

Co-Founder, Cour Design

Cour Design isn’t only focused on design for live entertainment—they also fundraise for their sister company, Syne Research, a venture that’s redefining the way people listen to music with enhanced visual displays.

Similar to their proposals for artists, the agency needed a way to gauge investor interest in pitch decks stored within Dropbox accounts. To analyze investor activity, Syne Research uses DocSend analytics to gain a better understanding of potential investor activity on their pitch decks. Gordon and team can see real-time, page-by-page insights, allowing them to know what parts of his deck to focus on in follow-up conversations. 

“I like that I can see whether an investor opened or shared the pitch deck,” Gordon says. “Without DocSend, there was no other way to see if somebody opened the deck or not.” 

As a founder with multiple businesses to oversee, Gordon runs on limited time. Finding the right decision maker can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Luckily for Gordon, he doesn’t have to spend hours painstakingly figuring out the right person at a venture capital firm. After sending out a DocSend link, Gordon receives email notifications when a deck is passed around at a firm, potentially saving him hours of searching for the right managing partner. With DocSend’s advanced analytics, Gordon is able to not only secure meetings with the right managing partner, but also prioritize the most compelling parts of his business with potential investors. 

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Sleepless Media is a full-service web design and development agency that provides innovative brand experiences anchored around custom, responsive websites. Developing creative assets for a large client base including Levi Strauss, Lenny & Larry’s, and Breeo, Sleepless Media relies on both Dropbox and DocSend to securely share project proposals and creative files with prospective clients.

The Challenge

Prior to DocSend, Jon Cattivera, CEO and Creative Director, would send partnership proposals and creative files to clients as email attachments. As his client list grew, Jon needed a more scalable solution to better control the proposal process. Additionally, he needed a more robust platform that would allow him to customize and organize design elements.

The Solution:

Jon turned to DocSend to securely send and track sales proposals to prospective clients and Dropbox to share creative files.

Advanced insights into client proposals shorten sales cycles

As a creative professional managing a design and web development firm that caters to leading global brands, Jon juggles many different responsibilities in order to provide the best possible customer service. Following up at the right moment with a potential client is critical, especially when closing new business. However, operating on limited time, Jon must be deliberate and thoughtful when sharing project proposals and reviewing statements of work from potential clients. Previously, Jon had no intel into whether prospective clients were reviewing proposals he would send out. “I had no idea who was interested in working with us after those initial conversations. I wanted a better sense of whether prospective clients were serious about partnering with us,” Jon shared.

After trying out DocSend’s free trial, Jon immediately felt the impact of using DocSend’s document analytics. Now, Jon knows exactly which prospective clients were genuinely interested in collaborating through real-time email updates and notifications when they are viewing project proposals. Additionally, Jon can see whether individuals have forwarded over his files to the right people at the company. Instead of spending tedious weeks searching for the right person to connect with, Jon can uncover the right person and follow-up accordingly. “DocSend shows us who other core decision-makers are, which has given us back much-needed time to focus on what we do best – quality creative design and development.”

DocSend shows us exactly which prospective clients are engaging with proposals and are interested in working with us. I love how the email notifications alert me when someone is reviewing a proposal in real-time, which helps me prioritize strategic follow-up and insight on any potential questions.

Jon Cattivera

CEO and Creative Director, Sleepless Media

Intuitive presentations build stronger client relationships

Potential clients could often be looking into multiple agencies, so it is important for design and development firms to stand out among the competition. Jon is able to rely on DocSend to display custom proposals in a professional manner, which gives his agency a unique advantage. “I present my proposals directly in DocSend because I’m usually sharing just my browser and not my whole screen. DocSend lets me go back and forth between a website and my PDF all in one window, instead of having to flip back and forth to try and find the right file outside of a browser, or having to share my entire screen.”

Easily executing master service agreements with eSignature

As a nimble and growing design and creative development firm, Sleepless Media works with a range of clients with specific visions, often reflected in the statement of work. Jon was overjoyed when he found out that he could execute master service agreements and statements of work with DocSend’s e-Signature feature. “I had previously looked into DocuSign, but it was too clunky. I really needed a simple way to execute client agreements,” Jon shared. Once a client agrees to partner with Sleepless Media, Jon sends them their contract to sign directly in DocSend. “Clients can easily review their proposal and execute their agreement in one product experience using DocSend’s eSignature, without switching back and forth between different, bulky softwares,” Jon shared.

Additionally, milestones and deliverables can sometimes change for those in the creative space. Managing different change orders for a long list of clients can be tricky, but Jon is able to organize all executed client agreements in DocSend folders.

DocSend’s eSignature makes the negotiation and close process intuitive for both us and our clients. I’m able to add in necessary fields and send out critical agreements that allow us to build long-term relationships with our clients.

Jon Cattivera

CEO and Creative Director, Sleepless Media

Storing client branding assets and creative in Dropbox

Working with a wide range of businesses requires keeping close tabs on all of their creative files. Jon relies on Dropbox Business to organize all of his client logos and core design elements. Once a brand signs on to work with Sleepless Media, Jon will create a Dropbox folder containing everything he will need for their partnership. “With so many different clients, Dropbox makes it easy for us to quickly find any creative element we might need for a project. Dropbox holds all of our Sketch files, heavier design files, and branding assets,” Jon shared.

No matter where team members are located, members of the Sleepless Media group are able to work flexibly and make changes to creative files in Dropbox. In an industry where creative adjustments often come up, Jon and his team keep all files up to date securely with Dropbox’s cloud storage. Relying on both Dropbox and DocSend, Sleepless Media continues to secure partnership agreements and provide innovative web designs for a growing list of clients.

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Educating brands with plentiful, diverse content

“As a marketing and sales organization, we engage with brands to teach them how Gen-Z behaves as a demographic, and ways to attract them as customers,” begins Matthew Mortimer, Head of Demand Generation at Student Beans. “Content is very important to this education process.”

Top-of-funnel content, such as a guide to Gen Z, is used by sales and marketing alike to identify warm leads. Student Beans also utilizes later stage content such as case studies, media packs, and rate cards during the decision stage. There is a lot of effort put into content creation so it is critical for them to understand what is resonating and what isn’t. That is where DocSend comes in.

Building a data-focused culture with document analytics

“Understanding what content works for our target audiences gives our sales team a competitive edge,” comments Matthew. “Prior to DocSend, we distributed emails with attachments, assuming our audience wanted to hear what we had to say. Now, we take learnings from DocSend along with other tools which has enabled us to engage with prospects and customers more deeply.”

“As a sales and marketing team, we spend a lot of time looking at DocSend analytics so we can understand which topics are most relevant to certain brands or markets,” says Matthew. “It’s embedded into our business. Whether DocSend is used to help identify a warm lead by knowing someone is reading a guide or to speed up a deal by using page by page analytics of our rate card, it allows us to be more strategic in our sales and marketing efforts.”

These learnings are then shared across the entire company. “We have a weekly dialogue with the sales team to go through what content is working and what’s not,” Matthew says. “Our sales teams operate across U.S., UK and Europe, and APAC, and we want everyone to see and learn from DocSend performance insights.”

DocSend’s granularity of document analytics allows our sales team to be more strategic and proactive. It also provides our content and creative teams with aggregate insight into consumption so they can produce higher quality content.

Matthew Mortimer

Head of Demand Generation, Student Beans

Putting insights—big and small—into action

The marketing team regularly reviews DocSend analytics to gather feedback on content consumption and implement that into both the writing and design of future content. Matthew continues, “We use these learnings, along with client feedback, to update our collateral. DocSend tells us when our content is top notch or when it needs improvement.”

Even smaller insights, Matthew shares, can lead to big improvements, noting an enhancement they made to their rate cards, thanks to DocSend. Initially, rate cards included pricing across all territories in an effort to accommodate global prospects. However, they learned this created some confusion. By using DocSend data of rate card consumption, they instead opted to split rate cards per territory for pricing that better reflected what they were selling and to whom.

Prospects were confused by the level of detail shared on our original rate card. By utilizing DocSend analytics, we were able to make data-driven improvements to our rate card. This shift has notably affected our selling and closing strategy.

Matthew Mortimer

Head of Demand Generation, Student Beans

“We also use DocSend as a key part of our onboarding and implementation process,” he continues. “When we onboard a new brand partner, we share documents through a DocSend Space. This makes it easy for a customer to consume our instructions, and we’re able to track whether they are opening, reviewing, and following the different guides to get up and running on our website.”

Reflecting back while looking forward to the future

Looking ahead, Matthew shares that the Student Beans team is focused on extracting even more value by integrating Salesforce and DocSend.

“When we initially implemented DocSend, we had two instances: one for our sister company and one for Student Beans,” he mentions. “With the help of the DocSend team, we migrated them together for greater performance insights. Bringing Salesforce into this picture will provide even deeper insights into prospect and customer interest.”

Having worked closely with their DocSend account manager for several years, Matthew enjoys knowing he has a knowledgeable, collaborative team to rely on for guidance. The feedback and communication loop between the Student Beans and DocSend teams has remained closely aligned. “A while back, we shared feedback about an enhancement idea for the platform,” Matthew shares. “At the time, we assumed it’d be written down on a piece of paper and didn’t expect to hear about it again.”

“A few months ago, our account manager emailed us to let us know the enhancement we asked for was being rolled out in the next release,” Matthew remarks. “Listening to customer’s suggestions and taking action—you don’t always see this in tech.”

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Negotiating the deal with a competitive edge

“Trying to remember what I used before DocSend is tough. I came into Quartz using DocSend and at my previous employer for nearly 5 years prior – so I’ve always been an advocate of the tool,’ recalls Ryan Froats, Director of Partnerships at Quartz.

With a focus on selling advertising to financial services and insurance, Ryan’s target customers are big on security. He found that sending attachments via email was not compatible with their heightened security and firewalls. Prior to DocSend, he tended to lean on sending a PDF as an attachment or using a file transfer app for larger files.

“With high security clients, I tended to have to lean on a number of different file transfer services prior to DocSend. Often they were never compatible with their infrastructure, resulting in frustration on both sides of the table,” said Ryan. “But with DocSend, I have no issues. It only requires them to enter an email to view our pitch.”

The world of media sales is very competitive — and it was even more so in 2020. Managing many proposals per quarter, Ryan needs to ensure he puts his time and effort into the most fruitful deals.

“’With the competition we face, we welcome any and all strategic intel we can get our hands on. I love that I can see when a client spends time with our proposal because it allows me to be more strategic in my role — helping to prioritize my time and ensure I’m focusing on the right deals,” said Ryan.

If their pitch shifts or there is an edit made, rather than having to send an updated link or file to a client, DocSend allows Ryan to update the file already out there with no client interruption. This allows for him to be more organized in his pitching approach and strategic in his follow up strategy.

“I love being notified when our proposal is viewed, forwarded on, downloaded, and even clicked back into. DocSend’s insight can help us turn a cold lead into a warm lead or a warm lead into a hot lead,” Ryan shares.

Creative proposal creation without a hiccup

Once pitches are identified by the media sales team, Quartz’s creative team then comes into the fold to create a campaign response to the client’s brief. A lot of time and creativity is put into each client proposal, therefore it’s important that the brief is buttoned up when passed over for review.

“Prior to DocSend, we used a variety of tools in order to share our creative briefs and proposals. But with these proposals there are often last minute changes made, leading us then to have to send a whole new email and link to the client. DocSend allows us to be more streamlined and organized in our client communication,” states Tara Mallen, Senior Creative Strategist at Quartz.

With DocSend, Tara is able to ensure that the client always has the latest and correct version of her campaign response without needing to follow up with additional links. Not only that, but she has insight into who has reviewed it and if they seem to prefer one creative concept over another through DocSend’s page by page analytics.

Tara shares, “I have two favorite DocSend features. First, the ability to update a presentation or document in the backend while keeping the link the same to the end user. If there happens to be an error in what we send, the client will never need to be notified. Secondly, I love that when a presentation is viewed in preview mode within DocSend, GIFs can play so that the client, at a quick glance, can grab the concept of our pitch.”

“Recently, Quartz reevaluated the tools we were using. The sales and creative team were really vocal in ensuring we kept DocSend. At the end of the day, it is our competitive edge.

Ryan Froats

Director of Partnerships, Quartz

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Before using DocSend, 104 West organized and managed media relations across different lists, Google Drive folders, and documents. Maintaining a running list of pitches, press drafts, and media kits per client was both tedious and time-consuming. “As an Account Manager, I’m always striving to provide transparency to our clients of our pitching process and status. The pitching progress we can share with clients is pretty black and white. We either pitched and didn’t hear back or we pitched and received a response. This leads to a decent amount of hypothesizing on our part to determine when and how it’s best to follow up with the media contacts we don’t hear from,” shares Laura Kubitz, 104 West Account Manager.

When pitching a story to a targeted list of media who could be a good fit for a story, reporter interest and pickup depends on a number of things including a compelling story, an existing working relationship, and of course, chance. Timing, current projects, and the news cycle can all impact media interest and inclusion in a story. 104 West utilizes DocSend to host the content they are pitching, such as a press release or piece of content, using a unique trackable link per story so they have aggregated analytics into the amount of interest a particular pitch is experiencing. This allows 104 West to anticipate the expected interest or on the other hand, if a new angle should be tried or a different group of media should be pursued.

“Now with DocSend, I can provide a much more tangible and accurate status report of our pitches to our clients. For example, has the media looked at the pitch, how much did they dig in, and even if they shared it with colleagues. This then empowers us to strategically approach certain media based on how we know they’ve interacted and proactively propose the best next steps,” said Laura.

One simple and secure link for maintaining and distributing client media kits

104 West maintains their client’s media kits to ensure that the imagery and copy that’s published about each client is the most accurate and up-to-date. Previous to DocSend, Allison Heard, 104 West’s Creative Services Manager, would maintain a Google Drive folder per client and at times even per media outreach, in order to ensure that the relevant stakeholders saw all of – or only – what they should see. With Google’s limitations in user provisioning and secure sharing, this led to having to manage multiple media kits per client based on the pitch. At other times, media kits were shared as an email attachment but many times the files were too large causing delivery issues and lag time or confusion during a critical time.

“At times, we only want to share a certain video or custom graphic with the media. Alternatively, one media contact we may want to share a different level of detail with than another. So we would find ourselves creating multiple folders for a single client pitch, which then created internal confusion and led to issues with a single source of truth,” recalls Allison.

“With DocSend, we’re able to easily maintain our client’s media kits in Spaces – a central, secure place. The link is always live and up-to-date, so I no longer have to worry about media having an outdated logo or incorrect boilerplate, and we can also provide different levels of access or custom views to different sets of media contacts. This is a game-changer for us when it comes to ensuring we have the right information in front of the right folks,” shares Allison.

104 West manages their client’s media kits in DocSend

Managing an embargoed story through secure sharing

For 104 West, managing embargoed stories can be tricky when sharing a highly anticipated or highly classified bit of information or upcoming story. Prior to DocSend, this was managed over email either with an attachment or Google Doc link. Although Google Docs is great for real-time editing and collaboration, when it comes to securely pitching highly anticipated information, a link or PDF attachment in the wrong hands can ruin a story’s debut.

“With DocSend, we can protect the security of our embargoed pitches by requiring an email in order to view it. Even if that link is forwarded to someone else, we are notified of that and they also can’t view it without providing their email. This not only gives us a great peace of mind that a story can’t leak but also provides us insight into the media’s interaction and consumption of our timely pitch,” shares Brian Mast, Managing Partner, 104 West.

“With DocSend, we have real-time insights as to which part of our story resonates – or not. With these insights we are building better relationships with the press and providing better transparency, media strategy, and overall service to our clients.

Brian Mast

Managing Partner, 104 West

A new lens into client and media relations

With DocSend, 104 West is now able to more proactively manage media relationships as well as provide their clients with more detailed and specific insight into their pitching process and strategy. With real-time, secure sharing, tracking and maintaining of client assets, 104 West is able to spend more time nailing the story angle than playing the follow-up.

“DocSend has transformed the way we pitch and share information with the media. The best way for us to work with the media is to give them relevant and valuable information. We now have real-time insights as to which part of our story resonates – or not. With these insights we are building better relationships with the press and providing better transparency, media strategy, and overall service to our clients,” concludes Brian.

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