Launched a line of services with new positioning and a new website to reach school leaders across the U.S.

Brand Positioning • Content Strategy • Website Design & Development

CLIENT

inquiryHub at University of Colorado Boulder

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

  • Engaged inquiryHub’s community of researchers and educators

  • Developed empathetic brand positioning to support their new service offerings

  • Created go-to-market strategies to help build a pipeline of district and school leaders

  • Designed, developed, and launched a website in time for an important industry conference

  • Launched a new offering of professional learning services for a national scale

With $70 million in grant funding over the past 17+ years, the award-winning inquiryHub research team at University of Colorado Boulder partnered with Denver Public Schools, and educators across the country, to develop leading-edge, equity-focused STEM learning curricula. Today, inquiryHub’s high-quality, curriculum materials have been adopted in 41 states plus Washington D.C. 

inquiryHub co-founder Bill Penuel and his team engaged Latshaw Marketing to help launch a new offering of professional learning services at scale to school districts throughout the country.

A new line of services


Adopting a new curriculum is only the first step; successful implementation requires the support of people who deeply understand the curriculum. As the curricula developers, the inquiryHub team is ideally positioned to provide this implementation support through a new line of professional development services. More successful implementations mean that more students will have access to engaging, collaborative STEM learning experiences. 

Go-to-market ready


Latshaw Marketing helped inquiryHub to position their brand to empathetically connect with district and school leaders. 

We started by engaging with their community of researchers and educators to understand their goals, needs, and values. We used what we learned to develop brand positioning and messages, services articulation, and a go-to-market strategy. This strategy included creating a new website in time for a major industry conference. With these vital pieces in place, they are now ready to offer professional learning services for school districts across the United States.

“The team at Latshaw Marketing was amazing in reflecting back to us who we are, as seen through the eyes of our partners and clients. They turned that into a positioning statement that the whole team could see themselves as contributors to, and then worked with us at lightning speed to create a beautiful web site that reflected our new positioning, in time for a major industry conference. I would recommend them to anyone seeking an empathetic partner who can clearly communicate value to clients.”

— Bill Penuel, Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder and a co-founder of the inquiryHub research-practice partnership

Why they chose us


inquiryHub chose Latshaw Marketing as their partner to:

  1. Develop empathetic brand positioning and messages to support their new services offering

  2. Leverage their new positioning to create strategies that help build a qualified pipeline of district and school leaders

  3. Design, develop, and launch a website that showcases their brand and newly articulated services in time for an important industry conference

For all of the above, they had a specific budget and timeline which required careful planning and solid, coordinated execution.

What we did

We applied our Empathetic Positioning Process to bring many voices to the table to inform our work. This included conducting 21 interviews with inquiryHub’s internal stakeholders as well as district and school leaders. 

The Goal Overlap Study is an essential part of our process because it reveals the shared goals, needs, and values of the organization and the educators they serve.

We used what we learned from the interviews and the Goal Overlap Study to develop a brand positioning platform with a positioning statement, messaging pillars, and key messages that demonstrate inquiryHub’s deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges in secondary STEM education.

We worked in close partnership with the team to imagine, write, design, develop, and launch a new website that brings inquiryHub’s new brand positioning to life.

We used inquiryHub’s existing logo as a jumping off point for the website design, using circular bubbles and rounded edges to highlight the messages and images throughout the site.

We selected and clustered photographs that showcase inquiryHub’s ability to connect high-quality professional learning services for educators, engaging classroom experiences for students, and real-world science that impacts communities.

We created the website, from start to finish, in under three months so that it was ready in time for an important industry conference. This required a precise timeline and careful, coordinated project management.

The new website showcases inquiryHub’s three newly articulated services, professional learning workshops and events, and open access curricula. 

The site is designed to inspire action and drive conversion. The user experience makes it easy for visitors to engage with the inquiryHub team, register for events, and access downloadable materials — using integrated forms for capturing important contact information to help build out a qualified pipeline of district and school leaders. Visit inquiryhub.net to see for yourself!

“The Latshaw Marketing team was able to gather multiple voices and weave a variety of perspectives into a cohesive positioning statement. They captured the essence of our work much more thoughtfully and precisely than we’ve been able to do on our own. Using this new messaging as a launching point, they transformed our outdated brand into a modern, fresh, playful website that we are proud to share. We were working under tight deadlines and not only did they hit every milestone, they were a joy to work with along the way and kept us inspired throughout.”

— Erin Howe, Program Manager for inquiryHub at the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder

The project team

Marissa Latshaw

Brand Strategy & Project Leadership

Jack Prettyman

Website Design & Development

Margo Reynolds

K-12 Content Strategy & Development