Venture Partners at CU Boulder

Senior Marketing & Communications Specialist, Research & Innovation Office | Nov. 2018 - Sept. 2021

 
Venture Partners’ homepage

Venture Partners’ homepage

Venture Partners’ brand evolution (from an internal presentation to office leadership)

Venture Partners’ brand evolution (from an internal presentation to office leadership)

Venture Partners’ “About Us” page

Venture Partners’ “About Us” page

 

Brand Strategy | Communications & PR | Event Planning & Marketing | Website & Blog Management

About Venture Partners at CU Boulder
Venture Partners—the university’s commercialization arm—translates groundbreaking research into new solutions, businesses and partnerships that address the world's greatest challenges.

Industry: Higher Education / University Innovation

Problem
Traditionally, university technology transfer offices are known for providing intellectual property and licensing services (such as securing patents or licensing technologies to industry) for staff researchers and faculty members who create research-based inventions. Seeing an opportunity to make more of an impact for both the university and the community, Venture Partners slowly began expanding its services outside of intellectual property and licensing to fully support campus inventors-turned-entrepreneurs and startup founders. These new services (entrepreneurial education and training, mentorship and funding) gave campus inventors the resources to further develop their technologies, find a market and form a startup company.

To reflect these operational changes, Venture Partners renamed itself from the “Technology Transfer Office” in January 2019. As a result, the organization needed to 1) increase participation and interest in these new services and 2) educate internal and external stakeholders about the rebrand.

Solution
I rebranded existing and established new marketing and communications strategies, which included:

  • Changing their mission and vision

  • Removal of unnecessary internal program naming and visual elements which diluted the Venture Partners brand

  • A complete website redesign, following SEO best practices and changing content design from audience-based to topic-based

  • Rebranding email communications from one general newsletter to three audience-specific newsletters (inventors & researchers, community and investors)

  • Integrating more Venture Partners-related content into Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Research & Innovation Office and CU Boulder communications channels, which helps paint a larger picture of their role in creating economic and social impact for CU Boulder and the community

  • Sharing Venture Partners-related news, events and programs with internal stakeholders, campus communicators, media and local/national partners for broader reach and awareness

  • Establishing a social media presence for the first time, focused on LinkedIn

Results
Due to these efforts, website metrics increased year-over-year (YoY) from 2018 to 2020:

  • Website users: 57% in 2019 and 11% in 2020

  • Sessions: 59% in 2019 and 10% in 2020

  • Pageviews: 63% in 2019 and 5% in 2020

Due to an increased number of events, improved programming and communications efforts, Venture Partners saw an increase in web stats across the board during the COVID-19 pandemic, when majority of CU Boulder sites saw a decrease.

Venture Partners’ key metrics like invention disclosures, university startups formed and licensing agreements have continued to increase steadily as well.

Writing & Content Samples

My news articles ranged from announcements of awards, faculty and alumni startup success stories, recaps of events and programs and more.

I helped direct and produce a video to promote Venture Partners’ Lab Venture Challenge (LVC), which is a program and competition that funds the university's top innovations addressing a commercial need, with a clear path to a compelling market and strong scientific support. The purpose of this video was to encourage faculty and research staff to apply for LVC by educating them about 1) how the program works and 2) why it’s a beneficial opportunity for advancing their inventions.