Me: Independent strategist & researcher in NYC
I employ user-centric research, strategic frameworks, and creative collaboration to help project teams find direction and confidently move into making.
Unlike other strategists, I have experience managing end-to-end design projects and collaborating with clients, so I can seamlessly bridge the gap between project owners and makers, while ensuring that business goals and audience insights remain at the center of the work.
You: Passionate collaborator
You're a lover of experimentation and all things digital. You care about the people behind the numbers. You strive to create more value in the world than you extract.
Is this you? Then let's talk. You can reach me at rachelledigreg @ gmail. Not ready to commit? Just keep scrollin'.
Work
I genuinely love helping organizations solve juicy problems and do better by their audiences.
Here’s a slice of what I’ve done so far:
Problems I’ve helped solve
How can longform video translate to the world of AR? Technically and creatively?
What types of advice and help do new parents really need?
How can a local library transition to a community media space?
What’s the most donation-inspiring way for us to tell the story of our impact?
What could make bridesmaid dress shopping less horrible?
How could tech-enabled gear help young competitive athletes?
Clients i’ve worked with
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
The Atlantic
Context Travel
The New York Times
NBCUniversal
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
YouTube
Cheer New York
examples i can share
Researching, workshopping, and guiding implementation of a user-centric content strategy in collaboration with UX and design. The results: a brand new michaeljfox.org (to launch Summer 2019).
Interviewing parents to identify pain points, opportunities, and specific product needs. My work informed the end product: NYT Parenting.
Leading a three hour, 15-person workshop to articulate the team’s mission and brand. Our session helped the team re-launch their brand.
Services
I’m flexible and able to add value and rigor to most projects and teams, but I find most of my work falls into the following offerings.
Bread and Butter
Project Research, Strategy, and Roadmap: Have a project you just don’t have the time to think about, much less get off the ground? I’ll take you and your team through:
Discovery (quant and qual research, landscape analysis, stakeholder workshops)
Strategy development (insight articulation, strategic frameworks, deck storytelling)
Creative ideation (brainstorms and workshops, collaboration with writers/designers/makers, prototyping, content outlining)
At the end of our time together, you’ll have insightful research, a strategically sound brief, an executional roadmap, and a handful of great ideas to get started with.
Add Ons
Landscape Audit: Need to get a lay-of-the-land before kicking off a project? I’ll audit the landscape in and outside of your industry for inspiring and instructive examples related to the problem you’re solving. I’ll deliver a visual, easy-to-share document with 30+ examples, plus the biggest opportunities for you to take advantage of.
Retainer
Join Your Team: Have a project that’s a little bigger or more complex than your team usually handles? I’ll join your team on a rolling basis to provide strategic leadership and support wherever you need it.
In-Depth User Research: Through a combination of interviews, focus groups, usability sessions, or whatever method best fits the bill, I’ll collaborate with you to deeply get to know your users and how they feel about your idea / prototype / business. I’ll diligently document and share all research, then summarize findings and provide strategic recommendations for moving forward.
Define KPIs aligned with project and/or business goals
Formulate hypotheses, conduct research, identify findings, and synthesize into actionable reports
Develop measurement and testing plans
Plan and facilitate user testing, stakeholder interviews, and design research workshops
Conduct desktop research: competitive audits, market / trend analysis, social listening
Workshop Facilitation: Getting a group to come up with great ideas in a short amount of time is hard (whether it’s in a few hours or over multiple days). I’ll partner with you to plan, facilitate, and recap a group work session that’ll give you a clear path forward and leave your participants feeling inspired and energized about the work.
Pricing is by project fee, except for retainers. Contact me at rachelledigreg @ gmail for my current availability and/or a project estimate.
Testimonials
“Rachelle is intelligent, kind, focused, determined, and quietly relentless in getting to good work.”
“Rachelle was instrumental in setting the digital content strategy for a new website that meets the needs of multiple user types, internal stakeholders and organizational goals. She was expert at getting quick and nuanced consensus from groups with differing opinions, and she over-performed to the point where we wanted her to be more involved in the project than her initial scope of work required. I’d work with her again in a heartbeat.”
“We brought on Rachelle because the project was more complex than we anticipated. We quickly learned that she was on her game and could own a lot of the project on her own. She’s a strategist by trade but she thinks like a designer, so her work impacts the end result from the outset.”
“Rachelle always overdelivers, impressing her clients and colleagues. And on top of stunning work, she’s also a ton of fun to work with, with passion that’s contagious. ”
“Rachelle took no time to get up to speed - learning our complicated business efficiently. She relentlessly lead the work, using data to inform decisions and was always able to problem solve complex issues creatively.”
If you've made it this far, we should probably have a chat.
Shoot me an email at rachelledigreg @ gmail.
