Andrew Rupert, Senior Consultant, Marketing and Innovation - Aspirant
As a former brand manager for a who’s who of Pittsburgh companies, Andrew Rupert knows a thing or two about growth. He got his start at Freemarkets (now Ariba) and four years later took on an opportunity at Giant Eagle. In 2012 after acquiring his MBA from CMU, he gained experience at Heinz, Valvoline, and PPG.
So I was all ears when I had the chance to ask him about his new role (as of April 2020) at consultancy firm Aspirant. We talked about how they’ve been fairing during the pandemic, what it’s like to work with a hyper-collaborative team, and what’s fueled the company’s growth.
Can you tell me a little bit Aspirant - what you enjoy about it and what the culture’s like?
One of the best things about working for a consulting firm is that when it comes to solving a client’s problems, you can really move the needle. It’s not like that when you’re working at a very large organization, where you tend to chip away at problems over time. At Aspirant, we can make a larger impact.
“We’re always bouncing ideas off one another, and that helps us find opportunities to specific challenges.”
We take a collaborative approach to every engagement, meaning individuals lend their expertise to find the best solutions. We’re always bouncing ideas off one another, and that helps us find opportunities to specific challenges. We focus on creating sustainable, practical solutions. So internally, the kinds of questions we ask are, “What can be done, what can we take action on?”
Aspirant provides a range of consulting services, but I’d like to hone in on marketing. Can you talk about those services specifically?
Yes, Michele Petruccelli leads our Marketing & Innovation team, leveraging experience from her time at GSK and leading her own marketing firm. She’s one of those people that gets the gears turning. She works with clients on branding, product development, and building out digital design and digital marketing plans. Our design process is customer-centric, and Michele utilizes Aspirant’s collaborative culture to engage all of our SME’s in developing strategies for our clients. She’s very good at what she does!
Let’s talk about Aspirant’s external marketing and outreach. Videos and case studies play a prominent role on your site, can you speak to that?
For context, I should mention that a lot of our business, historically, has come from our network. Our team has some great pre-existing relationships and so in terms of marketing and sales, we’re just beginning to scratch the surface.
The site was originally made as a verfication point, so potential clients could get a feel for who we are and what we do. It was something to legitimize us. But we’re developing it into more of a sales tool, so it will ultimately be playing a larger role in customer acquisition.
Our current digital assets, like the videos and case studies, are doing a good job of removing the “stigma of consulting” and illustrating our unique approach. We want to show that not only to we provide a solution, but we’re in the foxhole with you. We help create strategies as well as help implement them.
There’s a healthy mix of other digital assets on the site too, what else are you using that’s worked well?
Well, it’s important to understand that we use the tools available on our site in practice. The Customer Journey Map that’s available on our site is a good example of that. That tool, in particular, gets people’s minds turning and allows them to think about their business in ways that they haven’t before… it’s a reference point. It informs the value proposition and you can leverage that for your messaging.
Other assets, like [Marketing and Communications Manager] John Conroy’s blog posts, provide a lot of great resources for clients. We’ll select some of the posts and promote those via social channels like LinkedIn.
What does your social media strategy look like?
Being a collaborative team, we have a very coordinated marketing calendar. So at this point, we’re limited to LinkedIn in terms of social, and we’re selective about which posts to promote because we’ll all (personally) amplify the message. And the same goes with customer success stories that we share. It’s all part of a coordinated effort by our team. We also use Hubspot to email a static newsletters to a specific list of customers and prospects.
How do you measure success in terms of social posts?
We don’t necessarily have goals related to individual posts, although we do keep track of engagement in terms of views, shares, likes and comments. We want people to click specifically on the link in the post. That’s our call-to-action. So for instance, the Pittsburgh Technology Council interviewed our president, Mike McClaine, for a piece. We’ll track clicks on posts promoting that content because we know it can generate awareness and illustrate thought leadership.
How has the company been doing amidst the pandemic - has any of your messaging or strategy has changed?
COVID hasn’t really changed things for us. In fact, for us as a business, things have been accelerating. I was brought on in early April when the pandemic was really starting to ramp up and, like most people, we were worried about the immediate future. But we’ve been thriving, and I think that’s a product of the general value we provide - our approach and expertise, utilizing lean teams, offering implementable solutions, and providing immediate value.
Most of the work we’ve been doing recently is from exisitng clients that already knew what value we can provide. The pandemic did, of course, force them to look at how they’re spending money. But that worked in our favor because our value continues to resonate.
One last thing I wanted to ask was about Aspirant’s work in the community. Can you tell me a little about the Connection of Hope campaign?
We have a commitment to providing resources to Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh (WC&S) and began an initiative called “Aspire to Your Full Potential,” which provides WC&S with funds to assist women and children to gain freedom from abuse.
This initiative is part of our larger Connection of Hope campaign, which was started to help raise awareness and prevent domestic violence. We recently launched the RUSafe mobile app here in the US, and a similar app called Bright Sky in the UK with Hestia and The Vodafone Foundation in Europe. These apps provide portals to covertly call-in reports of domestic violence.
We created a video featuring Mike McClaine and WC&S' CEO/President, Nicole Molinaro, discussing the “Aspire to Your Full Potential” initiative and that video is on our site.
That’s fantastic! So what’s on the horizon for Aspirant, anything new that we can expect?
We’re finalizing a co-branded offering that packages an industry-leading sales intelligence platform and our expertise with marketing strategy and process. Details on that partnership haven’t been announced yet but are coming soon, so stay tuned!
Collaborate with Aspirant:
Online: www.aspirant.com
Phone: 724-655-4441
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspirantllc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aspirantllc
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLirnU_VsWV4YrDWhSJ_jPA
Address: Nova Tower 1, One Allegheny Square, Suite 502, Pittsburgh, PA 15212