Kontent Partners is a leading film and photography production services company, partnering with producers at brands and agencies to create compelling visual content. Based in Seattle, they partner with brands and agencies to make stories come to life: on screen, in print, and everywhere in between. From concept to campaign delivery, their end-to-end production services are as seamless as they are scalable. Need all hands on deck? A small unit for a last-minute shoot? They’ve got it covered with a blend of in-house talent and top-tier freelancers.
Specializing in both film and photography, Kontent Partners is known for blending video and stills into cohesive campaigns that don't just look great—they leave an impression. Whether it’s for a giant billboard or your phone screen, they deliver content that connects.
Their boutique team structure keeps things personal, nimble, and endlessly adaptable, allowing them to scale while maintaining a high level of agility across all projects.
The challenge: Disconnected systems made growth messy
Before Copper, Kontent Partners organized their sales and operations through a patchwork of spreadsheets. Everything from job lists to client details to contractor info was tracked manually, making it easy for things to slip through the cracks. Lead generation and follow-ups were especially hard to stay on top of.
Michael Bini, Partner and business development lead, often found himself relying on manual processes that made it hard to scale and even harder to keep organized over time.
"I used to screen grab LinkedIn profiles and put them in a file on my desk — and then forget they were there!”
Meanwhile, the bidding and project management processes functioned well, but they operated in isolation – separate from sales, disconnected from real-time reporting, and dependent on systems that didn’t scale.
"I was juggling spreadsheets and Post-its to track projects and bids. It worked, but it wasn’t easy to keep everyone on the same page" explained McKenna Turner, Head of Production.
Without an integrated system, visibility across stages and teams was limited. It was difficult to forecast revenue, track win/loss rates, or see how engagements evolved over time. A brief trial with Salesforce confirmed they needed a more intuitive, lightweight customer relationship management (CRM) platform that aligned with their style of work—not a heavyweight enterprise system.
The turning point: Finding the right CRM
When Kontent Partners reconnected with longtime collaborator James Keblas, he immediately recognized the opportunity to bring Copper CRM into their workflow. James visited their studio to demo how Copper could streamline their business development and project management processes.
Once the team saw how Copper could offer transparency across sales and delivery, they quickly embraced the solution.
1. Lead nurture via LinkedIn and email
Kontent Partners now manages their business development process in an “Engagement” pipeline. Bini focuses on building relationships with potential clients. Using Copper’s LinkedIn Integration, Bini identifies and connects with new prospects, and pulls lead information directly into Copper.
From there, he nurtures these relationships over time in their “Nurturing” pipeline by staying engaged on LinkedIn, sending thoughtful emails, and making sure that no promising contact falls through the cracks. By the time the prospect is ready to move forward, the relationship already feels solid, making it easy to hand things off to the bidding and project teams without missing a beat.
2. Managing the bidding process
Once a lead shows interest, the opportunity moves into Kontent Partners’ “Sales” pipeline, where Turner takes the lead. She manages the entire bid process by gathering project details inside Copper, building out opportunities, developing proposals and providing pricing estimates. Throughout the bid phase, Turner updates the opportunity’s status in Copper, providing visibility across the team. Once a client awards the project, Turner transitions the opportunity to a “Project” record to manage execution.
3. Project Delivery
When a project is “Won”, it transitions to the “Delivery” pipeline within Copper. This pipeline allows Kontent Partners to manage active projects, track budgets and timelines, and coordinate with freelancers and internal team members.
“Copper’s real superpower for us is connection. We were pitched Copper for sales, but after going through the tutorial it was clear that we could use it to connect engagement, bidding and active project management, creating a full-circle system. It’s not just a sales platform. It’s a detailed map of our business.”— McKenna Turner, Head of Production
4. Keeping Client Relationships Warm
To close the loop, Kontent Partners plans to use Copper’s rekindle email automations to automatically follow up with clients months after a project wraps, so that relationships stay warm and lead to repeat business without manual effort.
The results: Better visibility, stronger strategy, smoother growth
Six months into using Copper, Kontent Partners has officially said goodbye to spreadsheets. With Copper and Google Workspace in their corner, they’ve gone from scattered files and sticky notes to a sleek, cloud-based set-up that actually makes sense.
Or as Craig Brooks, Founding partner and Executive Creative Director at Kontent Partners put it: "I feel so modern."
The switch to Copper gave them instant visibility into deal stages, team activity, and project progress.
With the new systems in place, Kontent Partners easily refined their business development strategy. They started sorting jobs by client type (brand vs. agency) and industry (such as automotive, healthcare, and consumer goods), to sharpen their outreach and zero in on growth opportunities that actually matter.
Their custom-built sales pipeline mirrors their actual process, allowing the team to qualify leads more effectively, walk away from poor fits, and close stronger opportunities. Instead of scrambling to respond to client needs, they’re now steering the ship with clarity and intent.
Then, once projects are awarded, production and sales stay connected inside Copper. Project managers aren’t just managing timelines, they’re nurturing client relationships like pros, turning one-off jobs into long-term partnerships.
Copper’s reporting tools also keep the whole team in sync. They make it easy to forecast revenue, track job size, and monitor win/loss rates—without the need to dig through spreadsheets. As Turner shared, "It’s amazing that we can gut check each other throughout the whole process because we can see it all in Copper."
By connecting their entire customer journey, Kontent Partners has built a smarter, more strategic foundation for sustainable growth.
Why Copper
Kontent Partners chose Copper CRM because it mirrors the way modern creative agencies work: it’s fluid, relationship-driven, and project-focused. With Copper, they manage the entire client journey—from the first hello to the final deliverable—in one intuitive system, minus the complexity or overhead of traditional enterprise CRMs.
"Copper fits the way we work — it’s not overly complicated, but it’s powerful enough to manage everything from first contact to project delivery." - McKenna Turner
Now, they’re building a more sustainable growth engine, nurturing relationships from first touch through project delivery, and back again. It’s exactly how Copper is designed to help agencies grow. Test it out yourself with a 14-day free trial today!
