Success Story — Esther C. | 3 Hearts Coaching
Korean Actress, Speaker, and Consultant in Hollywood
She went from being another freelance actress and speaker in Hollywood to become the go-to consultant for partnerships between Korean entertainment and Hollywood.
HOW ESTHER WENT FROM BEING A FREELANCE ACTRESS TO LEADING PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN KOREAN ENTERTAINMENT AND HOLLYWOOD
Background:
Esther Chae is an award-winning actor, published playwright, TED speaker, and consultant for Korean entertainment in Hollywood. She has been covered by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter, and her life in Hollywood was the subject of a Korean Broadcasting Station (KBS) documentary.
As a talented artist, businesswoman, and mom, she was running an eclectic mash of high-profile projects. Additionally, her ambitiousness pushed her to want to make a serious impact in all of her projects simultaneously.
As a recent mom, she was extremely busy, but deeply driven to provide for and spend more time with her family on top of everything else.
Problem:
Esther was spread too thin. She wanted to prioritize all of her projects AND her responsibilities as a mother, which left her with very little time to do anything else.
She needed a way to optimize her current businesses, boost her acting career, and save time, so she could spend more time with her family.
She had multiple websites, all of which looked too old, weren’t getting her the results she wanted, and she could no longer manage them all simultaneously.
She wanted one central location that explained who she was and what she did, so that anyone could reach out to her based on their particular interest in one of the many projects she runs.
Esther’s Old Websites:
Our Approach:
Echo Studio was tasked with the following objectives:
Define Esther Chae’s personal brand in a cohesive and concise manner that would capture her multifaceted talents, businesses, and projects.
Define new targeted markets for her new business which connected and facilitated collaborations between Korean entertainment organizations and Hollywood
Collect the biggest pain points, problems, fears, obstacles, goals, and desires of Korean entertainment organizations as it relates to collaborating with Hollywood’s entertainment industry.
Systematise and refine Esther’s value proposition so that it would validate her as an expert in the space, and address the needs of the organizations most likely to work with her in the most effective and efficient way possible.
Redesign a cutting-edge, mobile-friendly, conversion-driven, and aesthetically pleasing website that encapsulates all of Esther’s projects while also streamlining and optimizing access to each one of her projects to save her time, so that she could spend more time with her family.
We split Esther’s website into three separate indexes so that it would guide visitors toward their desired aspect of Esther’s career:
Her main page introduced visitors to a brief overview of Esther’s career and her multifaceted talents and projects.
For visitors from the entertainment industry, we directed them to an “Acting” index that showed them what they needed to know before reaching out to Esther’s agents listed below.
For her new business, we directed potential clients towards a “Consulting” index which introduced them to Esther’s relevant experience, customized services that were tailored to them, and Esther’s personal contact information below.
Audit different marketing channels to see which were most effective in reaching more of her ideal customers. Then craft marketing campaigns for the most effective marketing channel to drive more traffic to her website and:
Land more opportunities to act professionally in Hollywood
Increase the exposure and growth for her solo performance play “So the Arrow Flies”
Secure Korean entertainment and Hollywood organizations as clients for her new business
And book more speaking gigs
Solution:
Echo Studio adopted an extremely agile approach to the project.
First, we interviewed Esther to outline the specific demographics and psychographics of her ideal customers, which turned out to be:
Casting directors that want a professional actress with a strong portfolio and understanding of the entertainment industry.
Hollywood entertainment organizations, that want a bilingual interpreter who, as a Hollywood actress, is a good performer, has strong improvisation skills, needs to be a SAG-AFTRA member, understands production, how a set is run, and how to deal with talent.
Korean entertainment organizations like KOCCA, that want an experienced bilingual consultant who understands how to pitch to Hollywood producers in a second language. As well as a comfortable, extroverted, bilingual host to MC their public events, which, as an actress and TED fellow, Esther fit perfectly.
Having defined her new ideal target markets, we found several potential prospects that fit the description and interviewed them respectively about what they were looking for when vetting acting, hosting, or consulting talent. We collected this data word-for-word as we knew we would be using their words in the text copy we were going to place on Esther’s website.
Having gathered that data, we consulted with Esther on how to best present herself to each type of targeted market. Then designed an effective acting portfolio and customized services she could price, package, and sell to her consulting clients. We ensured her business operations and services were more clear, more efficient, and easy for new prospects to understand.
With her new portfolio and services defined and ready for deployment, we touched base with Esther every day and actively iterated the design of her new website to reflect her acting talent, consulting talent, changing content, messaging, branding, and client demands that ultimately shaped Esther’s new business as a freelance consultant for Korean entertainment in Hollywood.
In order to meet the ever-shrinking 1-month timeline, the Echo Studio team proactively:
acquired all the photography necessary for the website’s design in order to ensure that the full site would be prepared and tested in time for the launch
crafted the biographical text that explained her multifaceted expertise and shared her accolades to immediately instill trust with new visitors of the website on the Home Page
designed the Acting Index with a crafted biography of her acting experience, accolades, and awards. Additionally, we showcased her acting reels and photo galleries to exhibit Esther’s portfolio of work and displayed the different ways to contact Esther’s agents.
designed the Consulting Index with a crafted biography of her consulting experience, accolades, and awards. Exhibited her services with previous clients to instill further trust, and displayed the different ways to contact Esther for consulting work.
After a successful and timely launch, we focused on driving new visitors to Esther’s website by reaching out to her agents, casting directors, and both Korean and Hollywood entertainment organizations to test the site’s usability and user experience.
Result:
Echo Studio completely redefined and launched Esther’s personal brand, acting portfolio, and new business. She went from being an actress in Los Angeles to being a professional speaker, and the most sought business consultant for Korean entertainment in Hollywood:
We helped Esther start a new business she’s uniquely positioned to lead by reevaluating how she could stand out as a Korean-American actress with speaking experience in Hollywood while also saving her time to spend with her family.
We ensured her new site spoke to each of her new target markets by interviewing actual prospective entertainment organizations that would be good candidates for working with Esther, and altered her services and presentation to cater to the needs of those organizations.
We redesigned her personal brand, acting portfolio, and websites to reflect those needs and tailored the copy sitewide.
After launching her websites we exponentially increased exposure by researching and collecting the most relevant and highly visited hashtags, sharing her launch on all active social platforms, and launching an entirely new Instagram account specifically for Esther’s new consulting business. On the day of launch, she received 3079 pageviews on her completely new website.
The relationship was so successful for Esther that she continues to use our service whenever she wants, to iterate additional site enhancements or explore new growth options, years after her initial launch.
Esther’s Story
What did your life or business look like before being introduced to Echo Studio?
I had three pretty old websites and no social media presence. It just didn’t match with where I was, and I knew it for a while, but it was a matter of time, money, and resources.
It was annoying to have to switch between every website to see how I was doing. I really just wanted something specific that would capture everything that I do in one cohesive structure.
What motivated you to invest in Echo Studio services?
On your website, you talked about having a social media angle and a business strategy that were great for me. Those two things concurrently made me not even want to look anywhere else.
I really liked your other websites. They were elegant, easy to navigate, and easy to use.
How is it different from other services you may have been involved in the past?
You found a way to get what I wanted and visualized it. You gave me a strong beginning structure that was very satisfying and in the right direction.
You have a comprehensive ability to match color and aesthetics. Sophistication.
Copy and content capability, the dialogue between us was really useful. You could take something from me and show me something even better that I liked.
Good at distilling, which is what led to the elegance.
The first interview was great for that.
What surprised you the most about Echo Studio?
At the start I had some concerns about the timeline. It got much easier once you shared the Market Research & Validation doc.
The first interview was a lot, but once I got that the main thing I needed to know were the obstacles my target market were experiencing everything flowed very easily from there.
Having successfully built your business online, where do you see yourself in 6-12 months from now?
Well, now that I have a beautiful website that I’m very proud to have and excited to share with the world. I’m very eager to share and see the growth.
It frees up my time and gives me momentum to move forward because now I have a new presence that explains everything.
I expect to get more consulting gigs directly through the website, without having to cold email anyone. Deepening my existing working relationships with World of Dance and my other Hollywood clients. And, I expect to get more acting and speaking gigs. Potentially another TED Talk.
If someone is skeptical about Echo Studio, or feels that the investment is a big stretch for them, what would you say to them?
Echo Studio isn’t just website design. You actually do business strategy in eCommerce, social media, and getting more exposure. Adrien can definitely take care of portfolio websites too, but it’s great that you can take care of the whole online business side of things too.
I’d also remind them that you’re a marketing specialist and working with you means they’ll have an update to their business model, which is really important with everything evolving so quickly.
If you have any different thoughts or would like to add anything else, please feel free to add whatever you'd like.
I think I’ve said all I could. I’m super happy with your work and I’m going to refer you to my husband, my friends, and anyone else who needs your service.
