Work Nonprofit The Recycling Partnership

The Recycling Partnership

Industry

What We Did

Strategic optimization and smart content strategy grab #1 on Google.

The Recycling Partnership holds the most comprehensive recycling data in the U.S. Big Sea builds the content, landing pages, and campaigns that carry that data to funders and municipal partners, from pillar pages that rank first for circular packaging to the launch infrastructure behind their State of Recycling Report

The Challenge

TRP had the best recycling data in the country, but no reliable way to share it.

The Recycling Partnership maintains the National Recycling Database, which covers more than 9,000 recycling programs serving 97% of the U.S. population. That data shapes policy debates and gives corporate funders a reason to write checks.

Getting that data read is the hard part. Sustainability is a saturated content category, where trade press and packaging manufacturers publish into the same search results that The Recycling Partnership is trying to win. Their research was landing on the website and staying there. Reports went out without a launch system behind them, so each one started from scratch and reached whoever happened to be paying attention that week.

The Recycling Partnership has strong internal expertise and a small marketing team. They brought Big Sea in to build and run distribution, starting with SEO content projects and formalizing into a monthly Vision + Velocity retainer.

The APPROACH

TRP sets the direction, and Big Sea builds what carries it.

The Recycling Partnership’s program leaders know the policy landscape and the funder relationships, and they know where the organization needs to show up. We consult on that thinking and then handle the build: content, landing pages, email, ads, and reporting.

That split shapes how the work runs. Weekly client meetings and a shared Asana board keep us close to what The Recycling Partnership’s program teams are working on, and our writers have worked with them across multiple years. When the State of Recycling Installment One was ready, the surrounding campaign was already built.

The Strategy

Every piece of content we build has a distribution plan attached.

Every installment of the State of Recycling Report gets a full launch apparatus, and the organic content foundation underneath keeps working between releases.

SEO Content Foundation: We interviewed The Recycling Partnership thought leaders and built pillar pages, including Circular Packaging 101 and the extended producer responsibility hub. We targeted keywords they could realistically win rather than chasing the broadest terms available. The EPR hub is now the 12th most-visited page on the website, and Circular Packaging 101 is 23rd.
Report Launch Infrastructure: We designed the State of Recycling Report landing page, signup form, and gated download flow in HubSpot so each installment captures subscribers instead of anonymous traffic.
Email Program: We built the launch and follow-up sequences to TRP’s existing list, then nurtured new report subscribers into the organization’s broader funder and municipal audiences.
Google Ad Grants Management: We run TRP’s $10,000 monthly grant across branded search, campaign builder, and program-specific campaigns, and we restructure it as performance shifts.
Funder-Facing Campaigns: We produced the Impact Report and Impact Snapshot marketing campaigns, turning community results from St. Peters, Portland, and Denton Plastics into proof material for prospective funders.
Account-Based Campaigns: We ran a top-20 grocer campaign across LinkedIn, paid search, and trade media to reach corporate partners directly.
Executive Thought Leadership: We developed LinkedIn content for TRP leadership so report findings carry into industry conversation.
Technical SEO and Site Health: We audit the website on an ongoing basis and handle the remediation work that comes out of it.

Results

The State of Recycling Report page is now the second most-visited page on The Recycling Partnership’s entire website, behind only the homepage.

The pillar pages rank first for the topics The Recycling Partnership wanted to be known for. Circular Packaging 101 comes up first for circular packaging and circular economy packaging. The extended producer responsibility hub sits on page one for EPR and extended producer responsibility, terms drawing roughly 18,000 U.S. searches a month between them.

Ranking is only half of it. Of 401 people who reached the State of Recycling report signup form, 278 completed it.