August Ash

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive at APF

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a brand promotion management company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire August Ash to accomplish?

• Improve SEO
• Improve website experience
• Improve website activity reporting

SOLUTION

How did you find August Ash?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select August Ash over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from August Ash were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Arrowhead was looking for a digital partner to improve its web search results and customer engagement through various website modifications needed to reach these goals. We looked for a partner who could provide the right strategy to achieve these goals while maintaining a cost-effective budget.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Each month we meet with our partner to review the website reports which outline the success of the site along with the increased levels of leads we receive from the SEO modifications.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes, we've been very happy with the results of the site modifications and recommendations for additional advertising.

What was your primary form of communication with August Ash?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I appreciate how responsive they are to the needs of our business. They understood our goals and provided great ideas and considerations for how we could improve our results.

Are there any areas for improvement or something August Ash could have done differently?

They've experienced a higher-than expected turnover on their team, but that can be expected. They've quickly jumped in to ensure we're taken care of however.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Loft is a 45+ year-old, community based arts nonprofit dedicated to readers and writers. The Loft believes that story, verse, and writing aren’t just nice things you put on a shelf, but are instead core to a full existence.

At their best, they help us connect, entertain, mourn, protest, provoke, educate, and empathize. Join us—and find or share your story. I serve as the Communications and Marketing Director at the Loft.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash, and what were your goals?

We hired August Ash when we need to transition and update our website project from a closed, proprietary CMS to a more universal, modern, and open one. For being a small, arts nonprofit, the Loft has an extensive and complicated network of programs and constituents.

Our website needed to serve and recognize grant applicants, students, teachers, artists, donors, and institutional partners. It needed to combine functions of a traditional nonprofit website (giving, community-building etc.) with that of a modern commerce site (ticketing, class rosters etc.).

To do that, it needed to fully integrate with our Salesforce system.

SOLUTION

How did you select August Ash and what were the deciding factors?

We conducted an extensive RFP process and hired August Ash to build us a Drupal-based commerce site that integrated with multiple Loft systems. We chose August Ash because of their reputation, related work with similar clients, ideas for innovation, and price.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We began by looking at the project needs and goals, built an overall plan, and began implementation. Their team worked very closely with ours. One of the key differences I noticed with August Ash in this process was the ability to listen and adapt based on our team's expertise.

I've worked with other firms that never fully get what you do or why some functionality you might be requesting is so important to your operations, but August Ash always did. In the end, we launched a mobile-friendly, fully-integrated commerce site through Drupal.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with a core team of four people. A project manager, a developer, a designer, and a UX analyst. We have since worked with other people at August Ash with various specialties, including marketing and SEO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We wanted to get to a point where we had more control over our system and more ability to continuously improve our website. The component aspects allowed us to build and test and improve.

And when something wasn't working, we would go back to August Ash for improvements or tweaks to the site. We've seen a more manageable site for users, with a much lower abandon rate and less time finding what they came to find.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

This was always very well done. We knew when something was happening, how the budget was progressing, and what accountabilities we needed to provide to keep everything on track.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The ability to listen and the development skills is impressive. They would sometimes propose alternative solutions that were better than what we were initially asking for because they took the time to understand the core problem, not just the asked for solution.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a manufacturer of a nationally recognized brand. I manage our website, content, online presence, and social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash?

To design our website in 2011 and manage, maintain, increase performance, and add custom upgrades and re-design projects throughout the years.

What were your goals for this project?

To meet our company goals, branding changes, and improve our visibility online. To provide a private secured online resource center for our retailers with software integrations, online training videos, pricing, product specs, ordering, and more. As well as a public site designed to educate consumers to demonstrate our products, capabilities.

The public site features custom mangement of our different kinds of product profiles, a blog, a press room with in depth downloads, a photo gallery, and thousands of pages that must be managed. We also wanted integration and ease of sharing on social media and strong SEO support to stay ahead of the competition.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After months of research and comparisons to other companies and offerings, we landed on August Ash as the best priced and the most skilled to manage our large project and ongoing performance support and maintenance.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The designed, developed and created our current website. They continued to add new updates, features, and integrations to meet our needs throughout the years and to stay on top of the latest technology and online trends. The provided consultations, SEO support, maintenance, and more to help our website perform its best.

What was the team composition?

I had 1 account representative that was my go-to contact but we still got to collectively work with a team of about 5 experts on a regular basis. Each team member is well-rounded but also an expert in a specific area and would be called on to the project based on the type of project and the expertise needed. This team was very familiar and fantastic to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The team at August Ash has not only designed our expansive and dynamic website but supported our company and our marketing team throughout the past 8 to 9 years. Shawn, Stuart, Dan, and so many more on their team have a wealth of knowledge and have helped to improve and maintain our website performance, brand awareness, and search ranking (SEO).

Our website is a quite complicated custom site with many levels of users and capabilities, software integration, integrated social media, custom subdomain solutions, locator maps, and thousands of resource pages to be managed. They’re highly qualified and have the means and capability to work on any project no matter how big or how small. I’ve sincerely enjoyed working with their team and highly recommend them!

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We communicated regularly with monthly updates, reports, and one on one as well as meetings with their team. They were extremely respectful of my time and my company's time and each of these meetings and collaborations were well designed to cover important topics, reach a plan of action and report on the progress of all previous plans of action.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Although our company was not prepared to fund a new website to meet the latest requirements for mobile-friendly sites, the team at August Ash was able to still help us achieve significant growth consistently each month with a website that Google would consider severely out of date. They made a large impact on a little budget.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

During my time at the Metropolitan Airports Commission (the organization that owns and operates MSP Airport and six other airports in the Twin Cities region), I both supported and managed small and large scale web development projects as well as digital strategies for the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash?

We used August Ash for support on all of our websites. This ranged from general maintenance to full site rebuilds.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals is to provide our customers with a user friendly web experience that allows them to easily find the information they're seeking.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

The MAC has been using August Ash for years to assist with our development needs, and they've always provided us with great service. This is why we've continued to use them as a vendor for support on multiple websites.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They've developed full sites for us, fixed bug issues, and helped us generally maintain our web properties.

What was the team composition?

We typically work with a project manager on their team and dedicated developer who's familiar with each of our sites.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The rebuild of the Metropolitan Airports Commission's website made making edits to the site far more efficient. August Ash's developers used smart concepts for content organization within the site's CMS that make it easy to edit and manage. They also recoded a large portion of MSP's website to make it more stable.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

August Ash always does a fantastic job managing projects. Our project manager, Joan, is always reliable and on top of things.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have a great work ethic and partnership mentality. I feel more like their employees are coworkers instead of vendors.

Are there any areas for improvement?

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Indelco Plastics is a distributor of fluid handling product with about 175 employees and 13 branch locations. I am the General Manager of their sister company, but acted as the project coordinator on their website build.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash?

Our website was very outdated and not integrated with our ERP system. We hired August Ash with a very clear vision of what we wanted. A well integrated site that served primarily as a B2B commerce platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build a modern B2B ecommerce platform that was tightly integrated with our ERP system. The goal was to reinvent the customer experience, and revolutionize how our industry uses the web to do business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had worked with August Ash previous to this project at another company, and grew to know their staff well. When the opportunity presented itself, I knew automatically who I wanted working on the project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

August Ash designed, built, and fully integrated a custom ecommerce website for us. We have well over 10,000 SKUs and they were able to help us distill the data into manageable chunks so that we were ready for launch. Their project manager kept things moving, and they never stopped encouraging us when the project started feeling overwhelming.

What was the team composition?

The project team comprised of a developer, project manager, account manager, and marketing manager. They stuck with us through the whole project, which lead to all of them growing a deep understanding of our business and how the project would impact it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

With any project of this scale, its easy to become overwhelmed as the client. August Ash never let us feel like what we were doing was too big, and understood how to guide us through the entire process. They weren't ever pushy, and we truly felt as though they were a part of our team and looking after our best interests.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

To say the project management was impressive would be a dramatic understatement. Our project manager (Joan) was always on task, and ever diligent in making sure we were upholding our end of the deal.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive part of working with August Ash was how much they made us all feel like part of the team. They stayed within scope, and delivered on their promises. What more could you ask for?

Are there any areas for improvement?

Looking back, I can see a lot of areas for improvement as the client. However, I feel like the service we received was superb. I look forward to a very long working relationship with August Ash.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Northwire designs and manufactures custom, technical cable and wire for a variety of industries. Founded in 1972, we have two US locations and were acquired in 2014 by The LEMO Group resulting in a family-owned company feel on an international scale. I am the Sr. Marketing Specialist and manage all aspects of marketing for Northwire.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash?

Our initial project was to redesign the Northwire website to align with the aesthetic of our parent company as well as refresh out brand identity.

What were your goals for this project?

The website needed to be developed on drupal and we wanted the look and feel to align with our parent company's site. We also wanted the site to be easy to edit and add pages, articles, etc. to. It was also important to us to refresh our brand identity and ensure that we were targeting the right audience and that it was clear to them who we were and what we could offer them.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We researched several agencies and interviewed about 5 of them, but August Ash seemed the most committed to understanding who we were as a company, what our value proposition was, who our target customers were, etc. They also had a clear proposal with a realistic timeline and fair pricing.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Design and development of our new website, which incorporated a refreshed digital strategy toward the end of the project. We communicated our goals of the new website and went through the buyer persona and value proposition exercises. Then AAI put together a proposal with a detailed timeline and budget.

From there they went to work on the development proposal for us to see some page examples and design aesthetic. Once we decided on design, they worked on completing development of the various website elements while we worked on content. Toward the end, testing was done as we prepared for final cut-over.

What was the team composition?

The project team was made up of 5-6 team members depending on what phase of the project we were in. We did have a consistent project manager throughout the life of the project and it was clear who we should reach out to with questions, etc. Everyone was responsive and reachable.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The new website development has made it much easier to make edits and add or remove content with ease, which was a pain point of our former website. With a more targeted message and clear conversion goals we were able to reduce internal 'noise' coming in from the website and see an improvement in our digital metrics.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Overall, I felt the project went very well. We utilized basecamp to communicate about the project. Timelines were clear and were met. Site was launched on time and on budget.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their team was impressive from start to finish. They were clearly interested in getting a thorough understanding of who we were as a company and what our value proposition was, our target audience, etc. to ensure we were messaging effectively and to align website design/development.

Communication lines were open and everyone was very responsive. We continue to work with the team on continued improvements to the site and our overall digital strategy.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall the project was very successful. The one area with room for improvement was related to some initial confusion on deliverable expectations on our side to prevent some duplication of effort, however, once that was worked out it was smooth sailing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the president of Calhoun Companies. For over a century, we’ve served as a matchmaker for buyers and sellers of businesses, guiding both into the next phases of their lives. We focus on healthy and profitable businesses, helping them leverage their assets and realize their goals through business brokerage and commercial real estate services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire August Ash?

Our website needed a redesign. We also needed a strategic and organized digital marketing strategy.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to build a website that was both visually impressive and user-friendly. We also wanted to develop a digital marketing strategy that would be regularly evaluated and adjusted as necessary.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was able to connect with people from the August Ash team in the time leading up to our project. When it came time to select, they had more than earned my trust in what can be a confusing industry.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

August Ash designed and built a beautiful website. They worked with us to get a feel for our target market. This ensured our site would speak to the business owners we can help.

August Ash also helped us navigate the world of online digital marketing, working with us to identify which online channels would be most effective in helping us grow. They also guided us in allocating the appropriate budget for each.

What was the team composition?

For the website project, we worked with a project manager, strategist, designer, builder, and marketing specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Since our website went live, we have seen traffic and engagement growth that continues to this day. More importantly, we regularly meet with the team from August Ash to make adjustments to the site. They help us analyze our marketing efforts to ensure they still make sense. The regular adjustments we make instill confidence that we are always proactive.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We utilized some website to connect and communicate, but I don't recall what it was. It worked well enough.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I’m impressed with their effort to know our company better. Nothing they do feels cookie-cutter. Rather, they work with us as individuals to design the best solutions for our needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, nothing that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CMO of Strutter Window

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Builds pass-thru awning windows.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire August Ash to accomplish?

• Establish a consistent source of leads
• Grow out revenue
• Improve our SEO

SOLUTION

How did you find August Ash?

Referral

Why did you select August Ash over others?

• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from August Ash were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Review of website and content and digital ads

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Coat per lead and overall conversion from leads

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Always on time. They offer very prompt responses. 

What was your primary form of communication with August Ash?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Scrappy and good care ethic

Are there any areas for improvement or something August Ash could have done differently?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the VP of Finance & Operations of an other industry company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a lighting and controls manufacturers representative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire August Ash to accomplish?

• Website Maintenance
• Web Development

SOLUTION

How did you find August Ash?

Online Search

Why did you select August Ash over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from August Ash were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

August Ash developed our new website back in 2016 and has fulfilled requests for general maintenance of the website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I'm not sure about "measurable outcomes", but I consider it a success when I've asked for something and the August Ash team quickly delivers.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

I can't speak to project management as I primarily go to their Client Service Coordinator (Dan) for our website needs. They were always diligent and quick to respond.

What was your primary form of communication with August Ash?

In-Person Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They seem to work well together and have people in place to cover their clients' needs - haven't noticed any gaps in support.

Are there any areas for improvement or something August Ash could have done differently?

I can't think of anything as we've been satisfied up until now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President of Allied Executives

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A Peer Group Community for Founders, Owners, and Executives of 2nd-Stage Growth Companies

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire August Ash to accomplish?

• Grow Awareness
• Drive Followers
• Generate Inbound Leads

SOLUTION

How did you find August Ash?

Referral

Why did you select August Ash over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from August Ash were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Devise strategy and assist in the execution of a digital brand awareness and advertising campaign.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Impressions, Clicks, Followers, Engagement, and Leads Generated

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project was led and managed diligently and on time.

What was your primary form of communication with August Ash?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The team shows genuine interest and care to understand our business, understand our needs, and work to find solutions and strategies to achieve those specific interests.

Are there any areas for improvement or something August Ash could have done differently?

None