Blue Fountain Media

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Beta Color LLC operates as the off-site marketing department for Kaiser Willys, an online Jeep part store, which has a stock ranging from 1941 to 1971. They've been in operation since 1997.

What is your position?

I work within Beta Color LLC.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

We felt that we'd outgrown our current e-commerce platform. It wasn't able to grow at the same rate as Kaiser Willys. There were features which were limiting our operations and we wanted a better mobile presence. Our previous vendor designed a mobile version of the site which was hard to use. There was a lot of frustration in our collaboration with the agency we had at the time.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Blue Fountain Media helped with the migration of our site from the previous host to the new Magento platform.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We went through some online research and whittled down our choices to a couple of companies. Blue Fountain Media was the most expensive, but their online portfolio was the strongest. We were specifically drawn to their representation and focus on company branding. Many of the other companies we interviewed had done more cookie-cutter work. Blue Fountain seemed to have the ability of delivering a unique look, based on what the specific company specialized in.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The original quote was between $80,000-120,000. The costs so far have come close to the $120,000 limit, but Blue Fountain Media has worked with us in making sure that we stay below it.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April of 2015. Our initial timeline was set to launch the site at the beginning of 2016, but we've extended past that due to the number of features which we needed to incorporate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

The strongest aspect of working with Blue Fountain Media has been their responsiveness.

With any migration, there will be things that need to be adjusted along the way. They've been extremely responsive, and their project manager has always been available to us. Clients typically have issues with web developers not making themselves available, but this is something we've never experienced with Blue Fountain Media. They provide excellent customer service. Once our project manager was replaced, the quality of work shot up significantly.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

They have struggled somewhat in terms of maintaining their original development team. We discovered a number of things which hadn't been done properly, as we came closer to launch. They recognized that and assigned another team leader to our project. The new person has been on top of everything. There were some hiccups, but they were largely due to a member who is no longer working with Blue Fountain Media. Since fixing this issue, everything has been great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company manufactures cosmetics. We have around 10 employees.

What is your position?

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

They helped us launch an in-house brand.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Blue Fountain Media developed the strategy, design, and website for our brand. They also helped us with the marketing execution.

They didn't offer us any other services in terms of consulting and support.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

I was looking for a digital expert in the New York area. Blue Fountain Media was one of the recommendations I received. I selected them based on the white papers and methodology descriptions on their website.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The annual cost of their services is between $50,000-200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together for four months. Our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

So far, we haven't launched the website, but the strategy employed by Blue Fountain Media has been solid. They helped us launch our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest profiles. Due to their Facebook strategy, we reached 5,000 likes within one week.

How did Blue Fountain Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They have strong project management skills. Blue Fountain Media operates through a one-point-of-contact format, which I appreciate. One person directs all other pieces, so we haven't gotten caught up in any bureaucracy.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

The only campaign that we can track results from is the social media campaign, which was a success quantitatively.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

There is always room for growth, but that doesn't mean that their work hasn't been good. The world is always changing, so the addition of any types of analytical tools which would show more focus progression would be welcomed. Blue Fountain Media offers a variety of services and what they do, they do well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a retail manufacturing company and importer with 18 different product divisions. We have overseas factories and outsource many of our services.

What is your position?

I am one of the division heads of merchandising. I was in charge of the project with Blue Fountain Media because of my understanding of company operations. My colleague is in charge of social media marketing, which is an area in which we've recently become more involved.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

We've been growing exponentially and wanted a revamped website that would support our changing branding image. We wanted the internal changes to come across in our website, specifically by marketing our product divisions better online. Our main issue was that many our company divisions operate under different names within Wiesner. Many of our buyers have been confused by this, not grasping the extent of our offerings. This was one of the main reasons for our relocation. In the past, we would run different showrooms.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The president of the company met with Blue Fountain Media in the beginning. We had a brainstorming session and presented our vision for the website. It needed to be fun, modern, and clean to support our rebranding efforts. Blue Fountain Media took this into consideration while also making a site that would stand out from everyone else. Many of our competitors don't have websites, so it was hard to find a comparison point.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We quoted a few companies at the beginning. Blue Fountain Media was somewhere in the middle in terms of cost, but we preferred their approach.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total project cost was between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together a year and a half ago [in 2015]. The website was launched two weeks ago [April 2016]. Blue Fountain Media was given a month in which to check over any problems, but other than that, the work is complete. We're currently figuring out what the next phase of our collaboration will entail.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It would be hard to measure the site based on results because it was launched so recently. The main goal was simply to revamp our page. It was outdated and didn't do our company justice, given everything that we're currently involved with. Blue Fountain Media was tasked with creating a simple, fun, and modern page, and they did a good job in portraying that.

How did Blue Fountain Media perform from a project management standpoint?

The project had a few delays, but that was due to both of our teams. It's very hard to reach the president of our company, and this caused some issues. Other than that, we were happy with the results of their work.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

I haven't worked on any other website development projects that could compare to this one. But, Blue Fountain Media definitely did a great job in bringing the look that we wanted.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

No. We were happy with them overall.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a franchise within the Cayman Islands dealing with high-end, luxury properties. We are within the top 0.05% worldwide in terms of commissions, compared to other RE/MAX agents. Our brand is unique because of the marketing projects in which we engage. We produce a lot of videos, extending beyond property-related ones. We interview industry leaders in the area and have come to be known as an Angie's List for people in need of insight for developing, owning, and maintaining a home.

What is your position?

I am the marketing manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

We needed web design work.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Blue Fountain Media was hired to build our website using WordPress. I'm a novice website builder, so I simply gave their team a list of requirements to build. We have an application program interface [API] system which hooks up to our mother company and pulls property listings. We need to store a lot of videos and other things of this nature, but it wasn't very complex. There aren't any e-commerce functionalities or things of this nature.

We were so impressed with their company and had a good enough rapport that we also engaged them for our logo and branding work. That was another project in itself, and we've been extremely pleased with the end-product. We've already purchased a number of branding materials for anything, e.g., socks, envelopes, folders, and reusable bags, which will be distributed to our clients.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We were looking for an agency based out of New York City. I thought that the communication and time zone would be good. I interviewed 10 different agencies in the area, telling them what our goals for the website were. We got a feel for Blue Fountain Media and the way in which they do business. We needed to know if the company is comprised of three people in a basement or whether they can provide us ten specialists out of a team of 200, which is more the case when speaking about Blue Fountain Media. Price was also a consideration. We received quotes that were as high as $50,000, which is outrageous, considering the scope of our site; it's somewhere in the middle in terms of complexity. Blue Fountain Media was the most professional and apt for taking care of our goals. I was glad that we were able to work out a price with them because they were 100% my first choice.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The original development cost of the website was supposed to be $50,000. We were able to reduce that figure by a significant amount.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work started in October of 2015. We originally wanted to launch the site in March, but due to internal reasons, we will be releasing it in July 2016. Blue Fountain Media would probably have been able to have the website done in April. Any hang-ups were on our end, concerning the API.

I will be having a call with them with regards to possibly hosting our site. They will provide us a lot of other related services, like backups. I look forward to having an ongoing relationship with Blue Fountain Media.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The quality of the work is good. Blue Fountain Media has produced features that were in line with the scope of our budget.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

The main reason for choosing them is that they are a 200+ employee, professional agency.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

The only limitations were related to our budget.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Greenwich Living Antiques & Design Centre offers many products by renowned decorators and designers around the world. We also have a wide collection of designer, formal, and classic furniture, decor, jewelry, and lighting.

What is your role at the company?

I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

I had been trying to gain access to the online market. I wanted a website that could display our products.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They designed and developed a website for my company.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

I picked Blue Fountain because I know several people who have worked with Blue Fountain and were all very impressed with their work.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It was completed after three months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I was extremely happy with the website design and entire process of working with Blue Fountain Media. They performed well above my expectations. I was highly impressed with the staff as well as the supervisor, who were at my disposal. I could not have imagined being made as happy as I was. I now have a beautiful site that confidently displays the items my company sells. I recommend them to anyone who needs design and development work done.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

Blue Fountain Media is a very transparent and results-driven agency. I appreciated the way they presented both sides of the path I could have taken – without trying to sway me one way over another. They went beyond when it came to taking the time to truly explain each step and why that was the best step for my business.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

No. I loved every aspect of working with BFM. I was, at the least, overwhelmed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We specialize specialize in contemporary Asian art. We've been in business for forty years and operate a physical gallery in New York City, as well as an online site.

The internet has changed our business model in a great number of ways. In the past, the art world was geographically constrained. In order to participate, one would have to be located where the activity was. Being in New York City has been fortunate for us, but as the art world expanded, we saw a boom in art fairs. We identified the opportunity in the early 90's and took the next logical step, namely putting all of our exhibitions and a number of our inventory on an online portal, allowing us to do business all over the world. We've recently shipped an art piece all the way to Kuwait.

What is your position?

I am the owner. I took over the business from my family in 2012. At that time, I stressed three priorities: curatorial excellence, acceptability, and education.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

Our web presence had been ramping down, so we had a need for a digital partner that would help us to leapfrog the competition and put us in the front of the digital art market. We also sought to create a digital partnership that could identify unique marketing opportunities, taking us forward through the next forty years.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Blue Fountain Media provided web development and online marketing services. They built a back-end system which we use for inventory management and sales processing.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We've had a website for a number of years. When I took over the business, in addition to restructuring my staff, I revamped our service providers. Ten companies were invited to compete for our account. We had met with Blue Fountain Media previously and ultimately came to select them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The annual cost for their services is over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our collaboration with Blue Fountain Media in June of 2014. We're still working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Blue Fountain Media is a top quality provider, which does not come cheap. Every one of their competitors could undercut them significantly, but I'd rather do a project once and get it right the first time than having multiple iterations of it. Of course, I would like to see the cost of their work come down, but not by means of sacrificing their quality.

I view them as a luxury service, and not a run-of-the-mill company. They also have a corporate structuring and are able to handle anything that is thrown at them.

Blue Fountain Media built my website in a single run. Our previous page would crash every two months. The new page has been launched in May of 2015 and has run almost perfectly since then, even though we've continued to make changes and optimizations for it.

I’ve recently had discussions with Blue Fountain Media about web development and search engine optimization [SEO]. The focus was on getting things done right on the first try. My goal is to save money in the long run by using their services. Their maintenance fees for developed work are reasonable.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

Once we've commenced the work on a project, it will be done right the first time (or, at most, the second). Blue Fountain Media builds good foundations.

When we first started working together, I proposed doing development based on our existing website, and they said no. I was taken aback by that, as we'd spent a lot of money on our site at the time. Ultimately though, they were absolutely correct. They built a foundation on which we could grow our business as big as we wanted.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

They have a lot of staff turnover. My team has been changed three times since I've started working with Blue Fountain Media. Basically, there were three instances in which I've had to insert someone new into my project and have them learn my product, which is esoteric in its nature. Getting up-to-speed on it requires time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is a vertically-integrated healthcare organization that focuses on building fertility clinics nation-wide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

Our intent was to develop our patient-facing website and brand.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They developed and designed our website, and also worked on digital marketing, search engine optimization [SEO], and content development for us, delivering a turnkey product for our launch.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We approached them after interviewing a couple of other highly regarded web development agencies. One of the strongest differentiators between Blue Fountain Media and the others was their scale and scope. They had an in-house ability to deliver every portion of the project that we had under consideration. Our biggest requirement was content development. We didn't have the resources or expertise to do that on our own. We would have otherwise had a nice-looking site with not a lot of information on it. They handled this quite well.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Sorry, that is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them for five months. The website is live and the first phase of the project is complete. We're currently working on digital PR management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've seen a lot more organic traffic coming from the web and social media. This could be partly due to the particular vertical of healthcare which we occupy, but there have been a lot of careful considerations in building the website, which have driven business to our doors.

How did Blue Fountain Media perform from a project management standpoint?

The experience of working with the Blue Fountain Media team was overwhelmingly positive. They're extremely organized, stay on their timelines, and notify us of any changes that are outside of scope, in order for us to make decisions quickly.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

Out of all the companies we've considered, they were the only ones with the capabilities to handle our specific content development needs in-house.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

I have no negative comments about their work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is called CGS Investments. We're based in Long Island City, New York. We are a family office and work on investments.

What is your position?

I am a partner within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

We run businesses in the garment and real estate industries, and wanted to enter online business opportunities. We talked with a few digital agencies about outsourcing our work. Blue Fountain Media were the ones we chose to be a partner in our venture. They took ownership in what we were doing.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We wanted to start a lead generation business in education. Blue Fountain Media worked on this with respect to the name, logo, color scheme, general website design, development and launch. They now handle the pay-per-click, SEO and content marketing for the website.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We researched a few of the bigger agencies. Blue Fountain Media felt right because they were big enough to handle the project and small enough to be flexible. It is also important that they are based in New York City, a subway ride away from us. We could meet with them weekly and work on the project together, even though their team ultimately did the calls to action for the next week's work.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The development of the website cost $300,000. The monthly maintenance work is $25,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our collaboration in the summer of 2012. We still work together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Since day one, I've relied on Blue Fountain Media for everything from the design of the website, to its content. They also supply all the analytics for the site on a weekly/monthly basis.

Blue Fountain Media took care of all the connections, made them seamless, and didn't charge us a penny more for the extra work that was needed.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

Sometimes, we'd find that someone who'd been working with us on a project had left the company for other work. This is typical for young employees. It's not something particular to Blue Fountain Media, but rather a phenomenon of digital agencies.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an owner/operator of bowling alleys. We own many locations in North America. We own a number of brands that range from traditional bowling to the more upscale, nightclub-esque variety.

What is your position?

I am the director of digital marketing. I am in charge of all aspects of website development, social media, email marketing, SEM [search engine marketing], SEO, couponing, and so on.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

Our company has been formed through mergers and acquisitions, resulting in many disparate brands coming together to form what we are right now. This also involved non-uniform content management systems: our websites were hosted in many different environments with little integration amongst them. Doing web updates was a labor-intensive process across all five brands.

One of our biggest business goals was getting all our websites to a singular CMS and thus gaining efficiency. Also, we had been working with outdated content management systems. We wanted to improve our websites visually, in terms of design and user experience, and structurally as well.

We were dealing with many outages and non-optimized parts of our websites. This equated to lost customers: if they couldn't find our locations and phone numbers online, the competition would take over.

We were looking for a new web development agency through a detailed and involved process. We ended up selecting Blue Fountain Media, which has become our default agency for all web development.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They're in charge of the front-end creative and development work for our sites. They've been a true partner in getting our e-commerce presence up-and-running. We've been able to grow our business as a result, and have assigned Blue Fountain Media to a lot of different elements of our marketing program.

They work as our SEO agency as well, which was a natural fit. Blue Fountain Media can come to us with recommendations, and we just sign off on the copy. We view them as an extension of our internal employees.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

We did research on seven different web development agencies and narrowed them down to two. It was an involved process which took from late August to December 1st of 2014. It was a big engagement as we had been burned in the past by other agencies. We wanted to make sure that we were putting in our due-diligence.

We checked their references and spoke to two other clients of theirs. We proceeded by giving Blue Fountain Media a smaller engagement at first. We then added SEO and e-commerce development. We're now testing the waters with giving them online booking, which has been a constant success for the company.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2014. It's an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There have been tremendous gains in terms of efficiency. Blue Fountain Media has helped in taking the responsibility from my team, freeing them to do more work on revenue-generating projects.

In terms of SEO, we've seen tremendous growth in our rankings. On some of our company sites, there had been no thought put in in terms of metadata. One of those sites wasn't even indexed by Google. This is a typical phenomenon when acquiring smaller companies. They don't have large marketing budgets, so they improvise. In those cases, there was nowhere to go but up. We're happy with site traffic when looking at year by year numbers.

Our lead account manager oversees everything in terms of how resources are allocated. It's a complex process, given that at any given time, we'll have a dozen open projects with them.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

There isn't anything significant. We have gone back and forth in regards to the allocation of resources. It seems that we're constantly having new projects and programs come up, being in an aggressive period of growth. We're acquiring businesses in new areas of entertainment. One of the things we struggled with was managing expectations internally in terms of aligning our resources for a project. Sometimes, we had to fast-track certain projects, which would put others on hold. Obviously, the ones responsible for delayed projects weren't happy about it.

We've now gotten to a better place in terms of them communicating the number of hours they spend on each project and what resources they're investing in it. I know that there are three developers on my account, and I know the projects they're working on, for example. It's great to know how they're aligned and how they're approaching the work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an Oriental rug shop, for cleaning and appraisals.

What is your position?

I am the owner of the shop.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Fountain Media?

I needed to improve my marketing and name recognition. The previous company I'd worked with for this purpose was a disaster.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They offer marketing and SEO services to us.

How did you come to work with Blue Fountain Media?

A friend recommended them as the best company to work with.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

I don't remember when we started working with them, but it's an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

If I had to rate Blue Fountain Media from one to one hundred, with one hundred being best, I would give them more than one hundred. They took control of my website and since then, the number of people that call me for business has been incredible. They have significantly increased the leads to our store.

What distinguishes Blue Fountain Media from other providers?

The most important part for me is getting results. I'd had a bad experience before, while working with another company. Blue Fountain Media got us to the end goals we desired.

Is there anything Blue Fountain Media could have improved or done differently?

No, their services are great.