Bonsai Media Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CIO and CTO of Primeline Utility Services. We specialize in utility construction services. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bonsai Media Group?

Our company is only about four years old. When we were first starting, we engaged Bonsai Media Group to help us develop our website and all elements of our brand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We relied on Bonsai Media Group to develop our website, our digital properties, and the print collateral that we bring to trade shows and conferences. Their team produced those deliverables for our corporate office and our seven subsidiaries. Once our website was live, Bonsai Media Group properly optimized it so that we ranked highly in online searches.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked closely with Jason (Co-founder/CEO, Bonsai Media Group) and Maria (Creative Director, Bonsai Media Group). Maria has served as our overall account manager, but she initially also coordinated the development and creative work. She now oversees a team of developers.

How did you come to work with Bonsai Media Group?

In my search, Bonsai Media Group was mentioned several times by several people in my network. My vendor selection traditionally comes down to trust in the partnership. We’re headquartered in Seattle, so there are a lot of companies that offer similar services. Bonsai Media Group won my business when Jason and his team spent 6–8 hours in several meetings to understand our industry before we even talked about a brand and a website. They entrenched themselves in our business. We had four different agencies vying for the project, but none of them did the extra work to truly understand our operation.

How much have you invested with them?

When considering the work they’ve completed for us and all of our subsidiaries, it’s totaled around $130,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The website and collateral development project spanned June 2015–December 2016. However, they provide occasional maintenance services for our site. We will also engage them to make the required changes when we make an acquisition or when something drastic changes about our business or our service offerings.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Not only did they help us develop our brand and our messaging, but their SEO work has also helped us become more visible on a national scale. Bonsai Media Group excelled in building our website and our brand and making sure that our services are recognized.

How did Bonsai Media Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They were outstanding in this regard, and they proved it early on. Bonsai Media Group submitted a proposal that detailed their daily and weekly project plans. They walked us through the life cycle of their development—from concept to design to engineering to QA to customer’s approval.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team takes the time up front to understand your industry regardless of the project size. Further, with how often developers in Seattle move jobs, Bonsai Media Group operates in a way that makes it easy for new developers to enter and quickly pick up the project. This ensures that nothing falls through the cracks and there are no surprises at the end.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been great. I have no complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bonsai Media Group is capable of delivering on all expectations, but they are also well-equipped to recommend and provide ancillary services that can further help your business. I’d suggest giving their ideas honest consideration.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a quick service restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest. 

What is your role at the company?

I am the marketing manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address with Bonsai Media Group?

To create an engaging web platform for a brand-centric, social media-rooted consumer contest. We wanted to increase sales and guest counts, educate consumers on brand values, engage in the social media space, and increase fan and follower counts on relevant brand social media channels.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Bonsai created a website that proved to be the heart of our Fan Challenge social media contest. The site featured user credentials, custom accounts, and social sharing in addition to being the home of challenges themselves – five levels of centric challenges that allowed users to gain points upon challenge completions. The site also featured a leaderboard for contestants to gauge their standing regularly in relation to other participants.

How did you come to work with Bonsai Media Group?

Bonsai was selected by our social media partner. 

When was the project completed?

It ended in November 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We got great results from the work they did for us. It was a very positive engagement. Our social media growth was 12 percent Facebook fan growth, 20 percent Foursquare growth, and 6 percent Twitter growth. Our restaurant website growth had an 8 percent increase in traffic for the same period month prior. The average time onsite had a 13 percent increase in time on page for the same period month prior. The traveler landing page saw a 120 percent increase in traffic in the same period month prior and a 99 percent increase in time spent on page in the same period month prior. Our Health Coach saw a 647 percent increase in traffic for the same period month prior and a 59 percent increase in time spent on page during the same period month prior. The app saw a 49 percent increase in traffic during the same period month prior and an 8 percent decrease in time spent on page for the same period month prior.

How did Bonsai Media Group perform?

I appreciated Bonsai Media Group's organization and workflow. They met all expectations for the project. They were also very communicative.

Are there areas in which they could improve?

I can't think of any.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for a child health system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with the Bonsai Media Group?

We needed to build out a whole new website for our initiative.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of Bonsai's involvement in detail.

We had a new idea to help child health systems reform health care. We're asking those systems to think more about prevention care as opposed to chronic care models. Because both the concept and the project were so new, we needed Bonsai Media Group for their web design services, but they also provided a lot of guidance to help us actually understand the process of creating a website. Even though none of us are really tech-focused and none of us have designed websites before, we had plenty of great ideas as to what we wanted the website to be about. There was a real need for someone not just to build a website, but really to help build out our vision and think collaboratively with us.

How did you come to work with the Bonsai Media Group?

We found them through a recommendation from another developer with whom I had worked on another project. However, we did go through a full and open bid process where we sent out request for proposals to about 15 different firms.

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

We have a tight budget, and we're capped at $100,000 for the total project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Bonsai in February of this year, and we're still currently working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics, or other feedback from this project?

We just officially launched the website today [September 2015], and we're very pleased with it. We're already receiving quite a bit of positive feedback from people who are part of our community. As far as the process of developing the site was concerned, however, that's been less than pleasurable. In fact, we wound up having to spend money to hire a third party to manage the Bonsai Media Group.

It's been a very difficult process for our team. We found ourselves in a position where we just could not work directly with our developer. It was just not a very positive experience. That third party that we wound up hiring was actually the individual who brought the Bonsai Media Group to us.

Is there anything Bonsai Media Group could have improved or done differently?

The person we were working with from Bonsai is probably a very talented developer; however, he should never be the one to interact with customers. He's simply not very good at handling customer relations at all. In fact, he tends to use language that is threatening in nature and quite counter-productive.

We were at a point where we felt like we just wanted to get the project over with. We definitely didn't want to pull out, but we certainly couldn't continue to have what was becoming a continuing confrontation between Bonsai's developer and just about every one of our staff members. We brought in this other developer, who had really been counseling us behind the scenes every time one of these issues would blow up with Bonsai. I guess he was trying to work behind the scenes with Bonsai's developer, even to the point of coaching him, but the situation was untenable for us. We wound up putting our new developer on retainer to be the go-between and deal with Bonsai.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're based in the United States, and we are a utility construction services company. We're a holding company for about six businesses that provide utility solutions to power companies.

What is your position?

I am the director of business development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with the Bonsai Media Group?

We were looking for someone to partner with us to build a website for our company.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We wanted to create an industry-leading website that was mobile friendly and descriptive of what we do in a simple, straightforward way. The Bonsai Media Group helped us build that website. They were successful in getting us what we needed.

How did you come to work with the Bonsai Media Group?

I actually had met with about five different vendors nationwide. Bonsai was referred to us by a consultant who is working for us on the IT [information technology] side. He was clearly able to get across what we needed from a delivery standpoint, and Bonsai was able to accommodate those needs.

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

We have spent somewhere in the $10,000 to $50,000 range working with Bonsai.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them at the end of March 2015, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from this engagement?

Bonsai is working on putting our site into production today, so we really don't have any hard data as yet. But, Bonsai Media Group has been very attentive to our needs and has really gone above and beyond to make sure that, at the end of the day, we will be happy with what they are delivering. They've done a great job.

What distinguishes Bonsai Media Group from other providers?

We were at a point where the resolution of images weren't exactly what we wanted because every device is different. I was very impressed with their owner [Jason Labaw]. He took time out of his busy schedule to spend a day working through that problem and coming back to us with an action plan on how to make those images look better. I was very impressed with his attention to detail and willingness to go above and beyond for us to make things right.

Is there anything the Bonsai Media Group could have improved or done differently?

We need to improve our communication process on both ends. They went down the path of building a static site for us, but because of the changes we were asking for that never came to fruition. The project was delayed but, at the end of the day, they are delivering exactly what we need in a very cost-effective manner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

PrimeLine Utility Services is a leading provider of construction, maintenance and design solutions for the electric, gas and telecommunication industries. Our customers range from municipalities and cooperatives to large investor-owned utilities, telecommunication companies, and commercial and industrial firms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bonsai Media Group?

Website development

What were your goals for this project?

Bonsai led the creative, technical and ongoing support of our customer facing website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Peer references

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Bonsai led the creative, technical and ongoing support of our customer facing website.

What was the team composition?

Project manager, creative lead and developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The end product conveyed PrimeLine's image and provided the content/capability we wanted to share with our current and prospective customers.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had both formal weekly project update calls and Bonsai was always available for ad-hoc questions and feedback throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Bonsai Media Group has been a great partner from both a technical and creative perspective. I can count on them to delivery on-time, on-schedule which is exactly what we had hoped from. From a support perspective, they have always been quick to respond and very professional in their support of our business. I could not be more pleased.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Co-Founder of an executive search firm in Seattle

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bonsai Media Group?

Hired them to help us win with SEO and keywords.

What were your goals for this project?

Be #1 in 6 strategic keywords

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We chose Bonsai as they brought the most insight, track record and more likable than other vendors we interviewed.

Describe the project in detail.

Bonsai worked to understand our target marketing, clients and competitive landscape. They showed us current rankings (we were behind a few competitors which annoyed us), and they made a plan to get us to #1 in all 6 keywords. They did it!

What was the team composition?

Had a project point person who then coordinated with internal SEO and technical teams.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They made us #1 in 6 keywords. This has led to an increase in business development leads that 3x paid for their service

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

worked smoothly and they adjusted to our style

What did you find most impressive about this company?

pre-assessment of our site, SEO and strategy. We thought we were doing better than we were and needed to upgrade our marketing approach

Are there any areas for improvement?

None - we continue to use them for a reason