The Creative Momentum

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is a telecommunications broker. We sell services on behalf of the large telecommunications and cyber security providers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Creative Momentum, and what were your goals?

Our website was created in a hurry when we started our company in 2016 and as we expanded our outreach to new prospects, it was clear that our lackluster website and company branding were hurting our engagement.

We hired TCM to overhaul the website and create a new logo and brand guidelines. Once the project was completed (which happened pretty quickly), our response rates on our lead generation increased substantially. The new logo, branding and website gave us a level of credibility that we did not have before.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We reviewed some of the other websites they had done (available on their website) and were impressed with the work

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

The first step we took was designing the new company logo, since that would potentially impact our website design. After that was completed, TCM did a website overhaul where we had weekly calls to review the changes they had made and provide feedback on changed we would like to see for our next review.

Once the website was done, the branding guidelines were built and we now have a consistent image for our company across our website, collateral, business cards and company shirts.

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

We had a 4 TCM employees working on the projected, including Project Management, Graphic Design and Client Relationship Management. Michael White, one of the execs, was also involved int he project and joined several of our calls.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t follow the metrics on traffic to the website, but our response rates on our cold outreach improved drastically

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

We had weekly calls with TCM throughout the project where we reviewed their updates and provided feedback on changed we wanted to see for our next meeting.

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

TCM's customer service was fantastic and their deliverables were excellent

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

Nothing comes to mind, great experience overall

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

L’Arche is a nonprofit and we support communities across the country where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together. I’m the director of external communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

Our website was out of date and it wasn’t creating a good impression. On top of that, we weren’t reaching a lot of people.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

 In addition to designing and development the site, they offered SEO services. The site is on WordPress so they also provided a fair amount of training so we could maintain the site ourselves. Since the site launched, they’ve helped us build new pages and new functionality. We’ve embedded job application portals and donor forms. Recently, we’ve worked on building websites for local communities that are based on our primary site.  

What is the team composition?

I worked with two project managers and the CEO. There’s a large development team, but I don’t have contact with them directly.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

Choosing the vendor predated my involvement in the organization. I believe we opened it up to a large number of vendors but selected The Creative Momentum because they provide high-quality work for a reasonable price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Once the website launched, we saw a steady increase in web traffic. It has nearly doubled year-over-year (YoY). We measure number of website visitors, how long they spend on the site, and how many pages they visit. Recently, a partner organization audited the websites of several organizations around the world and our site scored the highest in number of page views per visit and time on the site.

Our communities have wanted to sign up for it, and affiliated organization have asked us to put them in contact with The Creative Momentum.

The new website has a more robust functionality and the design is great. Because the site is on WordPress, it’s easier for us to update it.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

We met all our deadlines and nothing was pushed back. We had a few complications, but they handled them very well. Every project came in on time and in-budget, We communicate very regularly and we use Basecamp, which is very helpful. Now that we are working on the community sites, I can still track the project that way.

They were transparent. Whenever we approached the maximum number of hours we have on retainer for them; they’re very open and clear about that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work. Visually, it’s stunning. They’re also a joy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing specific sticks out as a real red flag.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re communicating through Basecamp. It’s their preferred method of communication and it works much better than a phone call or email.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

JTECH is an HME [HM Electronics, Inc.] company. I’m the director of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

JTECH was recently acquired by HME, so we had two websites that had to be combined. We also needed to rebrand it without losing our lead opportunities. There were a lot of products, content, and images that needed to be updated. On top of that, the project had to be completed in 30 days.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We chose the HubSpot platform as an inbound digital marketing tool to generate leads. The Creative Momentum provided a business development manager, an art director, a developer, and project manager. There was another resource involved who was in leadership.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

I considered doing it on my own, even building a marketing team, but decided we wouldn’t be able to accomplish it due to resource constraints. I did a Google search and went on The Creative Momentum’s website. I didn’t realize someone I knew on a personal level worked there, so I reached out to her. It seemed like a perfect fit.

How much have you invested with The Creative Momentum?

We spent $20,000 on the rebuild, and we built on HubSpot at that price. Now, there are more fees to onboard and get set up with customer personas. These tasks will be part of phase two, which will cost $8,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them February of 2017, and the project was completed March of 2017. We will continue working with them to do our HubSpot onboarding and a game plan for customer personas. They will help us with our inbound marketing plan for the year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The project went smoothly. If I thought something wasn’t quite right, they fixed it right away. Understanding the frontend pricing for HubSpot was challenging, but they were great about getting the answers. We were able to accomplish our phase-one goals in 30 days, which was incredibly aggressive. We were very happy that the project was a complete success on all points. We’re now moving to phase two, which is more work that we’re bringing to the agency.

I don’t have any metrics yet. The project has been very well received by the leadership teams and the sales team. They’re very pleased with the new integrated look and the rebranding. They want more content, which we’re working on now. Our leads look great. They’re more qualified and complete because the lead forms have mandatory fields now.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp and Google Docs for communication, which worked out fantastic. I thought the project went extremely smoothly, considering our accelerated timeframe. We hit our target launch date. There were glitches when we went live, but The Creative Momentum stayed after hours on a Friday to fix those. They did exactly what they said they would do, and they hit all of their deadlines. Whenever we reached out to them, we would get responses immediately. It was a very collaborate relationship.

What did you find most impressive about The Creative Momentum?

The fact that they met that date at all costs sets them apart. They were flexible and worked with us to address the challenges we came across. They were very understanding.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Promethean World is an education technology company. I am the head of digital properties, in charge of development for our websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

The main objective was to rebuild and relaunch one of our websites. We also had to change the platform and were looking at a completely different content management system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Creative Momentum developed our site using WordPress. The site supports 28 languages, including English, French, and Spanish, but also Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Greek, and so on.

We have worked directly with two developers from The Creative Momentum's team, and also had a project manager who acted as a client liaison.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

We were considering moving the platform to WordPress, and The Creative Momentum was the local agency which seemed to have the experience for doing that. We made a bit of research into local companies, and The Creative Momentum turned out to be very close to where we were. That was a plus since we would be able to have face-to-face meetings with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Creative Momentum in 2017. The site has been completed, but we continue to work with The Creative Momentum on a couple of other smaller projects. We have recently taken a retainer for working with them on a monthly basis as well, in order to add some extra support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It's too early to talk about data or stats. When we changed the platform, we moved away from the enterprise system we were using at the time to WordPress, which means that more people in our company now have access to editor roles and are able to work more efficiently. There's greater speed to market, from idea to new page.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

We have been very satisfied with The Creative Momentum's work. They were very good at project managing and keeping our team within the scope. They were responsive as well, implementing our last-minute changes fast.

We use Basecamp for our collaboration. The Creative Momentum assigned a project manager, and we have a catch-up meeting once a week using UberConference.

What did you find most impressive about The Creative Momentum?

I've worked with a number of web agencies for various projects throughout my career. The Creative Momentum's skill and experience in working with WordPress, which was a new technology for our team, made the partnership successful. They helped us learn the system, as well as develop it.

The Creative Momentum was very responsive to our requests, and I felt comfortable that the launch would be pulled off without an issue.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization is focused on saving gorillas in the wild. We are a world leader in research around this area. I am the digital communications manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

We wanted to redo our website, making it more modern, clean, mobile-friendly and easy to navigate.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Creative Momentum developed our WordPress site. I am not sure how many developers were assigned to our project.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

We checked out a bunch of different companies, got a few quotes, and liked what we saw with The Creative Momentum's work. They had good technical abilities and could provide design as well as backend expertise.

How much have you invested with The Creative Momentum?

The cost of The Creative Momentum's work has been between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Creative Momentum around one year ago. The project has been completed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our user and donor bases have given us positive comments around how easy to navigate and visually-stimulating the site was. In the end, it's easier for us to get our message across.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

The Creative Momentum performed well. I felt I had to stay on top of the project in some regards, making sure that our deadlines were consistent and that certain issues were being addressed. Overall, it was a positive experience.

What distinguishes The Creative Momentum from other providers?

The Creative Momentum went above and beyond on some of the interactive pieces of our site. They put in a quality effort in order to give us the desired product, and a great final experience.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

The project management side could have been improved. We would have liked to see more communication on key facets of the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a non-profit healthcare organization and the largest employer in Georgia. We serve 16,400 employees and 2,400 physicians. I am the interactive marketing manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

We needed help making our paid search efforts more targeted and increasing conversions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Creative Momentum has provided AdWords services. We are usually in contact with a specialist for our paid search work, as well as with a dedicated project manager from The Creative Momentum. There are two other contacts from their side for any urgent issues or language-related work.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

I have previously worked for a $3 billion technology company which was collaborating with one of The Creative Momentum's future members for marketing work. She always had great work ethic and kept my company's best interests in mind. When I joined my current organization, I took The Creative Momentum on board.

How much have you invested with The Creative Momentum?

The cost of The Creative Momentum's work has been around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Creative Momentum in July 2016. The project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It's been a pleasant experience overall. The Creative Momentum has been able to triple conversions for one of our signature service lines, and they also helped us visualize our performance, adding structure to our paid search efforts.

The Creative Momentum is working with six of our signature service line managers. The Creative Momentum provided dashboards for each of them, broken down by service line and campaign. It's been a complex project, and The Creative Momentum has done a great job.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate using Basecamp. The Creative Momentum's team has been responsive and has exceeded our expectations.

What did you find most impressive about The Creative Momentum?

I've appreciated the personal approach to the work. The Creative Momentum is always available, responsive, and personable, even during urgent moments. They've also been flexible in handling unique situations which arise in our line of business. The Creative Momentum has made an effort to help us find the best approach for our unique issues.

There were a few occasions during which we were late on making payments to The Creative Momentum. Even though we specifically asked them to charge us a late fee, they decided not to. Kindness is another distinguishing factor for them.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

No. I wish we would have started working with The Creative Momentum earlier.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the chief executive officer of iQagent. We provide a mobile platform for manufacturing and production environments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

We needed to revamp our backend configuration tool, which is a web-based platform. The software allows users to create points of interest and associated resources like schematics, forms, and other data. We needed an enterprise-ready configuration utility that could work in the cloud for many different users. At the same time, it needed to be a standalone solution. The interface needed to be scalable between PCs, mobiles, and microdevices. It also had to have active-domain security integrations so that it can protect users against hacker attacks, SQL injections, and other things of that nature.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Creative Momentum provided a complete redesign of our interface using the .NET framework and the Entity Framework. The Entity Framework is a .NET database-integrations solution that can handle automatic migrations and changes, as well as prevent SQL-injection attacks. The Creative Momentum also used Ajax, JavaScript, and HTML5 for the responsive frontend, making it look and react in the same way across multiple platforms.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

I'd known The Creative Momentum's principal for a long time. He's someone for whom I have a lot of respect as a businessman, as he believes in offering business value. He had built a great website for us several years ago.

How much have you invested with The Creative Momentum?

The cost of The Creative Momentum's work has been between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The goals of our first project have been completed, but there is still some ongoing tweaking as we get new requirements. The Creative Momentum continues to offer support when it's needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have some very large customers, including a global chemical-pharmaceutical company, who've asked us to provide a cloud solution for their requirements. Our clients were absolutely thrilled with the interface, finding it to be extremely professional. Several of them have remarked on how easy it is to use our tool. The overall response has been extremely positive.

The Creative Momentum's developer was one of the best I'd met. Even though he came with a higher price, his efficiency allowed us to save costs. I've never had a problem with his work; it was dead-on and delivered within an efficient amount of time. I've always been surprised at the low number of hours used by The Creative Momentum. They have the competence and expertise to know exactly what they're doing.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

I am the CEO of the company but I'm also a software coder. That’s why I was able to give requirements to The Creative Momentum's developer. He managed the project himself, and there was never a need for management beyond that. He asked questions if he needed to, we agreed on a delivery date and milestones, and he pretty much always hits them. We didn’t have a complex project management process. The Creative Momentum's team was skilled in figuring out what I wanted. I also knew what I wanted and could talk about the technology from a software developer's standpoint. We were able to spot any problems along the way.

What did you find most impressive about The Creative Momentum?

This is a typical answer, but I've appreciated The Creative Momentum's competence and expertise. They have a fair amount of people in their team and are able to assign the best person for the job out of those resources. The Creative Momentum can find the best niche talent and make the right assignments based on the requirements of a job. The Creative Momentum's other owner has very good artistic talent, but he can also turn around and write code. Finding both of these ranges in one person is hard to find.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

If I gave you something, I'd be making it up.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a professional marketing services firm specializing in marketing strategy. We have extensive analytics capabilities and help clients execute their marketing efforts, handling everything from planning, to strategy, to execution, and optimization.

I am a director of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Creative Momentum?

Many of our engagements with The Creative Momentum have been on behalf of our clients. Our company has add-on services to what they already provide. We have worked with The Creative Momentum on 3 different engagements, for 2 different clients, our first one being a national healthcare provider, for which we needed to improve engagement with prospective and current customers. We built a website using another creative agency, aimed at raising awareness and reaching through to different customers. The challenge was to find a way of talking to customers in such a way as to make them want to engage with the client in the digital space. Healthcare is usually an offline, in-person field. We moved away from the initial agency but our objectives stayed the same: creating an experience in tune with our demographics, which were aging down. We needed a more responsive design, more community aspects, as well as some more sophistication and personalization elements, making for a higher quality engagement.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Creative Momentum built our website using Drupal 7, integrating a few APIs for address validation, weather information, and so on.

We have worked with an account manager from The Creative Momentum, as well as lead frontend and backend developers, and a lead designer. I'm not sure how many resources were engaged in total, outside of the ones we interfaced with.

The framework involved a lot of sophisticated logic, and we had many in-depth, technical logic functionality discussions with The Creative Momentum.

How did you come to work with The Creative Momentum?

We found The Creative Momentum through Google. While our client is a Fortune 100 company, the budget that we had for this piece wasn't to that level, so we were looking for someone who still treated us as if we were a big fish in a small pond, and also had enough experience as not to learn through us. We needed a middle balance of getting enough attention, but not to the point where it became obvious that we're their second client ever.

How much have you invested with The Creative Momentum?

The total cost of our project with The Creative Momentum was above $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed. We worked with The Creative Momentum for the initial build, as well as on an ongoing basis through a retainer, but the client ultimately decided to pursue the same objective in a different manner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We received a lot of positive feedback about our website, through its commenting functionality. People visiting the site enjoyed its overall experience, which also included the content. The client also had great feedback and loved the experience.

How did The Creative Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

The Creative Momentum's team is incredibly communicative. For the most part, we hit deadlines on time. There are always snags, and for us, it was the result of being in-between for the client. The Creative Momentum was always good at letting us know when we were running late. There is an expectation that web projects will always be at least a month behind, but The Creative Momentum was upfront about everything.

What did you find most impressive about The Creative Momentum?

I measured our collaboration through the quality of work done by The Creative Momentum, as well as their quality as a partner. The Creative Momentum was always reasonable, willing to work with us in finding the best solution. They listened fairly well to what we were trying to accomplish and helped push us in the right direction. Our group tends to be very opinionated and descriptive, and I found The Creative Momentum to be incredibly adaptable to that. If we needed more direction, they provided it, otherwise, The Creative Momentum just lets us do our thing.

I also felt that The Creative Momentum was very fair. With other web agencies, we've been in situations of being nickel-and-dimed for every little thing, even when it was their fault. If anything happened and The Creative Momentum made a mistake, they fixed it. In an industry like ours, where the partner sits in a little black box, I felt very good about trusting The Creative Momentum.

The Creative Momentum is able to provide great, clean designs. They can create simplistic results compared to other partners we've worked with, which tended to overcomplicate things. The Creative Momentum took complex situations, figuring out the most straightforward user path. The work that The Creative Momentum did with responsive designs was especially great.

Are there any areas The Creative Momentum could improve?

I do feel that, in some instances, The Creative Momentum made assumptions of certain things and built elements of the site without telling us. They wouldn't have known to tell us about the issues unless we asked, though. The Creative Momentum could adjust the communication and documentation of requirements before moving forward. It could have saved us a bit of time in some instances.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chris Ruiz, Vice President of Precision Environmental | Environmental Remediation, Water Damage Restoration, Eco-Friendly Pest Control, Insulation, and Demolition.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Creative Momentum, and what were your goals?

Website Development

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

TCM took a true consultive approach to the project and created value in the partnership.

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

Complicated multistep process

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

Around 10 support staff and a dedicated account manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

TCM has been a fantastic external addition to our team. They possess the ability to assimilate quickly, easily, and thoroughly learn about all of our website and SEO needs.

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

We focus on fast response, concise and transparent communication as a decision-maker, and TCM checked those boxes.

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

organized and responsive

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

nothing note worthy