Elevated Third

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the website admin/manager at MRA. We’re a nonprofit employer association. We offer our member organizations a comprehensive assortment of services including HR, talent management and learning and organizational development. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Elevated Third?

Our existing website had many problems that were hampering our business. It had a static homepage that didn’t immediately communicate our identity and services and didn’t allow for easy updates. Additionally, long drop-down menus prevented customers from learning about all our lines of business. Our marketing department recently reorganized our 16 services into four “areas of expertise,” so we needed a website that reflected our condensed business message. Moreover, it had to integrate with Salesforce, our new association management system.

What were your goals for this project?

We set out to accomplish many goals including positioning ourselves as a comprehensive HR and training resource, demonstrating expertise and thought leadership, increasing non-dues revenue (NDR) from existing members, and retaining existing members. Further, we wanted to generate leads for both NDR and new members.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected Elevated Third from a list of five agencies based on their experience with Drupal, our chosen CMS. There were also a number of secondary factors such as timeline, price, client references, customer service/support and ease of integration. As a bonus, they’re located near our Salesforce developer’s office.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Elevated Third installed a Drupal 8 PHP application on Acquia in a LAMP environment. Then, they integrated Salesforce and Pardot, a marketing automation platform.

The project began with a discovery phase made up of sprints with frequent touch points showing budget burndowns versus estimates. They also dove deep into brainstorming solutions and documenting requirements. At the end of the stage, they delivered a UX in the form of low- and high-fidelity architectural wireframes. They also created blueprints, prioritized activities, and suggested features/functionalities.

The implementation period ran in weekly sprints until the launch date. Here, they did UX and design work, front- and backend development, QA, and pre-launch testing.

What was the team composition?

We initially worked with eight people: an account management director, the director of business development, a senior account manager, an account manager, a lead developer, a senior developer, a UX/content strategist, and a designer. The size of the team was reduced pre-launch, but the Director and developers remained post-launch.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Moving over to Salesforce has had an enormous impact on our business. It’s helped us change the way we support members by making crucial information more visible. Metrics and reports show our improved efficiency, and we still have a lot to learn. According to Google Analytics, several pages we were watching have shown improved views and users.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We hired an outside project manager to assist with the project. She worked directly with Elevated Third’s account management director to establish video conferences, email communications, deadlines, and expectations. Our two sides were able to work well through her.

Elevated Third itself was collaborative and complied with weekly sprint deadlines and discovery budgets. Asana, Slack, and Google Docs helped us launch successfully.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed by Elevated Third's team (especially the developers). They were smart, energetic, and creative. Getting to train on-site with their developers was really enjoyable. They’ve helped bring us into the future.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Having more time to review wireframes (a full day) before conference calls would have allowed us to share our feedback during conference calls, rather than after. Additionally, the discovery process could have been shortened because it duplicated much of the work our marketing team had already done. Finally, having an in-person meeting earlier in the project would have been more advantageous. It was a great opportunity to brainstorm.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the website manager at Rally Software, which produced a SaaS-based management tool that helped companies execute development projects using agile methodologies.

CA Technologies later acquired Rally Software. I am still with the company under its new ownership.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

Rally Software had a Drupal-based website that hadn’t been updated. We needed a complete redesign that included the site’s architecture and CMS. Our focus was to redesign: user experience, demand generation, personalization, SEO, and interactivity.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CA Technologies bought Rally Software near the redesign’s initial stages. Consequently, we decided to halt the project because we lost many in-house Drupal developers in the acquisition. We then used Elevated Third as our in-house Drupal agency to manage the Rally website until it was migrated over to CA’s website.

This process lasted 1.5 years and focused on: UI, coding, uploading content, and our Salesforce integration. We scheduled small releases on a weekly basis in addition to special projects. They notified me after each task completion and we would then test before launching the feature.

What is the team composition?

We had 2 developers on retainer in addition to an account manager/project manager. They brought in additional developers as needed.

How did you come to work with Elevated Third?

I put out a project bid to several design firms. A former colleague referred me to them. His agency had worked with them before and their engagement was successful. The team won the bid by competing against other design firms.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $10,000 - $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work began April 2015 and concluded November of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The results reflected an adherence to agile methodologies, which included thorough QA processes. They were fearless with code fixes as well. Overall, they were nice and talented people that made the process very smooth; we couldn’t have done it without them.

How did Elevated Third perform from a project management standpoint?

We did stand-ups every week to identify tasks, which I then logged and prioritized in Asana. They worked diligently using the app.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were up against larger agencies that we had previously engaged. The team did a great job demonstrating their knowledge of our conversion process and plans for collaboration.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

While they had great UX and design specialists, we didn’t use those services. Use those resources if the scope calls for them. But more importantly, both executive stakeholders and team members need to have the project requirements specified and enhanced before engagement. This clarification will produce realistic expectations and effective collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Comcast Technology Solutions, a division of Comcast Cable, serves the advertiser, content provider, global operator, and technology markets with a complete portfolio of products and capabilities designed to meet the evolving needs for content distribution and monetization in a multi-platform world. Built on Comcast’s robust media and entertainment infrastructure, Comcast Technology Solutions offers a breadth and depth of expertise, spanning 20 years in broadcast and digital, to help customers deliver engaging experiences and forge new business models. I’m the Digital Marketing Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

Before Comcast Technology Solutions became Comcast Technology Solutions, we were 3 very different companies that were merging into one: Comcast Wholesale, THIS Technology, and thePlatform. All 3 companies had varying brands, offerings, and target markets to reach. We needed to get a site up that looked good, was easy to manage, and converted well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve had a few websites built, and Elevated Third was a trusted partner. Initially, the project was to combine different websites into one. We’re still working with them to do those redirects from the individual sites. But since then, they’ve been re-seaming the site and then launching a couple of brand hubs, which is a website that would house all our brand materials.

They worked with our branding agency to apply and use the brand in a seamless fashion on a new site without having much direction or brand guidelines in place. They had to do a lot, and in a short timeframe with a defined budget.

It’s a typical corporate site. There are components for educating people, lead generation, and a good thought leadership platform to have the resources available for download, as well as our blog.

We did 2 different versions of the brand hub. One was for a company that we no longer are. They also built a brand hub for our current website that’s hosted on a different domain. That uses single-sign-on with our internal system. Anybody that’s from our company can access it from Comcast.

We have 2 customer portals that they helped with. One of them ties directly into the sign-on for our ad delivery service. The other one has since been rolled into another internal portal. It’s a customer-facing portal that people logged into. We had another portal internally managed, and they worked with that team to combine the 2 portals together so that it’s easier for our customers to access and use them and their complimentary services.

What is the team dynamic?

We used an agency for the branding portion, but they worked with them to translate that into the digital space. There was a lot of interpretation and collaboration between the 2 teams.

Right now, we’re building a lead generation tool on our website to bring our portfolio to life. It’s like a question flow tool with a conversion point in there and some relevant content served at the end.

Drupal is their platform of choice.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2013 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Elevated Third was up for the challenge. Even though the timeline decreased from original planning, they were able to get things moving and keep them on track. A lot of delays happened on our end, but Elevated Third helped us to stay on track from a development perspective with a very aggressive launch timeline that couldn't be adjusted for any reason.

We get a lot of compliments on the functionality of the site and what we’re able to do with it now. We’ve expanded it a lot from what it was in the past, it’s more conducive to lead generation, and it’s gotten easier to navigate; we’re definitely converting more people.

We ended up with a great site that has already increased leads by 303% and organic traffic by 26%. We've got something easy to manage on the backend and a partner to support us for even our most daunting projects.

How did Elevated perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re pretty demanding. We often have unrealistic expectations on timelines, but they’ve gone above and beyond and did a great job.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a can-do attitude and have been able to tackle anything we throw at them. Whatever we imagine, it seems there’s a way to do it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the past, we struggled a little bit with making sure the communication is consistent and we’re in the same loop, but that’s been resolved.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Youth on Record is a nonprofit that empowers Colorado’s underserved youth to achieve their academic, artistic, and personal best by employing local, professional artists as their educators. Our target demographic is teenagers, donors ages 21–70, local and national musicians of all genres, and professionals in the music industry.

We have a small team of three full-time and two part-time employees and 20 contractors. Our annual operating budget is under $1 million. I am the director of visibility and operations and I do all our marketing, PR, fundraising events, volunteer management, and operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

We needed someone to develop our website. A volunteer had  helped us with one in the past, But it was a very outdated WordPress site. We wanted to implement something edgy, heavy on media, user-friendly, educational, and engaging. It also needed to be easy to use and update so we could train new staff and volunteers.

It was mainly me working on this project, and I needed to use my limited time wisely.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Elevated Third sat down with us to discuss different marketing angles for our diverse audiences. We’re marketing to students, parents, schools, potential donors, volunteers, and to media and community partners. It can be a bit overwhelming, but they were super helpful in sorting that out.

They built our new site on Drupal 8 and trained us on its use. They were available to answer any questions we had during the process. Then we transferred all content to the new site. While we’re not currently selling anything directly through the site, we linked it with a Square store.

They haven’t helped with marketing yet, but they’ve offered to help with SEO. We plan to make use of a Google Grant we received soon.

What is the team dynamic?

I believe there were six on our team. Our project manager was my point person.

How did you come to work with Elevated Third?

We started looking for someone in our volunteer network that had WordPress experience, since that’s what we had used and knew.

One of our board members referred Elevated Third to us. As we chatted with them, it dawned on us that we needed to go a different direction in light of our heavy media needs. There’s only so much you can do with WordPress.

They came for a site visit and were super engaged with our mission. It was clear that they really cared about the work and our impact in the community. They listened to what was important to us and helped us create a plan.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in January 2016 and wrapped up in July 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We get a lot of feedback from our community about how great the website is. It’s visually engaging and user-friendly.

The site has been up since July 2016. It’s the easiest website I’ve worked in to manage content. That’s one of my favorite things about it. We use it all the time internally and as a marketing tool. We upload files there instead of sending attachments and we host a lot of videos.

It’s saved us a lot of time. And according to a Google test site, it’s running well in web-based and mobile formats.

How did Elevated Third perform from a project management standpoint?

They felt like an extension of our team. They spoke my language, so we were able to plan, discuss, and implement quickly. They were great at suggesting things I didn't think about, as well as brainstorming with me. They’re super hands on. They were easy to work with and made the Drupal training accessible for us.

I love them so much that if I left my job, I would seek a position with them in marketing. I love their culture.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

We love the team at Elevated Third. Their team is extraordinary and goes above and beyond. They feel like family. They treated us like a large corporation with lots of money and made us feel like their No.1 priority, even though we’re a small nonprofit and they probably have hundreds of clients.

They took the time to understand who we are, what we do, and what our mission is. We weren’t just another client doing a website. The human connection was there.

I’ve been working in nonprofit for a long time, and I’ve never seen this level of dedication from a company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) is a 37-year-old Native American-run nonprofit that works to support economic development in Native communities across the United States, including American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. As senior communications officer, I coordinate communications-related duties for the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

Our website was built in-house by an accomplished technical professional. When he left the organization, we lost a lot of the know-how in updating and maintaining the website, which is crucially important to the organization. Although a few of us at First Nations administer the website, we began having some significant issues with it, and it became increasingly clear that we needed someone with Drupal expertise to deal with them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a maintenance agreement with Elevated Third for our main website and a couple of other website as well. They primarily do minor fixes like security and PHP updates and we also moved our hosting to their server. Drupal updates sometimes cause other thing may break so they've gone in and tried to repair that as well.

Most recently, we found out that the Drupal theme that our website was based on is now long out-of-date and unsupported so it's started to have issues with rendering pages. Elevated Third has been fixing that and we're in discussions now about possibly re-themeing our site.

What is the team dynamic?

I’m the primary point of contact at First Nations but we have a team here of at least two or three other people that also work with back end of our website. On their end, we have an account rep that we work through primarily, but once in awhile we will get on a call or have a meeting with them and or one or two of their developers.

How did you come to work with Elevated Third?

I originally found them because a department at a previous job had worked with them on a standalone website and they had done a great job. When I was here at First Nations and we started having issues with our website I contacted them directly to ask if they would help us fix our website. They normally don't fix website unless they built it, but I pleaded that I needed help, and they agreed.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $15,000 - $18,000 over the last year or so.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working in 2016. I have also just set out an RFP for a whole new website design to a handful of companies. Elevated Third is at the top of the list.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before our website was breaking frequently and not rendering properly. I just don't even want to think about what would have happened if we hadn't had it attended to by them. If our website was down or broken it would have prevented donations, newsletters, and impeded our communication flow with grantees and supporters.

How did Elevated Third perform from a project management standpoint?

I am very happy with the communication and project management. Primarily, we communicate by email because we're 30 miles apart. Sometimes we will have a phone call and on a rare occasion, we'll actually get together face to face.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm just very pleased with the work. They're very responsive. They get things fixed and updated and taken care of quickly. They're very professional in our communications and our interactions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think we're getting good value. But we you know we can always use spending less money because we are a nonprofit.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Perforce is a world leader in enterprise-class version control, collaboration, and agile project management software solutions for teams building multi-technology products at scale. Perforce has a 20-year history of building and supporting developer productivity tools. The company has 250 employees and 7 offices worldwide. I am currently the Director of Marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

The existing corporate website was drastically outdated both in its front-end design and back-end architecture. It wasn't able to support our growing portfolio of products and our growing marketing team with multiple content editors, designers, and other contributors.

We needed a more modern, responsive website that would appeal to our innovate, bleeding-edge technology customer base, which includes gaming companies, automotive, medical devices, and other software and embedded systems companies. We were also acquiring a new company and needed to be able to fold their product offerings easily into a single website. Our goal was to launch a new website with a new design and more scalable, flexible back-end CMS within 6 months without reducing traffic or lead conversions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Elevated Third was responsible for the strategy, design, development of the new website, in addition to training our content teams and providing support during launch. This project had a hard deadline of May 2017 (5.5 months overall duration), and Elevated Third worked tirelessly to ensure that we made that deadline.

What is the team dynamic?

We had one main project manager, and then occasionally we would work with another general manager. We had a UX designer, and a creative manager. On the development side, we had their head of development one side of the project, and another developer for other parts.

How did you come to work with Elevated Third?

Perforce vetted multiple web vendors both online through self-guided research and through phone and in-person consultations before choosing Elevated Third.

Elevated Third was chosen for their Drupal expertise and innovative methods of building Drupal environments for growing content teams, their enthusiasm for the project, and their willingness to work on such a large project with a short, inflexible timeline. We also had a unique need to build a custom Drupal module for ensuring seamless product delivery to customers. We felt Elevated Third was uniquely qualified to handle this custom module.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $200,000 - $999,999 USD with Elevated Third.

What is the status of this engagement?

We are continuing to work with Elevated Third for additional features and improvements to our website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are thrilled with both the design of our new website, and also more importantly the ease-of-use in the CMS for our content teams. It's very easy for our users to add new content, modify existing content, and make sure everything is SEO-optimized for improving our search traffic. Changes that used to take many weeks and required a developer to complete now only take a few clicks. We can make large organizational changes very quickly, while also having control to fine-tune individual pages based on copy or design needs. Every month since working with Elevated Third we’ve seen our site traffic grow.

The custom Drupal module is fast and efficient, allowing our customers to access their products online when needed without issue.

Also thanks to Elevated Third, we had a very successful launch. Any issues that came up were addressed as quickly as possible by their team. We didn't experience any decrease in traffic to our website. Our keywords remained highly ranked.

How did Elevated Third perform from a project management standpoint?

Really well. One of the most responsive vendors I’ve ever worked.

What did you find most impressive about them?

During the launch of our website, we had some unforeseen complications with our web server. Elevated Third stepped in, even when they weren’t contracted to do so, to solve it. They were working late nights and extra hour to problem solve alongside our own team. It felt like we weren’t alone. I appreciated them helping us out with that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One area that they’re good at, but not outstanding at, is handling an ambiguous situation or potential issue that we forecast .   

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a nonprofit Christian ministry, which was started 85 years ago. We've recently relocated to Colorado and California. We host several radio programs and engage in humanitarian projects, live seminars, and teachings. We run one of the oldest Bible schools in North America.

What is your position?

I am the senior manager for marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Elevated Third?

We needed more resources for building our website, but didn't want to hire permanent staff.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We had an internal strategy for building our site. Elevated Third worked with us from the discovery phase. We presented them our ideas and worked together in order to flush them out. We went from concept to a viable website.

We wanted to use Drupal for the site, which was one of the reasons for choosing Elevated Third in the first place. It was one of their strong points. A couple of people from our team had been involved in other ministries where they'd built websites. We all agreed that we preferred the Drupal platform.

Elevated Third provided us with a project manager, designer, lead developer, and two more junior developers working below that person. The team we were assigned consisted of six people in total.

How did you come to work with Elevated Third?

We researched a couple of different companies, looking at their online presence and the websites they'd created. We narrowed our search down to three companies. When we started talking to them, Elevated Third stood out for a couple of reasons. First of all, we liked that they were local. Secondly, they produced excellent-quality products, and they had a large team, compared to the other candidates. They had the manpower necessary in order to produce what they promised.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2015. The relationship is ongoing. We're currently working on phase two of our website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Elevated Third was very hands-on in helping us create the website and getting it launched. As it often happens when websites are launched, our team came up with many elements, which could have been done differently. Elevated Third was excellent in continuing to work with us, even beyond our launch date. I never heard a complaint about the small tweaks we requested. They were professional throughout the development process.

How did Elevated Third perform from a project management standpoint?

They used Google Docs for sharing spreadsheets with us. Elevated Third also has an internal system for tracking projects. I was given access to it and shown how to operate it in order to manage our project.

What distinguishes Elevated Third from other providers?

They were very capable in terms of technical skills. The project manager from Elevated Third managed to bridge the gap between technical items and communication. This was an important part, given that we built a site from the ground up, which was a huge project.

Is there anything Elevated Third could have improved or done differently?

We've never had an issue with them. They were always willing to sit down with us whenever we hit a roadblock. Elevated Third came to our headquarters, not expecting us to travel to them.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

I work for the Colorado Office of Economic Development. We promote the business, marketing, and economic environments in the state of Colorado.

What is your position?

I’m the information technology manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Elevated Third?

We needed them to rebuild our entire site, which was static, poorly maintained, and obsolete. For reference, the last time the website had been updated was probably 2006 or 2007. It had gotten to the point where we knew our site was actually hindering out ability to perform as an organization.

Was your website already utilizing the Drupal content management system?

No, it wasn’t. We transitioned from a proprietary solution to the open source Drupal CMS.

SOLUTION

Had you already decided to use Drupal, or was Elevated Third a part of that selection process?

Elevated Third was part of that selection process. They helped us define our functional and strategic requirements, and we then considered a few different solutions. We also looked at Joomla and WordPress, but we felt that Drupal would best fit our long-term needs. More importantly, Elevated Third had very deep expertise with Drupal. It’s really their bread and butter.

How did you select Elevated Third as your solution partner for this endeavor?

We had worked with Elevated Third through a previous organization when we had worked for the city and county of Denver. Some of our colleagues had worked with Elevated Third, and they have a very good reputation here. We made the final decision after speaking with their team about their past experience and their relevant capabilities.  

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

I can’t remember the exact cost of the implementation, and we have a retainer with them to for ongoing support, training, and enhancements. The cost of the entire process, during the course of the past few years, has to be within the low six figures. It’s been a substantial endeavor.

When was this implementation completed?

The basic implementation was completed in August of 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

This is kind of tricky because, with our previous content management system, we did not have analytics and reporting capabilities. In that sense, we don’t have any baseline of comparison. However, we did start pulling metrics when we first launched the site and as we’ve conducted some SEO [search engine optimization] with Elevated Third. In the beginning, we were receiving about 8,000 unique visitors a month. After working with Elevated Third and doing a comprehensive marketing plan, which includes the website, we’re now getting about 24,000 unique visitors a month, which is a significant upturn in.

How has your internal staff taken to Drupal? Have they adopted it fairly quickly, or have you experienced considerable resistance?

We haven’t had any real resistance to Drupal because our old CMS was so hard to deal with. We’ve had to wait for scheduled pushes of information. Elevated Third helped us create a good user workflow on the backend. We now have a moderated workflow, which gives us the ability to let each of our divisions have a liaison that can edit their section on the website. Having a distributed format like that has really increased our efficiency and productivity.

Then, of course, when they make their changes, it gets reported to our management team. We can then review the content before it goes live. Our marketing communications team looks at all the notifications and will approve or help make additional edits when necessary before the content goes live, which has given our staff a new level of autonomy.

When working with Elevated Third, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve worked with?

In my opinion, Elevated Third really digs in and does a lot of research to understand your business. They conducted a lot of research for us to try to understand our organization, the nuances of what we do, and how we do it. They also did a fantastic job of coming in and presenting to our senior staff the improvements they could make to our internal workflows. They also kept us on top of our content development tasks, so that all of the information would be prepared for our soft launch. We really appreciated that.

In retrospect, are there areas you think Elevated Third could improve upon as a service provider, or are there things you’d do differently as the client before initiating a project with them?

I would make sure that, in the scope of work, they included some training materials. I know we’ve had a lot of requests for training materials internally, something we simply don’t have time to create in-house. I wasn’t a part of that contract negotiation, but I think that the training piece of it could have been amplified. The training they gave us for the product was great, but materials for customizations, modifications, and troubleshooting would have been very helpful.

In terms of evaluating Drupal itself, do you still remain confident that it will continue to meet your business needs, both strategic and functional, into the foreseeable future?

Yes, most definitely, I do. The state was using a proprietary content management system, which I believe they’re still trying to transition from. I think even the state has seen some of the strengths of Drupal and is looking at transitioning to a comprehensive Drupal ecosystem. I see it having some serious longevity. With all of the customizations you can do with it, I could see this being something we’d use for quite a while.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

I work for the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is a nonprofit conservatory located in Denver, Colo.

What is your position?

I’m the Web technology manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you began the relationship with Elevated Third?

We were working with a company in 2008 that moved us to the Drupal platform and the last couple of years we were with them they stopped supporting Drupal because they were beginning to build their own proprietary content management system. We had a website that was running on an old version of Drupal, and it desperately needed to be upgraded.

SOLUTION

How did you select Elevated Third as your solution partner for this endeavor?

We began by searching in Google for Drupal developers in the Denver area. We came up with five or six potential vendors based on that initial search. We eliminated two of them immediately because they were too small to handle our account. We then interviewed the remaining three in order to evaluate their relevant capabilities and their previous experience. Elevated Third was one of the remaining three, and we were the most impressed by their presentation. We needed a vendor that would be able to support a very large website and help us transition a newer version of Drupal. In addition to that, we needed a partner able to train our staff on how to use best practices.

Could you describe the scope of this project? For instance, did it involve custom visual design, backend development, training, and support?

There was a bit of everything. When they moved us from one version of Drupal to the other and implemented a number of custom modules for us. They dealt with archiving transferring all of our data from the old site to the new one and reformatting certain things that didn’t function very well on the backend. They configured the entire system once it was installed and integrated our third party systems and social channels. They provide training and support to us on a regular basis.

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

We’re on a retainer with them, so we pay a certain amount per month based on predetermined hours.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

Our website is constantly improving in terms of unique visitors, but we’re in this strange area where our audience is going to mobile, so it’s not necessarily comparing apples to apples, because on mobile they visit fewer pages than they did on desktops. There aren’t huge changes in what we’ve done with Elevated Third, but the overall system works more efficiently. We spend far less time trying to troubleshoot the system, which allows us to dedicate our time and efforts elsewhere.

As far as user feedback is concerned, I’m really the only person that updates the website on a regular basis. As far as usability, there are a couple of projects that we do with Elevated Third. There’s a calendar that was created with them that uses the full capabilities of Drupal. We also definitely receive far fewer inquiries from users concerning malfunctions or defects on the website, which is great.

When working with Elevated Third, is there anything you’d consider special or unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve worked with?

I’ve worked with vendors in the past that had their project managers also involved in the actual development, which could sometimes result in inefficiency. They were basically splitting their limited time and resources between two completely different tasks. With Elevated Third, their project managers are solely responsible for the project execution and management. They’re extremely responsive to our needs and also very accessible. That constant communication and feedback really enhances the process. I’ve greatly appreciated that dynamic because it adds real transparency to the process.  

In retrospect, are there areas you think Elevated Third could improve upon as a service provider, or are there things you’d do differently as the client for initiating a project of this nature?

No, I think any time you move to a new agency, there are always going to be growing pains. The first six months with Elevated Third was give and take because we had to get used to each other in terms of workflow and also understanding each other’s business. I’ll say that they really went out of their way to get a grasp of our business and objectives.

Do you remain confident that the Drupal content management system will continue to meet your business needs, both strategic and functional, into the foreseeable future?

As far as I’m concerned, yes. This time last year, “responsive design” wasn’t even in our vocabulary. Elevated Third is really keeping us state of the art, really keeping us relevant. That, in combination with the vast capabilities of Drupal, makes me confident that we’ll be using the system for a long time.

BACKGROUND

Could briefly describe your organization?

I work for a privately owned commercial real estate investment company, and we’re also a development company.

What is your position?

I manage the investor accounts. I work directly with our main investors and conduct most of our marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Elevated Third?

We really wanted to freshen up our website. Our old website was unreasonably dark and its build was almost entirely in Flash. It wasn’t the most usable or dynamic website for our investors, and our staff had sporadic issues with administrative duties. We had simply outgrown it. While our investors don’t spend a significant amount of time using the site, we wanted to ensure that the time they did spend on it would be simple and productive. In addition, we wanted a more sophisticated presence for our prospective investors. 

SOLUTION

What platform was your new site rebuilt on?

Elevated Third build it from scratch on Drupal 7.

What was the rationale behind selecting Drupal compared to alternative content management system solutions?

Our previous website was built on WordPress. We became very frustrated with it, so we knew we wanted to transition to a different CMS. Elevated Third recommended that we continue utilizing an open source platform because of the community support. It was at that point that they encouraged us to consider Drupal. They said it was very user friendly and accessible, which was important because our staff isn’t the most technically savvy. After having them elaborate their reasoning, we felt confident that Drupal would be able to satisfy our technical requirements and business goals.

How did you select Elevated Third as your solution partner for this endeavor?

We went back to the original developer for our old website, and then we compared it to what Elevated Third brought to us. We held a panel discussion and evaluated their whole process, approach, and methodology. Elevated Third was extremely attentive to our needs and requirements, and they made some very insightful and valuable recommendations during our introduction. We were impressed by their capabilities and felt confident that they’d be able to deliver a level of service that our previous vendor either couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Could you describe the scope of this project? For instance, did it involve custom visual design, backend development, training, or support?

They took the project from idea to implementation, including all of the parts in between. They helped us configure our hosting environment and backup infrastructure. We then archived, prepared and migrated our chosen content from the old site to the new site. At that point, they spent a lot of time with us on the visual design. It was really important to have a sleek, new, and aesthetically pleasing website. We didn’t require a lot of custom functionality on our website, so we spent most of the time working on the visuals. Once we’d finished the visual modifications, they handled our performance testing, and we worked out a few minor flaws. That’s basically the entire thing. We have a retainer with them for ongoing support, too.

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

It must have been around $10,000 to $15,000 at this point.

When was this implementation completed?

It was in June of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

I’ll be honest with you. We haven’t checked how many hits we’ve been receiving. I’ve had some feedback from some of our investors saying they really like the look, and it’s easier to navigate. We don’t have a robust marketing department, so we’re not really good about checking how many hits we get, but we have had positive feedback from our users.

When working with Elevated Third, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about their approach or methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve worked with?

They didn’t try to push anything too trendy with us. They knew the latest and greatest, but they didn’t push for anything too trendy. They brought us a couple of stylish designs, which we then reviewed and kind of fused together to meet our final product. They paid close attention to what we really needed and never proposed anything superfluous. Our previous vendor didn’t seem interested in what we needed. Instead, they would simply push what they thought was good and would make us quiet. We weren’t very comfortable with the relationship.

In retrospect, are there areas you think they could improve upon as a service provider, or are there things you’d do differently as the client before initiating a project of this nature?

We had some minor difficulties with their copywriting, but our industry is very difficult to write about unless you’re directly involved in it. Their copywriter struggled a lot in the beginning with sending us content we could actually use. They’ve definitely gotten better, but it’s something that required coaching, explicit guidance, and consistent supervision. Other than that, I can’t really think of anything.