Imarc

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Marketing Coordinator for a pipe connection manufacturer. We provide products for the mechanical, energy, and fire industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Imarc?

Our website was nearly 10 years old and our Google rankings were suffering. We wanted to build a modern, responsive site that would provide a more pleasant experience for our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gathered metrics about our existing site prior to hiring Imarc to determine the top 10 priorities of our users. We wanted to know why people visited our site and what they needed from us. When Imarc came aboard, they conducted thorough research by reviewing our existing site and interviewing our staff, and they ultimately identified the same strengths and weaknesses uncovered by our own research.

From here, they compiled a robust report of our website users, including distributors and contractors. This report also included the evaluation of our existing site and the sites of our competitors. Using this information, Imarc began to identify necessary components for the development.

We had specific software needs. One was a submittal manager, which is very important to our contractors as it supplies documents needed in the construction industry. Additionally, Imarc is currently working with our in-house R&D team to develop complex software for calculating piping needs in seismic areas all over the world.

The website includes an intuitive CMS that allows our in-house team to make edits and updates. Imarc remains on hand to provide support if needed.

We’ve also expanded our scope to include SEO work. They conduct research about our rankings and take our perspective into account to create a succinct optimization strategy.

What is the team composition?

We have a rotating team based on the project’s requirements at any given time. I’ve been introduced to around 25 people, though we typically have a team of five or six. No matter the challenge, they have someone on staff who can complete the task.

Jenny Hess (Project Coordinator, Imarc) serves as my primary contact. She’s highly responsive and keeps me informed every step of the way. I can inform her of any new priorities and they’re addressed right away.

Robert (Mohns, Lead Strategist, Imarc) has been very impressive in leading our SEO campaign. He has specific systems in place to cut to the heart of the problem. He’s succinct, logical, and asks the right questions to find the best solutions for our website.

How did you come to work with Imarc?

We’ve worked with web developers in the past, but we put out bids for this project because of the large scale. I asked for recommendations from each our departments and we ended up closely vetting a dozen companies through a series of interviews.

Imarc has a wonderful reputation as a leader in web development, so they were one of my own suggestions. During our vetting process, they listened, asked intelligent questions, and presented potential solutions for our problems. They rose head and shoulders above the rest, and our team voted unanimously to hire Imarc.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017 and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We did a silent launch in November, and while I’m still reviewing the 2,700 pages, Imarc created a site that addressed the top 10 needs of our users. Internally, our marketing group is excited by the robust CMS. Its intuitiveness has made it easy to incorporate a recent acquisition. The Algolia search engine Imarc integrated is a big hit, and the streamlined menu layout is a major improvement over our previous site.

The seismic calculator is also very exciting. Our competitors charge their customers to use similar software, but we plan to offer our version for free. We’re thrilled that Imarc was able to tackle this difficult task.

Externally, there’s a bit of a learning curve in transitioning to the new, responsive site. Our users aren’t used to dealing with a cutting-edge website, so they’re still adapting, but all of the necessary components are in place.

How did Imarc perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re outstanding. We communicate on a daily basis as they provide updates and ask for input. They ensure we stay actively involved in the process and I rest easy knowing that my partners are hard at work.

They’re also excellent about moving projects along and staying on schedule. Our previous website took three years to develop, but we wanted this one finished in six months. While this was an impossible expectation, they managed to complete the website in seven months. It was a formidable request and I’m amazed at what they were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. We have a few issues left to address, but nothing glaring.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I trust them implicitly. Imarc has always been upfront and open with us, and that’s a great gift. It gave us a lot of confidence during the development process to know we were all on the same page. Based on their expertise, they also offered suggestions we never would have considered.

While we don’t currently sell equipment online, we may as our company expands. Imarc had the foresight to ensure our platform could support an e-commerce function in the future, if necessary. Their ability to anticipate our company’s needs is a huge bonus for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish I had known what to expect upon delivery of the website. It was a little daunting to realize I had 2,700 pages to review and various systems to test. Still, I suppose Imarc had no way of knowing my lack of familiarity with the process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Imarc is one of the best web developers out there and you’d be very fortunate to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

When I first started working with Imarc, I was part of an e-commerce software company. We were acquired about a year ago and have been working with Imarc consistently. I am the web senior manager of our web operations team and public-facing websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Imarc?

When I first joined the company, I was tasked with redesigning the website. Imarc ended up on our short list. Since we were constrained by our CMS [content management system], we ended up choosing another vendor, but Imarc’s presentation, knowledge, and design skills impressed us. When other work came up later, I immediately thought of them and asked them to partner with us. Since then, they’ve provided extensive development help on our website.

Even though they didn’t originally have expertise in the CMS we use, their senior developer made an effort to get to know our CMS and works very closely with my team. He participates in our daily standups and has a work queue just like our internal people. We’ve expanded our contract to include more development help. We’re doing a lot of integration tasks as part of the acquisition, and Imarc has been instrumental in helping us with these.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handled the entire blog redesign. We use them primarily for development work while also making use of their broader skill set. The old blog wasn’t meeting our needs. Imarc gave us a more strategic alignment and strong designs, and they actually redesigned again once we became part of our new parent company and had to rebrand.

We used WordPress for the blog, but our CMS is an old version of ExpressionEngine. In getting a developer up to speed on an old CMS that’s not fully supported anymore, they’ve done a tremendous job.

Originally, our site was built in an odd way by a gaming company that didn’t really understand our needs internationally. The whole site had to be rethought, and new requirements needed to be put together. Even though Imarc didn’t win our first redesign contract, they were incredibly organized. They brought a number of people to our initial meeting, and each person gave part of the presentation. The art director talked about their vision. Katie [Partner and Chief Business Development Officer], their project manager, was just wonderful. I can’t say enough about her and their development team. They all really impressed us by working closely together and sharing strategic ideas. They really go the extra mile for their customers.

Our updated site had to launch at a specific time, and everything had to go live at once. I knew I could depend on them to meet that goal. That project really went across the whole company, between project management, art direction, and development. They were really wonderful about recommending server contracts and company partners. They did presentations, ran the QA with us, and really worked with the blog team to get feedback.

Imarc was completely responsible for the look of the new site. They did all the documentation, wireframes, and sketches to get the design going. We are impossible to work with for content. This is something we recognize about ourselves. We were originally going to get someone else to write the site, but I knew there was no way that’d happen. We’re very particular, and there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions on our team. It’s a thankless task, and I would not outsource it. We also do all the marketing work in-house.

How did you come to work with Imarc?

I got a referral from our CMO at the time. I think someone she knew had recommended them.

How much have you invested with Imarc?

We spend around $100,000 a year. For the first year, it was closer to the $40,000–$50,000 range. We were in the process of getting rid of another agency at the time and bringing on Imarc to do more as they gained experience with ExpressionEngine.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on small, sporadic projects in 2014, and our relationship is ongoing. We’ve been increasing our development hours every month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We now have a resource center on our website. Originally, the site only contained all the content pieces we’ve authored and was really straightforward. Viewers can sort content by type and category, but we also redesigned that to allow users to do gated assets. So, instead of just giving all our content away for free, we made it more of a lead-generation tool. We’ve gone from zero to having all these leads flow through our resource center due to Imarc’s work.

I can’t share statistics off the top of my head, but our website is our top lead driver for our company. Imarc has been instrumental in making sure those processes work.

How did Imarc perform from a project management standpoint?

I can’t say enough about Katie. She is always on top of everything. We tend to be very loose with project management, and they keep us in line. We don’t always necessarily adhere to their structure, but they’re understanding. If I need a status update, they’re always able to provide it, even from the developer himself.

What did you find most impressive about Imarc?

Their responsiveness is impressive. I’ve worked with a lot of agencies in my time, and some have just been horrible. These guys are part of my team. I’m so comfortable with them at this point that I don’t really think of them as an outside agency. They’re a seamless part of our working group.

The whole team is really responsive. For example, when they completely redesigned our blog, an issue came up over a holiday weekend. I sent a message to Patrick, their CPO. He responded and figured the problem out himself. They’re always there for us.

Are there any areas Imarc could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They could hold us more strictly to their project management, but that’s our shortcoming and not theirs. With the developers, we go over our priorities constantly to ensure we’re working on the most important things. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Magnitude Software is an organization which enables enterprises to access information from wherever it resides, analyze it based on trusted data established through master-data management, and act upon it for strategic and operational performance management. I am the vice president of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Imarc?

There were a couple of pieces involved in our initial exploration with them. Being an acquisitive organization, we had taken possession of another group called Simba Technologies, which has a very strong brand in the ISV [independent service providers] connectivity arena, namely drivers. These are the people who have developed the technology which enables enterprises to access information from nearly any system or data source, such as a data lake. We needed to unify the Simba.com website and brand with Magnitude’s, without compromising the brand itself. The website is a primary channel for evaluations, and there are also retail capabilities on it. We were looking to unify the brand and better represent Magnitude, without compromising Simba, as well as streamline the purchase experience and support self-service enablement, as it relates to technical support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Along with our very talented digital marketer, who has been developing websites for quite a few years, Imarc’s job was to essentially recreate a Simba.com entity which tied to Magnitude.com, both in terms of discovery, planning, and preparation, and in the execution itself. Our digital marketer was also involved in all of those phases, and did quite a bit of execution and testing, but Imarc was ultimately responsible for the full smash.

They were responsible for teasing the result out for us. We had a document which stated our objectives, and we worked with Imarc to establish and help them understand tone of voice and character missions. They worked with us in a collaborative fashion in order to get to a design and wireframe structure.

The site was developed using the WordPress platform. There are different audiences for it. The original one, at the time of acquisition, was primarily oriented towards technical people. We have a couple of audiences for the purchase of connectivity capabilities (or drivers), who might purchase off-the-shelf ODBC [open database connectivity] or JDBC [Java database connectivity]-based solutions, or who might purchase our software development kit for creating their own versions when a ready-made one isn’t available.

We’ve been primarily talking to the more technical people, but have expanded the dialogue to the ones who need access to data, namely business users. These fall into 2 categories: independent software vendors who OEM [original equipment manufacture] our driver into the technology they deliver (BI [business intelligence] vendors, for example), and enterprises with users who might require the connectivity, or product managers, developers and IT people, who are building the connectivity into applications being created, or linking existing applications (from systems of action to BI systems, for example).

Imarc has digital marketing capabilities, but we have a fully-internal program in place with our own marketer. They collaborated with us to an extent, but their job was to essentially build in what we had already established, and not break anything.

How did you come to work with Imarc?

I had worked with Imarc in a previous company, for a fairly small, proof-of-concept website. I found them after searching for a number of vendors, and gaining a number of referrals. A former team member of mine had hired a firm for a website build. They weren’t very happy with the results, and turned to Imarc to fix the problem. With that story in my head, and having spoken with Imarc, I was very impressed with the caliber of the people, and their willingness to do what it takes for the experience to be beneficial, and the results to be what we were looking for.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking with Imarc in the middle of 2016. We thought that the project would be kicked off by November or December, but, as we got to the close of the fiscal year, many priorities started to pop. We didn’t officially start until the kick-off in mid-January 2017, and the site was delivered in early April.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I can’t share statistics, but I can say that we’ve had positive reactions from the internal team. We continued a steady state of visitors, and didn’t have hiccups in terms of search engine optimization or management, or with our Ad Words program. We have a tough audience in our Vancouver team, which is responsible for our Simba connectivity business.

How did Imarc perform from a project management standpoint?

This is an area where we had considerable back-and-forth. Due to the way in which we needed to work, it took us a while to find our sweet spot with Imarc. We were successful in getting the site live in a timely fashion, and working out any kinks. The senior management, and all the way through to the most junior member of the team, bent over backwards to make this happen.

What did you find most impressive about Imarc?

There are a couple of factors which stand out in my mind, based on my 2 experiences with Imarc, which would make me choose them again for an extensive project. Firstly, the capabilities the have in-house: the caliber of the people and the breadth of skillsets. Secondly, Imarc’s ability to represent data-based opinions and recommendations, while still being malleable in terms of coming to a decision that makes sense for the intended outcome, relative to the brand they’re working with, all within the notion of best practices.

Are there any areas Imarc could improve?

I have a small team, with only 2 people working on this project: myself and the digital marketer. The area which could have received the most improvement was project management. We needed proactive assistance, and worked it out as we progressed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Employee of Virginia Society of CPAs.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Statewide association for CPAs

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Imarc to accomplish?

• Build a new website

SOLUTION

How did you find Imarc?

Referral

Why did you select Imarc over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Imarc were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We had a fantastic experience working with Imarc. Their team was professional, collaborative, and quickly felt like an extension of our own staff. The entire process was smooth, timely, and refreshingly well-organized. Our project came in exactly as expected—both in scope and cost—and the pricing was extremely reasonable for the quality we received. I’d gladly recommend them to anyone looking for a dependable, thoughtful, and easy-to-work-with partner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project was completed on time and on budget

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

All expectations were met. The Imarc team was very responsive to our needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Imarc?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They were the easiest technology company we ever worked with. They understood our system needs exceptionally well.

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

no