Website Redesign of Americans for the Arts
- Web Design
- Confidential
- Jan. 2012 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 3.5
- Cost
- 4.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"They [new target] feel like an extension of our staff – part of the family. We get honest answers from them."
- Arts, entertainment & music
- Washington, District of Columbia
- 51-200 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
The client partnered with new target for the task of rebuilding their outdated website which included Drupal development and integration with an existing CRM database.
new target is a valuable partner for the client. The agency contributed to a successful website redesign project. The client praises new target for their technical expertise and highly recommends the agency to others.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Please describe your organization.
I work for Americans for the Arts. We are a nonprofit organization that does anything and everything that could promote the arts in America. We try to get more funding for the arts across the board. We lobby Congress to get more federal funding. We work with corporations to let them know the value and importance of funding the arts. We work with local arts organizations to help them build the skills needed to make the arts part of their communities. We work to bring about social change through the arts.
We do research that shows the economic impact of the arts and the value of an education that includes the arts. Wherever the arts are involved, we're there as the champion, raising visibility and awareness for the arts, arts programs, and arts education. We're headquartered in Washington, D.C., and we also have a small office in New York.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What business challenge were you trying to address with new target?
We needed to rebuild our website. We hadn't launched a new site for quite a number of years. Our new site launched in 2013, and the last time we had launched before that was 2005. It had been a while, and our site was very much out of date.
SOLUTION
Please describe the scope of your involvement with new target in detail.
We were looking for a good partner that understood Drupal well and could help us integrate with our CRM [customer relationship management] database. We needed someone who was technically savvy. We're strong on the presentation side, so visually we covered that ourselves. When it came to the technical side, however, we needed a partner who was going to complement the skills we had on our web team and take us further than we could go by ourselves. We looked at CMS [content management system] options and decided to use Drupal.
How did you come to work with new target?
In the early stages, we spent a lot of time talking to new target, trying to decide which CMS to use before we signed a contract. Their willingness to engage in conversation, to be helpful and to get us on the right path before we had even signed a contract was impressive. They came in and showed us a different content management system besides Drupal because we wanted to see what else was out there, even though we were leaning towards Drupal. They did that without us having yet become a formal customer. They built a relationship with us – they were clearly not concerned about the money. They were concerned about the end product, which led us to become a very strong customer and get a very strong end product.
We started talking to them long before we actually began the work. Right from the beginning, they just created this sense that they were somebody we could talk with. When we were early in deciding what we were going to do with our site, we reached out to them and started having conversations with them. They didn't pressure us to make the decision. They knew we were trying to figure out a lot of things, so they were just there when we called upon them for conversations.
Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?
The website redesign was around $60,000. The monthly fees have been high lately because we've been doing a lot of work. Our quarterly fees are around $5,000 for maintenance and hosting. When we're heavy into work, we could spend an extra $2,000 or $3,000 a month.
What is the status of this engagement?
I think we started talking to new target in 2012, and we began the official engagement at the end of that year. The bulk of the work was done in 2013. We are still working with them. They host our website and provide monthly maintenance. We just finished a project to relaunch our arts blog, and we're talking to them about redesigning our artsmarketing.org site. We have lots of projects in the works with them. They also help us make updates to the main site as we come across things that we want to push further and improve.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Could you share any statistics, metrics, or other feedback from this engagement?
The website redesign project went very well. We spent a lot of time on research and planning, but then we found out that our old CMS was actually going dark at the end of that year. We went from being leisurely and comprehensive in our thought process to having a tight deadline and knowing that we needed to get the project done. Literally, they helped us build the site in less than six months. We went live in the beginning of December [2013], long before the time we would have been forced to go offline.
They were remarkable in being aware of that deadline and helping us make it happen. That was amazing because it was a big project to put together so quickly. We were very organized, so there wasn't a lot of discovery needed, but I don't think a lot of contractors would have been able to deal with the timeline we gave them. They jumped in and made it happen.
Along the way, they suggested other pieces of technology that would help us achieve our goals. With Drupal, there are so many available modules, and new target made a number of suggestions that were great. They were smart and economical choices. Their knowledge of the technology really helped us have a better product in the end.
What distinguishes new target from other providers?
new target's technical ability is outstanding. We've had the same project manager through all of our projects, and we've had the same programmers as well. They feel like an extension of our staff – part of the family. We get honest answers from them. They never withhold information. If we say to them that we'd like them to show us how to do something because we want to do it ourselves, they'll show us – they'll empower us to take care of things for ourselves. They could have held on to that information to try to make more money, but they're not like that. That's helpful, so we can spend our money wisely and not waste it on things that we don't want to learn how to do or don't need to know. They're great partners.
Is there anything new target could have improved or done differently?
The biggest issue is that they are extremely busy. They have many clients, and, every now and then, it's hard to get their attention. The workload kind of ebbs and flows. We can tell when they're in the throes of a major project with somebody else because things get kind of quiet.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
"They're really a superior company compared to others I've worked with."
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Schedule
3.5On time / deadlines
"They've made some amazing deadlines, but there are other times we've really had to wait."
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Cost
4.0Value / within estimates
"Overall, their prices are pretty good. They work with us on what we can afford when we're figuring out a large project. Their hosting fees are higher than most organizations. I was promised a better quality of maintenance for hosting with them, but that"
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"I recommend them all the time. I've worked with a lot of different Drupal developers, and they are, by far, one of the best.
