Orbit Media Studios

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an editor for a nonprofit environmental ethics group called the Center for Humans and Nature. I work in the publication wing, mostly digital publications on our website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We needed a website and publications platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit Media Studios initially developed our website, humansandnature.org. They also did a major redesign of the site about four years post-launch. They continue to manage all the technical support for our web platforms as well.

They use a CMS called Mighty-Site as the project interface. It's similar to WordPress but it's custom designed and developed for their clients. They use that to work with us and to manage the content.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with a designer, a dedicated programmer, and a couple of people on the business and account side.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

They were hired to develop the first website before I joined the organization. I know that we were looking for someone in the Chicago region so that we could meet in person as necessary.

How much have you invested with them?

The redesign was around $75,000, but I don’t know the amount of the total spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2011 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Orbit Media Studios won a Webby award for the design of the initial website. It was great to see it recognized outside of our community. Internal feedback has also been positive. The custom pieces that they created increased engagement with our readers. They did a good job helping us understand what we needed in a website and what was possible. They involved some members of our board in terms of feedback on the final design. It was such an exceptional experience developing the initial website that it was an easy decision to return to them for the redesign.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

They provide a very collaborative culture. During our engagement, they introduced a new online troubleshooting platform. They use it to track any issues on the website or projects in development. I can log into the platform and see ongoing work orders. We also use it to communicate. It's an elegant system compared to sending many emails back and forth. Their team is responsive, professional, thorough, and careful. Our team doesn't have much web or technical expertise so we really appreciate how helpful they are. They’re good at translating programming terms into language we understand.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Andy (co-founder, Orbit Media Studios) is an expert in content marketing. They invite us to workshops and events where members of our team can learn directly from him. Particularly for us as publishers, he's been an amazing resource. We really appreciate how generous they are with their knowledge and expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the content marketing analyst for Rent Like a Champion, which is a sporting event-based home rental service company that helps mainly college football, PGA Tour, and NASCAR fans find rental homes close to their event. I handle all external communications, inbound marketing, and SEO efforts. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

I’ve been with Rent Like a Champion since February 2017. One of the things on my docket is to come up with an SEO plan for the company’s website. We’re basically an e-commerce website, and SEO is particularly difficult for us with duplicate content and figuring out where exactly we want to drive leads. We were looking for some advice from a seasoned digital marketer to lend some direction in terms of good places to start for restructuring our website. We’d had some consultations before, but our meeting with Andy [Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Orbit Media Studios] was probably the most in-depth of the consultations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit Media Studios provide detailed consultation. We sat down with Andy and talked through our plan to get his expertise as far as the strengths and the weaknesses of our plan. He also offered us a new direction moving forward. We approached our plan from both a design/UX standpoint and an overall structure standpoint and looked at how those aspects would interact. We explored the technical side of the SEO on our site and its impact on our larger SEO efforts. While there aren’t necessarily any deliverables involved in that process, the consultation was really what we were after. The results will guide us forward as we work with our developers and tech team, transforming our internal efforts into reality in the long-term.

We wanted to know specifically where we should focus and which pages on our site we should send potential leads towards. Our site is event-focused, so we have a lot of different places where we could send people potentially. We could send people to our home page and a search portal. We could send them to specific city pages. We could send them to specific event pages. We could send them to individual properties. We really didn’t know which strategy would be best. We had ideas, but we really wanted to know first and foremost where we should be driving leads to maximize the likelihood of a conversion.

What is the team dynamic?

For this particular project, we worked directly with Andy.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

My director of marketing, Dave, knew Andy as a mentor in the space. Dave has been in the marketing world for a little longer than I have. We attended a Wine & Web event at Orbit Studios. I was really taken by Andy’s perspective and ideas, as well as the discussion points he was guiding us towards. I knew that he was a well-respected thinker in the space, so we reached out to see if he’d be willing to sit down with us. After our first meeting, we decided to go with them. We didn’t have a long shop-around period.

How much have you invested with them?

I’m not privy to that information. It’s been a significant portion of our development budget the last few months. I’ve heard what Orbit Media Studios usually charges for their rates, but I’m not at liberty to discuss that because they’re friends of mine.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017, and the project is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We use Moz to measure our search visibility and SEO efforts. When we started talking to Andy, we were hovering at or just below about 2% search visibility, which meant that the likelihood of getting picked in a Google search was not high organically. We were really depending on our search efforts. Andy’s expertise took us from a little under 2% up to 7%. Of course, we want our search visibility score to be higher than that, but literally a week later we saw that bump and got ourselves on the right path. We’ve also added keywords in the top 10 search results. Twelve keywords are now in the top 10 that were not there before just based on Andy’s direction. Those are the main metrics that matter to us.

Time will tell in terms of final conversion rates. We have a longer sales process for a lot of our services. But, hitting those metrics right away was extremely encouraging. Given what I know about Google’s algorithm, that’s been leading to more sessions on our site and ultimately more conversions.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Andy has been great. He’s highly respectful of our time, focused on the right things during our time with him, and made us feel comfortable throughout the process. He redirected us in a major way. He took my suggestion and completely rearranged it, explaining how we could be more effective. A lot of people would approach giving that kind of feedback with a certain air, but Andy was so relatable, kind, and understanding that he never made us feel ignorant or insufficient. He just focused on finding proactive solutions to the problems at hand. We felt completely taken care of throughout the process.

The initial consultation lasted an hour. From there, Andy gave us a to-do list, and we kept him in the loop about the changes we were making. Overall, that was pretty much our interaction. I can’t stress enough how well spent even that short amount of time was with him.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Compared to others in the industry, Andy really had a clear understanding of what would be best for our unique sales process. A lot of people who claim to specialize in SEO and mention general rules and checklists that may or may not actually affect your bottom line. Their tips for B2B companies that are not applicable to B2C companies. Andy tailored all of his guidance and thoughts to our goals. He didn’t just share how much he knew about SEO and the industry. Instead, he said, “What problem do you have, and what tools can we use to fix it?” That simplicity really impressed me.

The whole company has a phenomenal understanding of the industry. They’re on the cutting edge but don’t move too quickly into unproven areas. They love catering solutions to clients’ unique problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m racking my brain to try to think of anything. I wish we’d had more time to chat with Andy. If I could go back and do it again, I would ask for more time, but that really speaks to the great level of service that he provided. Any time spent with Andy is valuable. 

BACKGROUND

I’m a content marketing analyst for Rent Like A Champion, which is an online platform that allows college football fans to rent homes near campus during game weekends. Based in Chicago, Rent Like A Champion has been growing rapidly from just 1 campus to more than 20 in a few years. Soon, we will be active in 40 markets, and we've expanded our operations beyond football to partner with PGA [Professional Golfers’ Association] and racing events across the U.S.

I handle all of the company’s email marketing, communications, social media strategy, and long-term SEO [search engine optimization] and content growth. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We’ve made SEO a major priority for the next few quarters. I’m responsible for looking at our inbound marketing processes and figuring out where SEO fits best into our overall marketing strategy.

As an e-commerce site that is balancing SEO strategies for 2 different sets of users (homeowners listing their homes and renters looking to book homes), figuring out a way to keep our strategy simple was essential. We used SEO tools to figure out the technical and UX [user-experience] issues that would be most profitable. But, as a startup without an in-house development team, discerning our priorities moving forward was of vital importance for us.

I reached out to Andy [Co-Founder & Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios] and his team while looking for ways to improve our technical SEO by resolving many of the duplicate content issues we were having. Since we're offering vacation rental listings in specific markets, we have tons of product pages with similar content. I thought this was hurting our overall SEO efforts and needed to know how to view our site from a broader perspective in order to guide Google and point visitors in the right directions.

SOLUTION

The whole Orbit Media team was absolutely incredible during our sit-down. Andy took a look at our strategy and helped us keep it simple by guiding us to user-relevant solutions that would help us make the most impact on the pages for which we were looking to rank.

Initially, I wanted to reduce our duplicate content in order to improve our rankings. However, I'm not ashamed to say that after meeting with Andy, I realized my strategy was completely wrong for us. He pointed out that none of our rental pages contained ranked content, and users searching for homes wouldn't be able to discern between our individual homes for rent. Instead, Andy said, we needed to view the market pages themselves as our ranking goal. This would allow us to attract qualified users and give them the experience they want.

Andy's constructive criticism indicated what needed to be changed in a way that made me feel respected, valued, and heard. Additionally, his advice made sense and immediately helped our SEO efforts. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Based on Andy’s advice, we've pivoted our SEO strategy to focus on market pages. We’ve seen an immediate spike in rankings and visibility. Next, we’ll further optimize those market pages as a part of our overall site strategy.

Above all, Andy's guidance allowed us to create a large-scale vision for the future of our site, helping us allocate resources easily and prioritize site changes moving forward. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for Rent Like a Champion, a vacation rental platform focused on sporting events. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We had trouble figuring out how to marry our web design and user experience [UX] with our marketing. We wanted the site to be intuitive, user-friendly, and not frustrating, but we also needed to make sure we were driving conversions and showing up well on Google. We needed SEO that was on-par with best practices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Orbit listened to the unique problems we were facing, determined what our real issue was, and shared their expertise in SEO and web design. It’s easy to become outdated in these areas, and many of our strategies were no longer effective. Orbit provided valuable clarity in that respect.  

One of our biggest issues was redesigning our market-specific pages. We are hyperlocal; even though we’re present in 100 locations, only 25 of those are actually core locations. We’re focused on sports fans, so every detail about a local market needs to be targeted and not a watered-down presentation for football fans, for example. This involved everything from showing up in search results correctly and ensuring we were targeting our audience to the UX of our site. We can’t afford to be general, so we optimized our market-specific pages, making sure that our SEO and general digital presence (from paid, unpaid, and social standpoints) appeared correctly.

We had some technical SEO issues related to website mods and other tools, which were affecting us negatively. Our in-house content manager and I worked closely together and debated different approaches. He proposed redirecting to a single page for every market, while I wanted to 400-error the pages we had and tell Google not to follow them. Orbit told us that neither of those approaches would work and showed us the actual problem: our specific market pages weren’t even built correctly. They walked us through a redesign and gave us a list of page elements. This simplified our issue tremendously.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

I’ve known Andy [Co-Founder and Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios] for a couple of years and was referred to him by a colleague when we were facing our initial design and marketing issues. From my experience with Orbit, this is where they provide the most value. I reached out to them a year ago about the issues we were facing. I knew our criteria, but it was difficult to find someone with the right technical chops who could build a website and apply marketing skills. Every designer should have conversion-science knowledge in order to make a user convert on a page. I’ve met very few developers who have this, but Orbit’s team does.

How much have you invested with Orbit Media Studios?

Most of their work has been in credit or trade form. For the most part, this hasn’t been a large financial investment for us. To finish this campaign, we will likely engage Orbit financially.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our most recent campaign with Orbit started 3 months ago. We plan on working with them again at the end of 2017, after we’ve ended our busy season and when we have the resources. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Orbit helped us figure out our direction and the best approach utilizing our limited startup resources. We’ve already seen big improvements, but the largest effort that Orbit helped outline won’t be implemented until the beginning of 2018.

We had an immediate jump in our rankings for a chunk of our keywords, after making the changes suggested by Orbit. We’ve added elements to the page, which amounted to a boost for a number of terms without affecting any of the others negatively. We’ve made it to the bottom of page 1 from the middle or bottom of page 2 for many keywords. That’s the difference between life and death for our business.

We haven’t seen any negative or positive changes in user engagement, but we have seen an uptick in the time spent on pages. It’s probably too soon to make a conclusion, but it’s a good leading indicator. The additions created a better UX and keep people on the page for longer, but these are still early results. We’ve seen no negative user behavior and have an uptick in SEO, which was our original goal.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily worked with Andy, who led the whole conversation. We traveled to Chicago to meet him once every 2 months for the last year. Most of our visits have been around the work I discussed, but he’s clarified other major overhauls around strategy in person.

What did you find most impressive about Orbit Media Studios?

I appreciated the accessibility of Orbit’s leadership. Their generosity and openness made us feel that we partnered with the right people. It’s rare to find someone who can build a business solution who actually has business sense.

I don’t think I’ll ever go to anyone else for web development because I feel that Orbit will lead us to the best product that can serve a business function. I’ve worked with too many designers who are proud of their work from an artistic standpoint but butted heads with us from a marketing standpoint because they didn’t deliver ideal designs for conversion. They excel at making professional and aesthetically pleasing designs that drive conversions. They merge business and technology perfectly.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Orbit Media Studios?

Before starting an engagement with Orbit, try to learn about SEO and user engagement from the team so you can engage in the conversation and understand the value being provided. Any software shop can build an online business card, but driving business is the hard part. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of finance for Swift Passport and Visa Services, which is an innovative US Passport and international travel visa expediting service. We turn the often complicated and daunting passport and visa application process into a refreshingly simple and hassle-free experience.

I’m the technology specialist that keeps Swift ahead of the curve with our state of the art CRM and tracking system that allows us to manage thousands of documents at once without letting anything slip through the cracks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

We were faced with a challenge to keep up with some of the bigger competitors in our space. They all had multivariate websites where a user could choose what country they held a passport from, what state they lived in, and what type of inter-nation travel they were doing. Once all those factors are selected, a unique set of instructions comes up on their website. After that is all said and done, a user is able to check out on the website like any standard e-commerce platform.

In order to compete with that, we needed to find a developer that could produce exactly the same thing for us. The results of us launching this type of technology would eventually see a dramatic increase in revenue across the board for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The goals of the project with Orbit were to engage visitors, convert visitors into paying customers, create a payment integration with secure checkout and a responsive web design, integrate with Salesforce and FedEx software, increase blog traffic on WordPress, and manage the site and its results. We also needed to provide a functionality that displayed proper instructions for our services based on 4 different factors.

Orbit specifically conducted research, analysis, and provided recommendations. They updated the website, created a custom content management system software, and monitor results, while also providing hosting.

I had a project manager and a developer that I worked with. We’ve had continual projects since then. The size of the team changes depending on the project, but they’re good at having one point of contact; I also had contact with a developer at times.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

Orbit had been on our radar as a potential choice to develop our new site for a couple of years. They have a solid, positive presence in Chicago's web/tech scene. We decided on Orbit because of their solid reputation and their sincere desire to help turn us into the website and e-commerce solution we wanted to be. They are the premier web development company in Chicago.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project duration was from May to September 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since working with them, the search engine optimization results have been phenomenal. We have almost triple the amount of traffic than before.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was outstanding. I had weekly contact with them, but they’re in constant communication through their project portal where they could post questions. As far as vendors go, I would say they’re the best vendor that I’ve ever worked with. They’re very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about Orbit Media Studios?

When Orbit takes on a client, they make you part of their family. To this day we still feel like they are an offshoot of our company. They provide many resources to existing and potential clients. Working with them on this project and other projects has always been an absolute pleasure. Everyone that I have run into has been so easy to work with and they've fully delivered everything agreed upon and more.

They constantly strive to make your website and business a success and offer free seminars and the best advice. They are generous with their vast knowledge and are always there when you need them.

Are there any areas Orbit Media Studios could improve?

The project was a website overhaul and the only issue was some miscommunication about the scope — the project needed more time than they estimated. Since that project, I haven’t run into that issue again.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Orbit Media Studios?

Of all the vendors our company works with, these guys are by far the best. They provide quality work and creative ideas. If you are considering them, look no further, they don't get any better than this.

BACKGROUND

I’m the CMO of Bostrom, an association management company offering comprehensive management, consulting, and outsourcing to the nonprofit community. For over 80 years, Bostrom has provided associations with the solutions they need to grow, stabilize, redirect, consolidate, and meet challenges. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

A client of ours, The Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM), had embarked on a new branding and digital presence overhaul. I’m the senior advisor to AAAM at our company, so we selected Orbit through an RFP process as their web development partner. AAAM is a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to saving lives and eliminating road traffic injuries through scientific research, authoritative educational programs, public policy recommendations, and the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) coding, training, and certification.

Along with a new branding strategy and integrated database, the AAAM website needed to convey the value of the association to all of its constituents and articulate distinct goals for member recruitment, AIS education, engagement, and awareness. The 60-year-old association has done incredible work in road traffic safety but needed to modernize its systems and strategies for a global, mobile world. 

SOLUTION

We created and sent a detailed RFP for the project to 6 firms, which we vetted with a committee. Orbit's content marketing skills and SEO [search engine optimization] knowledge made them a clear frontrunner from the start.

In this 6-month project, Orbit incorporated the new brand strategy, integrated the AAAM’s new database system, and built a digital presence to meet distinct business goals. Our clients have limited resources, so we needed to get the site design, usability, and content right from the beginning. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Because Orbit took the time to learn about AAAM’s goals, key content areas, and strategy, they were able to build a site that’s nearly doubled monthly users and increased the newsletter subscriber base by 50%. We’ve also witnessed a recent impact in areas such as membership, conference registration, and training.

Orbit explained every step of the process. I always knew where the project stood and how to keep things moving. They are a great web design and development partner with strong content marketing savvy. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing analytics guru as well as the website manager for a company called Jellyvision — the makers of ALEX — a benefits communication software sold to HR departments at companies nationwide.

In addition to pulling data from Salesforce and understanding marketing channel performance, I help keep the website up and running and track our traffic to ensure we are meeting our goals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Orbit Media Studios?

When we first started to venture out into inbound marketing, we did not have a website that supported lead generation. With that issue in mind, we set out to choose an agency that could help us rebuild our entire website from the ground up, as well as import the current website content over.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There was a 5-person team on Orbit’s side, which to my knowledge, remained constant throughout the course of the project. I had one main point of contact with whom I interacted daily.

The entire project was very neatly managed by our project manager at Orbit Media Studios. They managed all the design and build. They were always there to answer all our questions, kept both their team and mine on track, and never fell behind schedule. They even trained my entire team on how to use the WordPress system they set up for us. It was incredible.

How did you come to work with Orbit Media Studios?

I wasn’t a part of this process. One of the deciding factors was that Orbit was a local company and we like to support local shops. They also had an excellent portfolio of work and the people that pitched us the project were very knowledgeable and kind. They had a very reasonable price for what we wanted as well.

What is the status of this engagement?

The overall project took around 7 months start to finish, which seems incredibly fast thinking about all that went into it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Quickly after the launch of our new website, we saw our traffic drastically increase. In the first year we saw traffic growth rates well over 150% and were meeting and exceeding our traffic, download, and form fill goals that supported our overall lead generation and aggressive sales goals.

The site performs really well — we couldn't have asked for anything more. The scope and deliverables were completed as we signed for, within budget and on time. We got such a wonderful looking website that gives us all the leads we need.

How did Orbit Media Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Orbit was always over the top whenever I needed help. They were quick to answer any support tickets and I could call or email that at any time. Knowing they are always there for me even after our project has wrapped up is amazing.

What did you find most impressive about Orbit Media Studios?

I appreciated how organized they were. They kept the project on track regardless of what was thrown at them. Orbit Media was personally helpful in getting the site up and running and in training the team.

Are there any areas Orbit Media Studios could improve?

No.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Orbit Media Studios?

Orbit is really a great company to work with. They have a great group of designers, programmers, and project managers, and even invoicing is easy and pleasant! I would recommend them to anyone who asks.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

I work for a consulting firm in Chicago called LaMarsh Global. We do change management consulting, so we do a lot of project implementation work. Any change that a company is going through, they need to get their people on board with the change, and they need to do it quickly and efficiently. We help with that strategy. As a part of that, we also offer training to build those same skills into leaders of organizations, so that they can take that and build internal capability.

What is your role and responsibilities?

My role is a brand manager. I handle all of our digital marketing, our inbound marketing efforts, and the content marketing development. In addition, I also handle brand alignment across all products and services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Orbit Media Studios?

We desperately needed to revamp our online presence and bring all of our communication technologies into 2014. We really wanted an advanced website with a lot of capabilities. We had done some content marketing through HubSpot, but we wanted to bring it all into our own servers, our own platforms, and with our own WordPress content management system. Another piece to that project was that we wanted to create a tool to let users educate themselves about our consulting services and our company, in addition to our training curriculum. This way they would be able to sign up for events, pay, and register online. Orbit Media Studios helped us answer all those questions.

SOLUTION

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

I would say more than $50,000, but not more than $200,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

I will definitely be keeping them in mind for future work because they did such a great job with this piece. It helped that I was educated enough to understand everything that they were doing, so that helped to move everything along quickly. We at LaMarsh definitely feel comfortable keeping this relationship going, and we’ll definitely contract with them if we need any updates to the site throughout the year.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Their own marketing strategies and visual branding—I trust people that have done it for themselves. They are established, and they do a good job of making that known. After the first time I spoke to their CEO, he sent me a free book about digital marketing to help educate myself about the benefits of digital marketing and it was helpful.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

I think they could be a little more upfront with how much of an effort it is to create content for a website. I don’t think a lot of small business consumers are really educated on how websites work and where this marketing content comes from. I guess I was looking for a little more support, or a little more guidance on where to get those resources.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

The company is Bottleneck Management, and we own and operate seven bars and restaurants here in Chicago. We opened one recently in Oakbrook, Ill., and we’re expanding nationwide to the Washington, D.C. area next year.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the marketing director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Orbit Media Studios?

What we were really striving for was a content management system [CMS], which Orbit Media provided a custom solution for us. We wanted to have complete control of the content that would be on our websites as well as user experience. Our goal was to figure out how we could lay this out in a way that would give our guests the information they needed as quickly as possible, with an elegant look to the design, and just a really robust Web presence that we could control on our end.

The challenge we were facing is that our websites were all outdated. We had a developer create them years ago, and he used a lot of Flash, and we didn’t have any sort of CMS. We were not able to manage any of the content on our websites. We just needed a complete overhaul.

Another goal of ours was to find a way to interconnect all of our restaurants. Bottleneck Management is a management company that owns all of these different restaurants, but they’re each individually branded. In the Chicago market, there are a lot of restaurant groups that are just like us, where it’s a management company, and they have a lot of brands under one umbrella. We wanted to find a way to cross-promote. If a guest likes one of our restaurants, it’s safe to assume that they might like another. We wanted to bring that presence to the forefront on the Web, working with Orbit we found a way to have a site that offers that functionality and that cross promotion.  

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Orbit Media Studios with which to work?

We spent a couple months researching a ton of different websites in our competitor set, and we were creating a master list of what we came across that we liked, what we would want to see on our own sites, and what we wanted to avoid. We wanted to be able to go to any firm fully prepared with a list of thought out ideas, and come into it with a clear picture of what we wanted when we were requesting quotes.

We probably had about five companies or so that we researched online, that we thought would be more than capable of doing the work. We spanned everything from a two-person startup to a large-scale firm, and Orbit fell, size-wise, in the middle of that. We interviewed all five companies. They were able to present how they would accomplish the work. Obviously, they went above pricing and then what was included with their services. The two-person startup, these guys were really great artists, they could really deliver visually, they could absolutely build us a website that would function the way we wanted, and we had confidence in that. We felt similarly about the functionality large firms could offer.

Orbit really stood out because they have a digital marketing component built into every site that they design for clients. They have that marketing component at the forefront of their mind. At this point, it became a comparison of apples and oranges for us in this process, in the fact that Orbit offered a solution above and beyond just building a functional website. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

We first engaged Orbit to overhaul all of our sites, this included a site for the management company, and then we had six different branded websites that we would need to reside under the Bottleneck Management umbrella. So, right off the bat, Orbit built seven sites for us. That initial investment was around $60,000. Then changes to functionality within particular sites have been less than $10,000.

What were the results of the project?

The partnership has been ongoing since the day we started working with them, which is so wonderful. If we have updates to our sites that we need, we can plug into their support, and they will issue a ticket to a developer right away. We have a relationship manager at Orbit who is in touch if we have questions about our Google Analytics, how our sites are performing, whether a certain page is being viewed, or whether a certain image is as important as we think it is. They’re happy to discuss our Web traffic, anything that might seem amiss, or something that we should pay attention to. This has definitely been an ongoing partnership.

In addition, we are fortunate enough to be growing as a company. Recently, we took one of the websites for a restaurant brand that we’re expanding nationally to make that site flexible with our growth. We need this site to accommodate multiple locations. We need a solution where we can put a home page out that can quickly direct users to the closest location. We posed Orbit Media Studios with the best way to accomplish that from a design perspective, and from a user experience perspective.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Orbit Media Studios offered a true partnership to help us with our digital marketing goals. They have search engine optimization and search engine marketing in mind when they build all of their sites. They offer their clients website functionality and the education to manage it, this was really what set them apart, and was what made them a no-brainer decision in our opinion.

All of our challenges were unique and new for our business. This made it fun working with Orbit because these were new challenges for them as well. Partnering with them was probably one of the best decisions we’ve made from a marketing standpoint since our inception.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Initially, we could have used a little bit more training on how to use the custom CMS. It’s a very robust tool, and for a department that is going from Flash-based sites that they cannot control, to all of sudden having the power to manipulate everything on the site – it was a big leap. It’s not that there wasn’t any training, it just wasn’t quite as in-depth as I might have expected it to be. Having said that, any time we had a question, I shot them an email, and literally within an hour I’d have a response back from support. This wasn’t a real bother for me because anything I couldn’t figure out on my own, they were always there to respond quickly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We manufacture premium sausage products, soups, chili, pickles, and deli meats.

What is your role and responsibilities?

My title is marketing coordinator. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Orbit Media Studios?

We wanted to bring our website up to date with responsive technology, which we did with their help. We also wanted to boost and bring life to our online store, which was not doing very well before. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We started from square one. Orbit Media Studios completely redesigned our site they gave us different choices on designs, with their design team, and then they built a complicated shopping cart so we could offer options to our customers. There are 186 pages on content that had to be filled for our website. Then they educated us, which is a huge part of the service they provided us.

We have the ability to manipulate the website ourselves. Instead of emailing somebody asking them to change something on the site and then paying for 20 hours of work, our staff knows how to run it from the back-end. They built it, they designed it, and they taught us how to maintain it. We still work with them continuously to keep it updated, and not fall behind with technology, which is something that we wanted.

What was your process for selecting Orbit Media with which to work?

Our president went and started looking himself. He personally interviewed about 12 or 13 companies, and then brought three companies that he chose to the marketing team. We picked who we liked. Orbit ended up being his favorite as well, but he let us choose. They were so enthusiastic about working with us, and just really excited. It was almost contagious, so we went with them. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

I can tell you that for the initial building of the website and launching of it, we spent 30 percent of our marketing budget for the year. But, as far as what we spend in the future, I mean it’s just a constant maintenance cost depending on what we want to do.

What were the results of the project?

[The] project is ongoing, with Orbit providing updates as needed.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

So much sets Orbit Media Studios apart from the other people that I’ve worked with. The team that we work with, they tailor their service to our needs, and make sure that all the personalities mesh well. They’re very hands on. We know them very well, we know how they work, and they know how we work. Their enthusiasm is really good. Their talent is crazy. Andy Crestodina, who is one of the owners at Orbit, is so brilliant, and just leads that company in such a great way. Their design team [leader], Kurt Cruse, did the design for Vienna’s website. They’re just brilliant.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Literally, no. There’s nothing that they could have improved upon. I have nothing bad to say about them. We couldn’t be happier with Orbit Media Studios.