Redweb

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We’re based out of West London. Our primary goal is to get more people playing tennis more often. We do this through a variety of means, like participation programs to get people on the court, through major events to get people interested and excited about tennis, and through our existing membership program, which provides people with a ranking so that they can compete.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I’m the head of digital services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal in working with Redweb?

We wanted Redweb to create a consumer-oriented website. Our old site was too much focused on the organization itself. It was an encyclopedia of information with more than 65,000 pages, which made for a very confusing experience for the customer. The remake was really to create a more customer-driven website, one that was much more intuitive and much more appealing to the infrequent tennis player, someone who might only play once or twice a year. We wanted to provide them with better information on how they can get out on the court and get more involved in tennis.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Redweb was tasked with the actual digital build of the website. But, in addition, they developed a large number of user stories. They fleshed out what common sequences a player, fan, coach, or official might go through on the website. They did a piece about how people reacted to the existing brand, what they liked, what they didn’t like and what they felt was reflective of tennis in Britain. During the last 12 months, they have carried out some search and pay-per-click work for us as well, which supported what they had been doing with the website from a technical perspective.

What was your process in selecting Red Web with which to work?

I can’t provide too much detail here, because the first day I joined was actually our kickoff meeting with Redweb. With all of our tender processes, we would have put out an RFP [request for proposal] to various providers who would have been invited to tender, and from a list of probably four or five, we would have chosen one based on a variety of factors, including price, capacity, and experience with large-scale projects. Then we would have gone through an orientation and planning process with them.

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

We’ve spent something in the region of £230,000 [approximately $340,000] working with Redweb.

When did you start working with Redweb, and are you still currently working with them?

Our relationship with Redweb started in November or December of 2013. Even though the code was handed over to us around August or September, we’ve been liaising with them on an ongoing basis to ensure a smooth transition. We have a support contract with them to deal with any bugs or needed tweaks. We’ve also tasked them with a search campaign relating to the launch, and we’re doing some analytics work with them at the moment to flesh out measures of success and key areas of opportunity. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics, metrics, or general feedback from the project?

Overall feedback has been very positive. From a management perspective, the project was seamless from start to finish. We had one or two challenges, which you would expect with any kind of project like this. We needed to make sure there was a tight integration with our CRM [customer relationship management] system, making sure the framework and platform fit the purpose. From my side, which is marketing, it was a really positive process. I think the technical team would agree with that.

There was excellent transparency throughout the project. We had regular project meetings, we had a specific project manager, and we spent a number of workshop sessions actually on site in our offices. Redweb came up to us in London a couple of times as well. It’s been a pretty positive process thus far.

In terms of pure metrics, I can only comment on the performance we’ve seen from the website since we went live, and I think a lot of that is due to the actual content we’ve created. Our website user base is made up of very dedicated people who come back on a daily basis. Approximately 50 percent of them visit the site daily and almost everyone visits it weekly. Our users have a strong vested interest in our organization. I think with the introduction of any new website, long-term users will have a few grumbles around the navigation, which we, of course, are addressing.

The responsive nature of the site, the branding, and the look and feel have all been very positively received. We’ve seen a nice increase in traffic from search engines and an overall increase in page views and users visiting the site.

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

Redweb is as much a creative agency as a digital agency. They were pretty open and flexible to suggestions from both sides, and I felt they challenged us. When we challenged them, they were happy to counter challenge and had some good ideas around what we could do to increase engagement with the infrequent or less active player. I think being challenged by an agency is quite nice rather than them just doing whatever it is we were asking of them.

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?

From my perspective, a little bit more support and recognition around the launch phase would have been helpful. The code handover was done a few months before we went live, but a few people on the project team commented on a lack of support around the launch period, which I think we’ve been quite transparent about. There wasn’t really any communication from Redweb around the launch date, like asking how the site is doing or asking for feedback about how the launch was going.

What advice would you have for future clients of Redweb?

Be sure that when you go to an agency you have a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve as a business and what your objectives are.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We’re a tour operator specializing in European luxury escorted vacations. We operate globally, but Australia, Canada and the United States are our largest markets.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I am the director of digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal in working with Redweb?

There were three unique phases for our work with them. During the first phase, Redweb took control of our existing website, providing maintenance and support. This helped us decouple our site from our internal shared group IT [information technology]. During the second phase, they refreshed our site, making a number of cosmetic changes. They also cleaned up some of our existing code. While all this was happening, Redweb was building a completely new site, which was phase three of the project.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

During the third phase, which was, of course, the largest, Redweb did everything from planning through building. They looked at all of our key stakeholders, and all of our existing integrations, in order to maintain those connections. Coupled with that, Redweb was responsible for the UX [user experience] design, issues of usability and the technical requirements.

One thing that was not part of our original vision was that Redweb became responsible for the hosting environment. We actually challenged them by changing our hosting environment about two months before launch. We had to change our deployment and testing plans at the last hour. Redweb also had to work closely with our internal IT [information technology] teams to maintain both connections and interactivity with all of our back-end systems. A lot of those are legacy technologies we still needed to support, maintaining those APIs [application programming interfaces] and connections.

What was your process for selecting Redweb with which to work?

Our preferred CMS [content management system] was Sitecore, so during the RFP [request for proposal] process, we actually went out to preferred partners within Sitecore’s network. We narrowed our initial choices down to five – three in the U.K. and two in North America. At the time, our Web team was U.K. based, so that played an important part in our decision making. We finally narrowed our choices down to two. Our IT teams met with both finalists to make sure they had a full understanding of the technical requirements of the project. We selected Redweb based on their previous experience. We felt that they fit nicely with our business and our brand.

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

We have spent between £200,000 and £500,000 [approximately $300,000 and $745,000] working with Redweb.

What was the timeline of the project?

It’s been a long project due to the nature of our business. The RFP was sent out in early 2013. We selected Redweb by March of that year, and they began on the first phase of the project, which took about three to four months.

The second phase was delivered on schedule; however, by the time we were ready to deploy that site refresh, we had experienced some transitions on our team, and we were in the middle of our busy season. Because of both of these factors, we didn’t deploy the refreshed site until November [2013].

The requirements for phase three were kind of evolving, and the sign off from key stakeholders took a lot longer than expected. During that phase of the project, we restructured our team and moved it physically from the U.K. to Toronto, which had an impact on the project. We lost about two months there. So, instead of deploying in June [2014], we ended up deploying in early September.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics, metrics, or general feedback from the project in terms of how Redweb performed?

We’re quite happy with the results of the project. One of our sister brands selected them for their new site, which was deployed last November. So, that shows the confidence we had in them since we were happy to recommend them to one of our sister brands. Overall, they’ve responded in a timely fashion to any bugs or post-launch problems, making sure those were covered.

We’re seeing increased brochure requests and increased key conversion points compared to last year. With the new system in place, we’re in a position to get more into A/B testing and the design of the new landing page, which was one of our constraints with the old technology. That’s where our biggest changes are. The new site is letting us change our methodology and culture within the team, and build on the success of what Redweb delivered. We’ve made changes to our forms based on drop-off rates, and we’ve been able to run a lot more A/B tests than in the past. That’s been one of the biggest outcomes directly related to the delivery of the new project.

As far as metrics goes, we’ve seen a 12 to 18 percent increase in conversions since modifying the forms. We’ve also been able to reduce the drop off rate by another 3 to 5 percent.

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

The quality of the team members we’ve worked with was outstanding. Everyone from the project manager to the developers were all very personally invested in our project and made an effort to understand the requirements of our business. They developed a really good understanding of our business as well as the political nature of how some of decisions are made in this organization. I think they were a good fit for our brand as well as for our sister brand. We've recently recommended them for yet another of our sister companies for an upcoming transition to Sitecore. So, all in all, we’ve been quite happy with our relationship with Redweb.

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?

The support was a logistical challenge, which changed midway through the project. They seem to have adapted to that change in terms of our call and communication schedules.

What advice would you give a future client of theirs?

Be open to innovative solutions and suggestions, but also don’t be afraid to challenge what’s being presented.