Soda Web Media

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a nonprofit think tank that focuses on the state's fiscal policies, and I am the director of strategic communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media?

We recently launched a new education-focused coalition and hired Soda Web Media to create our logo and branding guidelines.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a brand that was polished but not overly corporate, and that would spark thoughts around education in our state.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media?

I selected Soda Web Media because they promised to be efficient and I'd seen past strong work.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

First, I had an initial phone call with the designer to discuss the project goals and timelines. She then sent 4 designs with various motifs, color schemes, fonts and some possible usage examples. After soliciting feedback from my team, she further refined the options and sent six examples back.

I had one last option I wanted to see, so she quickly mocked it up and we went with the best option. She then built out a brand guide.

What was the team composition?

I only worked with the designer for this piece, but I know they have several other people on the team for web development, marketing and more.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The coalition members are all happy with the product, which looks clean and professional but still has the right feel for an education coalition made up of nonprofits.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Seamless! The designer was communicative and extremely easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Because I had to get the feedback of various stakeholders, I was worried we'd struggle to find a design that accommodated everyone's concerns, but the designer did an excellent job and everyone ended up satisfied! It also had a fast turnaround but they did a great job with deadlines.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Digital consultant, guided an Urban-based church through a complete digital redesign and relaunch.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media, and what were your goals?

Completely redesign the church's site, introduce new publishing processes and practices, integrate new services, and enable new digital capabilities. Our goal was to enable a more dynamic marketing presence for visitors, a more complete hub to keep members informed and engaged, and full remote participation during the 2020 Pandemic.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for a developer that was proficient on the Wordpress Platform; would bring good processes, practices, and tools to our effort, could provide design and development support, and was willing to be flexible with our project schedule.

While we couldn't have predicted just how radically our schedule and requirements changed at the onset of the pandemic, Soda Web met all of these requirements and adapted in real-time with us.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our core platform was Wordpress - which we wanted to keep. But everything else changed for our redesign. We changed hosting providers, introduced a new financial giving platform that integrated with Stripe, PayPal, and Apple/Google Pay, integrated with Vimeo and Livestream, Issu digital publishing, EventOn calendaring, and more.

This required a fair amount of CSS customization and testing. SodaWeb introduced us to new project management software, ClickUp, which made it easy to add and review tasks and progress.

All content was input and linked to Clickup via Google docs - which is what was employed for collaborative content creation. Soda Web also produce an online Design Style Guide and image/graphics library to meet all of our content needs.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with the founders, Mihai S. and Molly M.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

It was especially important that 100% of the new site was mobile adaptive - especially for online giving and event scheduling. We saw a significant gain in online giving and have receive many positive comments from our member base for the usability of our events calendar along with the rest of the site.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Soda Web maintains a "light-touch" project management approach - just enough structure to track and maintain progress for accountability - which was a good fit for us.

By using Clickup, we were able to maintain both a planned schedule for redevelopment and redesign as well as accommodate ad-hoc needs - this was especially important as we needed to accelerate our timeline to accommodate the pandemic. Clickup also allowed us to quickly build status reports for internal stakeholders.

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

Accommodating and friendly attitude, willingness to solve problems, ability to consider and present options, and genuine concern for the outcome of the final product.

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

Our relationship would've benefitted from slightly tighter administrative tracking (e.g. budget burn), but we still stayed on budget.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Co-founder in an art & entertainment company. Put the basis of the company in 2018 and since than we deliver personalised experiences to customers in a wide variety of domains. Prior to co-founding the company, gained 12 years experience in managing & delivering large scale, complex programs of work in several industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media, and what were your goals?

We hired Soda Web Media to migrate some of our websites, build-up the website CMS for a healthcare event which brought together specialists from several continents, build-up the website & CMS for the Tedx Cluj charter.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for a company that can work on flexible hours, can adapt easily to fast paced, dynamic industries that need to deliver quickly and at a great quality.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We've worked on several projects, however I'll try to summarise the work done on one my dearest projects. Using the knowledge I've built up in several companies both in developing product roadmaps, building up products and managing complex programs with several projects in parallel, decided to found a company and an NGO.

Came up with an innovative idea for the Romanian healthcare industry that would put the basis of a community and create the foundations of collaboration between healthcare and IT industry.

To that end we've discussed with several companies and trough a recommendation we got to Soda Web Media. We've started with several workshops to look at what would be the end result we are looking for.

Started working iteratively and split the work into deliverables based on the marketing strategy. Initially we've put forward a simple presentation website to test our idea on the market.

As we've moved along we've needed a responsive website that could cater easily both our desktop & mobile users. We've needed to be compliant from several perspectives, have an e-commerce ticketing system, so we can easily build-up new static and dynamic content.

Soda Web Media implemented in sprints : Simple one-pager, built up the CMS from scratch, integrated with 3rd party payments providers ,built up the GTM & GA events tracking, SEO, GDPR, requirements, created & linked our blog using PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, jQuery technologies.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

One full stack developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

A clean, easy to customise website, with minimum downtime and mean time to recovery less than 5< minutes, that runs the same way on several browsers, different screen sizes and OS's, is able to run with a minimum of 5000 concurrent users.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We've used both open source and enterprise tools, depending on the project and the flexibility required: from face 2 face meetings to Zoom calls, collaboration spaces G-suite, e-mail, Trello, Jira etc.

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

I’ve had the pleasure to collaborate with Mihai on several initiatives in the past 3 years. To start with Mihai is dedicated, upbeat and enthusiastic about what he does, and this makes any work with him an absolute joy.

During these 3 years I have seen the diligence and interest in pursuing what the customer wants . Very knowledgable fullstack developer, he is able to combine PHP,HTML,CSS, JS and JQuery, so that the end result translates into something amazing. Besides his excellent development skills, being able to cover both front-end & back-end capabilities, Mihai is a very good communicator.

One of the things that I’ve highly appreciate during our collaboration, is that he came up with several proposals and developed creative solutions to complex problems.

His creative side,coupled with strong development skills were highly appreciated when budgetary constraints limited the work on our projects, as Mihai put forward his highly creative skills and came up with great alternatives.

He presented the alternatives with both pros & cons to ensure an easy decision making process and explained everything he did in a way that even people who aren’t that tech-savvy could easily understand.

Fast learner, he easily ramped up on the projects and understood what the business was looking for and how to get to a sucessulful outcome. Although a fast learner, he is very careful to ensure that anyting he delivers works at the expected standards.

His excellent communication skills come in very handy to any of the stakeholders he is interating with, as for any risks identified during the project, he has a mitigation plan. This translates into reliable plans, creates transparency and predictability not only in the in the work done, but the timeliness as well.

I whole heartedly recommend Mihai to anyone who want to work with someone who is reliable, has an excellent CAN-DO attitude and delivers excellent results.

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

None I can think of at the moment. They adapted easily to any feedback and every conversation was very solution-oriented.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Distribution Point (TDP) serves a master distributor, providing comprehensive, custom supply chain solutions for both manufacturers and resellers in the kitchen and bath industry. As the Creative and Brand Manager for TDP, I develop and implement strategies & campaigns for marketing while improving recognition for The Distribution Point and TDP-owned brands. Responsibilities include setting brand standards, improving each brand’s reach, creating go-to market strategies to build customer loyalty, and establishing a robust social media presence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media LLC., and what were your goals?

Our company website, although only three years old, was seriously lacking in functionality and content. It had been hastily thrown together and needed a complete overhaul.

We totally reimagined how we wanted our website to look and function, creating high fidelity wireframes to communicate the look and feel we were going for. Soda Web Media was hired for their expertise and quality of work.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media LLC. and what were the deciding factors?

I reached out to one of the principals of Soda Web Media. I had worked with him in the past at another company and had been impressed with his level of skill and ability. One of the main factors for selecting Soda Web Media was the level of skill, their ability to integrate critical online software, and the fact that I was able to retain creative control over the design.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We contracted with them to build the website to our specifications, using WordPress as a recommended platform. We also wanted the site to be integrated with Hubspot and our social media platforms.

We had a kick-off meeting where we discussed the scope of the project and handed off our high fidelity wireframes and site map. We had agreed that WordPress was the best platform for this particular site and that we wanted to be able update and modify the site as needed in the future.

Soda Web Media built our template from the ground up, creating easy-to-use widgets that gave us the flexibility to make changes and updates. 

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with Mihai Slujitoru, one of the principals of Soda Web Media. He fulfilled the role of both project manager and technical expert, fixing issues and advising us along the way.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

After launching our site, we've doubled our level of engagement and have seen a 60% increase in traffic. Internally, our customer experience and inside sales team have remarked on how much easier this site is to navigate.

The site was also integrated with Hubspot, allowing us to beef up our inbound marketing efforts. The site was built within six weeks, start to finish. We were able to launch our site with a week to spare on February 1, 2021.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We had weekly meetings to discuss the project status and used ClickUp as our primary form of communication for project management issues including design changes, bugs and migration.

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

They offered us a completely customized solution at an impressive price point. We have front end designers that work for us, so we really needed back-end specialists to execute what we had created. They didn't bat an eye. The quality of the work is bar none. And if there is an issue, they follow it through till its solved.

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

Any issues we experienced during the process were resolved quickly. We never had to wonder where we were in the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Head of Marketing & Communication at SPORTS FESTIVAL one of the coolest festivals in Romania (Eastern Europe). My company organizes the event. We take all sports back to the streets and give them the flavor of a festival. A unique experience is created, with a mix of sports, entertainment, education, competition and fun.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media LLC., and what were your goals?

We hired Soda Web Media for website development and consultancy. Our website needed to be as complex as the event, but simple to understand and use.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media LLC. and what were the deciding factors?

We choose to work with them based on their skills, expertise, time efficiency and proactive solutions provided.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We discussed our needs and goals, had a few meetings. From there the team delivered mock-ups, proposed solutions and developed an Wordpress site.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager was our contact person and the collaboration was perfect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our new website has increased mobile traffic, good reviews from partners and works perfect. Also my team and editors love the solutions they have in the admin panel.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

I am very happy with the collaboration we have. They do a good project management, anticipate problems, coordinate good with webdesigner and copywriters. Good team work. We coordinated via ZOOM and live office meetings.

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

They do good project management and are good team players. We had a fluid process.

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

From my point of view, the only improvement i recommend is to just keep up with the new technologies. They do awesome job!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Digital Operations Manager at Balance Media, an online home for curious, conscious, and connected Londoners. We offer compelling insights, practical everyday tools, positive news, and witty opinion pieces brought to you by leading journalists, experts, and thought leaders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media LLC., and what were your goals?

They were responsible for improving our website and managing day-to-day technical aspects to ensure our site was optimized for speed. They also helped us with display ads to increase our revenue.

SOLUTION

How did you select Soda Web Media LLC. and what were the deciding factors?

I selected this vendor through a referral from a very happy friend who was satisfied with their services.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They worked on both front- and backend development. They optimized the website to load faster and help implement an ad management system on our website.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The team had two members. One person handled the development and the technical vision, while the other person dealt with business development and operations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

They were instrumental in turning around our website in a timely, cost-effective manner. I enjoyed working with them as they’re truly dedicated to serving clients’ needs. In terms of measurable outcomes, they manage to increase the site speed by 1090% from 11.9 seconds to one second.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

They followed an agile project management process. They were constantly looking at how they could improve our website and what could be changed in terms of technology to make it more future proof. In terms of tools, they use Trello to track stories, tasks, and bugs. We also had a weekly meeting for planning and two short meetings to communicate the latest updates.

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

The most successful vendors are willing to spend the time with their clients and are engaged. Soda Web Media listens and focuses on our mission and shows how they can help.

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

There isn’t a whole lot. They were always listening to us and made sure to improve their process as needed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a Cannabis consulting company assisting legal cannabis businesses in the USA.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media LLC.?

Though our business has been operating for many years through word of mouth, we needed a full re-design of our website and hired Soda Web Media to design and execute a new website from scratch.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a professional website that looked clean and functioned well. Additionally, since we'd be updating the site, I (a non tech savvy person) needed assistance choosing a platform that I could learn along with some guidance as to how to use the site internally so we could be somewhat self-sufficient and not rely on a developer every time we need to update something.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was referred to Soda Web Media through a friend. After seeing their prior work, and after having a quick introductory call to review goals and expectations, I knew it would be an easy process to work with them. And it was.

Describe the project in detail.

This is a simple website that functions like a business card, with the goal of educating potential clients of our experience and driving leads to contact us through the contact form. Once we sent Soda Web Media the content (photos, written content, etc.), along with a general site outline, they conceived the design and tone and created the site.

What was the team composition?

It was me and Mihai, who works for Soda Web Media. I believe he consulted with their in-house designer, but I never interacted with her.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I contacted Soda Web Media about a month ago. The project is now complete and the website is launched. The metric for success will be if we see people contacting us through the site. Although it's only been a couple days, we already have one new lead. Otherwise, everyone who's reviewed the site has been very complimentary.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very easy. I shared a Google Drive Folder with various folders and files indicating what pages I wanted and what content I wanted on each page. We had 3 Zoom meetings to review direction, edits, etc. And it's done.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Unlike other companies I've worked with, who were secretive about processes and didn't want to share how things worked, Soda Web Media was happy to teach me the product that would ultimately be mine. Their transparency gave me confidence that I was getting my money worth and wouldn't be in the dark on future costs, edits, etc.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the president and owner of Delta Coaching and Consulting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media LLC.?

As a newly formed business, I needed a website!

What were your goals for this project?

It was important that the website reflect the spirit of the services I offer and the branding of my business. I wanted it to be user-friendly and interactive.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I knew Molly (Co-Founder, Soda Web Media) as she is a family friend.

Describe the project in detail.

Molly and her business partner Mihai (Principal, Soda Web Media) met with me on multiple occasions to talk about the design and implementation process. They gave me an outline that I could fill with my content, and they guided me on which material to produce.

The scope of the work included developing the logo and the site visuals. Along the way, they provided suggestions about other features we could implement such as testimonials, a place to post photos, and a call to action.

Today, they continue to provide monthly services as the host of my website. They make sure that all the necessary WordPress updates are implemented.

What was the team composition?

Molly is the creative designer and Mihai is the technical developer. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

My website looks amazing. I appreciate that the team was able to capture the spirit of my business aspirations. They developed an understanding of my vision through frequent dialogue.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was easy. They provided an outline of needed content, and I was able to write and then bring the content back for feedback. Multiple iterations brought us to a point of launching the site. Since then, I have updated the content on my own using training provided by Mihai.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Molly and Mihai care about the project’s success. Their work ethic is impeccable. They were flexible to meet with me when I was available. Yet, they also kept me accountable to stay on task. They are creative, resourceful, and informative. I learned so much through the process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are no areas for improvement!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing of a consumer products company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are used clothing distributor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Soda Web Media to accomplish?

• Launch 2 ecommerce websites

SOLUTION

How did you find Soda Web Media?

Referral

Why did you select Soda Web Media over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Other

How many teammates from Soda Web Media were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Mihai and his team designed & developed 2 Shopify websites for our used clothing & toys store. The deliverables were 2 custom designed ecommerce stores followed by advertisements created on google ads.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Websites were launched within our specified timeline.

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

Yes, very proactive on our requests.

What was your primary form of communication with Soda Web Media?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They were easy to work with and very knowledgeable.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Soda Web Media could have done differently?

They did a great job

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Online retailer selling handmade goods. I am the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soda Web Media, and what were your goals?

I needed to launch my website and hired Soda Web Media to help me create and publish the website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I selected this vendor because they have experience working with small companies. They are also a smaller company and knew I would get the attention and communication I was looking for.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

I spoke to Mihai at Soda Web Media about the key aspects I was looking for for the website. He walked me through the different hosting services I can use, and the different plans offered by those hosting services. I decided to proceed with Shopify. From there, Mihai took over and created the site based on my requirements. Added the pictures and information I have provided him, and had my website ready to publish in no time.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I mainly communicated with Mihai. He is the founder of Web Media Services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I used to previously sell my items on different selling platforms. Selling platforms charge a fee for their services— typically between 10%-20%. Once I launched my own website, I was able to save a considerable amount of money on each sale by not having to pay the fee. I was also able to link my website to my social media accounts, which in turn has brought more traffic to the website and business.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had check-in calls every couple of days. Mihai would reach out either via email or phone in case he had any questions or needed to verify some of the info I provided.

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

We were impressed with their attentiveness, knowledge, and dedication to the project.

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

Nothing at all! Working with Soda Web Media has been such an easy process, and it went extremely smoothly. Exceeded my expectations!