Werkbot Studios

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Flexcut Tool Company in Erie, PA designs and manufactures high-quality wood carving tools, carving knives, gouges, and chisels for hand or power carving. I am Flexcut's Customer Service Specialist and in my role I wear many hats including helping manage the web design and social media projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Werkbot Studios?

Website redesign, social media marketing optimization, and management.

What were your goals for this project?

Increased qualified traffic to the website, improved online sales, increased reach on social media platforms, improved brand awareness, increased likes to the Facebook page, build an Instagram following.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Referral through an ad agency (print).

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

1. Create a visually appealing design that differentiates Flexcut from other similar companies. 2. Develop a website that can be easily edited to accommodate business growth and change. 3. Use best practices when setting up on-page SEO. 4. Organize content intuitively and highlight important pages on the website with calls-to-action. 5. Design the site to be responsive so it can be viewed from PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

What was the team composition?

Brian Amick (Creative Director), Jay Richardson (Lead Developer), Katie Fish (Account Manager), and Laura Bell (Art Director).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Through the redesign, we were able to increase the site’s efficiency and reduce the bounce rate to 45.21%. Organic traffic to the site increased from less than 50% to 65% as of July 2019. Most importantly, the company saw an increase in sales by more than 30% the year the site launched.

Organic Traffic: We saw a huge increase in organic traffic to the site. Only six months post-launch, organic search traffic accounted for more than half of the website traffic, when most websites typically see direct traffic being their largest chunk of visitors. During its first peak sales season, the company saw an increase in organic search traffic of 141%.

Social Media: Through a combination of social media advertising, consistent posting of great content, the creation of some incredible giveaways, and a concerted effort to work with some amazing Instagram influencers, we grew a brand new Instagram page with no followers to nearly 6,000 in just over a year and a half, and took the Facebook from 1,500 followers to nearly 9,000 in the same timeframe.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everyone at Werkbot is really easy to work with and get along with. I'm sure not many people would expect the process of redesigning a website to be easy or even fun, but this one totally was. 

Werkbot responds to my emails immediately.  We regularly set up face-to-face meetings and they really took the time to understand our company goals and our voice. I've never met such easy people to work with. There is no one else I want as my marketing partner.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They really have their processes nailed down. I also really liked that everything was done in-house, from photography and videography to all the coding and website development. Nothing was outsourced and that was really important to us. Not just in terms of quality of work but communication as well.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior VP of marketing and sales for Marquette Savings Bank.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Werkbot Studios?

We needed to do a complete rebuild our website, work with SEO, as well as convert over to a mobile-friendly platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Werkbot Studios developed our website, which entailed a complete design of about 110 pages at the time, on a user-friendly CMS called SilverStripe. Their team designed the whole platform, making it more engaging and conducive to our digital marketing efforts. They completely revamped our whole SEO process, making our platform mobile-friendly.

Their team also worked closely to provide complete training on the CMS, which enabled our team to bring inside any editing or updates we needed for specific pages. They supported the creation of new pages and landing pages as well. Now, Werkbot Studios is working with us on Google Ads, along with our Facebook campaigns. They’ve developed a dashboard that integrates all of our measures across the board.

What is the team composition?

We work with Luke (Account Manager, Werkbot Studios), who is our primary contact. Behind the scenes, there are at least two programmers. On a day to day basis, we work with one person, but depending on the project, there can be two to three. They have a copywriter who we occasionally bring in, and we have access to the principal as well.

How did you come to work with Werkbot Studios?

We’ve known about Werkbot Studios for a number of years. When I first came here four years ago, the website was only a few months old but outdated. Along with not being mobile-friendly or responsive, it was written like an online brochure. We started discussions with Werkbot Studios. After getting into the design concept and what we wanted to achieve, they came back with variations and thoughts on how it would come together. We went into a writing process from there, mapping everything out.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve invested between $25,000–$30,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Werkbot Studios began in June 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Werkbot Studios had us up and running in five to six months. We’ve received a great response on the site. As we’re in the banking industry, it’s important for us to have an accessible website. Our commitment to Werkbot Studios goes on as we’re looking at a constant evolution of the website. We’re consistently working on optimizing the platform for our digital marketing efforts.

We use a service called Siteimprove, which provides guidance and validation of different measures on our site. We were also challenged with ABA compliance. Siteimprove measures digital certainty, quality assurance, and accessibility, as well as SEO. We’re consistently scoring well into the 90s on all of those measures. In comparison to industry standards, others in the industry score 68.9% when it comes to accessibility measures, and we’re scoring at 95%. Others in the industry are scoring 78% when it comes to SEO, while we’re scoring at 93.3%.

Werkbot Studios is well above the industry standards in performance factors. Accessibility is especially important to us because we’re accountable to the board. Our bounce rate dropped dramatically, going from 60%–70% to 25%–30%. We’ve been happy with that.

How did Werkbot Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Usually every other day, we’re in contact with Werkbot Studios. We engage with Luke over any web updates or changes to the dashboard. Their team is exceptionally responsive, documenting every change that’s made. They provide us a report of what’s discussed each meeting. I couldn’t be happier with that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been most impressed with their collaboration and technical expertise. I couldn’t dream of having a better partner from that standpoint. While we pushed the envelope a little bit, they had the motivation internally to get the job done. Other agencies throw out buzzwords, and that is all it is whereas the Werkbot Studios team sits down and talks on our level. We can describe what we’re trying to achieve, and we know that they’re listening.

Werkbot Studios doesn’t have preconceived notions in their heads, always trying to figure out options for achieving our goals. They look for possibilities beyond what their client’s current knowledge base allows them to imagine. While we meet on a regular basis, we could meet twice a week if we needed to, but once a quarter, we look at where we’re at, have achieved, what’s going on in the industry, and possibilities for the website.

Because the site will be in more of a constant evolution, there are certain things we can’t do with the platform based on our lack of technical expertise. If we call them, they’re extremely responsive. Normally when I have a change, it’s done within the same or next business day. I rarely ever have to wait to get anything fixed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Werkbot Studios fulfills all of my needs. Luke is on the ball, being reactive to our needs and proactive in looking at a few possibilities. Their entire team is timely and responsive, solving anything we throw at them extremely quickly. I can’t think of anything negative that’s ever happened.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients shouldn’t go into an engagement with preconceived notions. Listen and formulate a collaborative relationship with them. They’ll go the extra mile for you. Keep an open mind and ask about the possibilities because Werkbot Studios will take you there.