Active Web Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of information systems at a company called Invite Health. We’re a vitamin chain with about 15 locations around the country. We also have a big e-commerce business, in large part due to Active Web’s due diligence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Active Web Group?

We needed SEO work, affiliate marketing, and email marketing, as well as work on our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve had a website for the 16 years I’ve been at the company. Active Web rebuilt it with a super engine and many other features.

They also manage affiliate marketing, PPC, email marketing, SEO, and organic SEO. They used to do our programming until we got an in-house programmer. He works with Active Web a lot too, which works well.

What is the team dynamic? 

I work with them every day. Each member of the team has different functions and some are a little more opinionated, some are a little less opinionated. Overall, it works really well. I tell them what I need and they find a way to accomplish it.

They’re very easy to work with so I really don’t have anything negative to say about the team dynamic. I see us continuing to work together in the future.

How did you come to work with Active Web Group?

I was working with a company for a number of years and was looking for somebody to build them a website. I met Active Web through some due diligence of searching for a web company. They did a good job so when I moved back to Invite Health, I wanted to work with them again. The website wasn’t doing the numbers I thought it could do so I brought Active Web in because I knew they could get the job done.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2009.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They helped grow our business tremendously. A lot of people talk about clicks, but if they don’t convert then they’re still nothing. Active Web brings those numbers to reality. Instead of just looking at some reports, we can actually see the currency coming in. It’s more than just theoretical.

Year after year, we’ve significantly increased our revenue from the website. We’re not going to pay a partner what we do if they’re not doing something right. We’re looking at how to even put more money into the web side of the business. That’s how good of a job they’ve been doing.

I’ve recommended them to a couple of other people who have called me. They have a good friendly staff. The entire time that we’ve been on Active Web, our site has never gone down. Their team is cohesive. Our whole staff works with their team. They’ve really become a partner in that sense.

How did Active Web Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve been a team for a long time and they’re as valuable as any other team member here. For example, we’re thinking about doing social media. We were going to hire a different company and I asked them if they knew somebody we could hire. Even though it’s not something we were giving them to do, we still value their opinion. They’re a part of the team. You have day-to-day work issues and we don’t always agree 100% but we figure out what works.

I would recommend them to my family; that’s how good I think they are relative to what they’ve done for us. However, I do impress upon them the need to explore and bring new things to the table. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their willingness to improve. They do a great job with everything we throw at them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think there’s something every company can improve on. They could probably update their email software, but other than that, it’s been a really pleasant experience.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

You don’t have to hire someone right in your neighborhood. Because of the way technology works, the world has gotten so much smaller. With Skype, Facetime, and technology as it is, you can hire somebody who’s in Georgia or wherever. The resource pool has gotten so much bigger. You need to look global for your tech needs. I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about another country but in the US we should be able to look at that footprint as a very small space.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at Steinway & Sons, a piano manufacturing company. We also have some retail stores in some bigger cities like New York and Los Angeles. I am the Senior Director of Marketing and Communications for the Americas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Active Web Group?

Our retail footprint recently expanded dramatically, especially in areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. At the same time, we were looking to do more with email because direct mail and print advertising can be very expensive, and we saw some diminishing returns in those. So basically, we were looking to expand digitally across many areas—especially e-mail. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our email has developed into something that’s really busy and not possible to manage it on my own. We had a small, in-house tech team and it was taking up a lot of their time, so they couldn’t work on other projects. We decided to bring in Active Web Group to develop an email strategy and manage that whole process. We have another external contractor involved as well with the retail advertising and marketing, but Active Web Group has taken the lead with the emails. We’re currently sending out about 150 and 200 emails a year across all of our stores. Each one needs to be of a certain high quality and go through testing and proofreading.

Active Web Group designs web banners for us and works closely with our external contractor on some other efforts like social media. They also manage our Google AdWords and work with our retail marketing team on that. They have built websites for us on a WordPress template, like our website for our charity initiative, called 88 Keys. They designed it with the goal to make it easy and efficient for people to donate money to our cause and it also gives donors some on line recognition.

 For many years, they had helped us with creating forms for all of our retail events. Basically, they would build an email which would send people to a landing page with a form in order to capture leads. These leads would connect with our back-end leads and sales system and help us manage our contacts. Each form needed to be customized and tested with details like time fields and drop-down menus, which could take a while.

With our emailing strategy, our main goals were more engagement for more leads and sales. Our return on investment has been very good with our emails, AdWords, and social media advertising, while it has been relatively lower with print. They also work with us to send out a monthly Steinway e-newsletter, which isn’t attached to specific retail stores, so it’s slightly less focused on leads and sales. Rather, it’s more related to corporate outreach, customer relations, and spreading company news. It’s sent out to about 80,000 people monthly.

What is the team dynamic?

Our main contact with emailing is Dave, who is kept very busy by us. I’m in regular touch with Dave, especially if there are any questions or issues about things like design. I’m also regularly in touch with Julie and she manages our Google AdWords efforts, which we used to do in-house. We needed to hire a separate person to manage this as our retail footprint expanded with our 14 separate stores, all with different promotions at different times and in separate locations with separate websites.

How did you come to work with Active Web Group?

We had someone in charge of our technology team at the time and he's the one who made the recommendation to hire a separate email team. He has done some work with them previously, which I don’t know the exact details about, but he’s a friend and colleague of mine, so I respect his opinion, especially when it comes to technology. As far as the AdWords go, they had been working with us for a few years already and were a trusted vendor, so we reached out to them to take over those efforts as well.

What is the status of this engagement?

I began working with them around October 2010 and it is still an ongoing engagement.

How much have you invested with them?

We have averaged at least $150,000 a year for the past seven years or so. Now we are spending over $200,000 a year with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our leads have definitely increased substantially from 2010 until now, which has been in part due to their efforts. It’s hard to know exactly what is attributed to them, but we started doing a lot of email marketing with them around that time. Once we started working with them on AdWords, our sales increased dramatically between 2010 and 2014.

How did Active Web Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They've been very good and responsive overall. There have been a fair share of emergency emails, usually relating to retail and our promotions, they have helped us scramble the jets to make it happen. While that’s not how we want to operate, the reality is that it happens and they’ve been very good with accommodating those types of situations and making things happen on short timelines. We primarily communicate via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There’s a learning curve in our industry and they have done a good job of learning and understanding our business. They have general expertise regarding the services we hired them for, but they’ve also learned a lot about our niche industry, such as competitors and piano models. Especially for Dave, he has learned enough that he can chime in on things that aren’t strictly technology-related and benefit us in other ways.

Our long business relationship with them, particularly with Dave and Julie, is a testament to their ability to keep people. I’ve worked with other agencies where it seems like you have a new person working for you every six months, which we haven’t had with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind right now. They’ve done a good job for us and any kind of recommendation I’ve had, I’ve made along the way and they have accommodated it and evolved the process. They have been flexible and focused on constantly improving our engagement and strategy.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is a distributor and manufacturer of precision gauges and measuring instruments, as well as industrial supplies. I am the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Active Web Group?

Our main challenge was growing the business through our website through SEO to gain maximum exposure from a global standpoint.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The goal was to build a web presence in our industry. A little over 10 years ago, I contacted Active Web Group and they helped revamp our website. They also helped us develop a strategy for acquiring more business through the website by adjusting our shopping cart content and by strategizing with SEO, email, PPC, and so on.

Before we started working together, the website was very static. It didn’t have any shopping cart capabilities or SEO. So I approached Active Web Group because they were in the same town. They had smart people working in various fields like design, optimization, and marketing. I was actually able to go in and sit down with them to discuss my product, business, and goals.

I don’t know the specifics, but the website was created with custom programming. I contributed the shopping cart content since I’m knowledgeable about my niche industry. They were able to take that content and maximize it for SEO, staying current as the algorithms used by search engines like Google and Yahoo changed. They made sure we remained at the top of search results related to my industry.

They have targeted over 125 words that I currently have and they’re in the process of revamping our current website into a new Magento site that will have enhanced capabilities. I have a lot of confidence in that. As far as the design goes, they are going to be implementing one-click shopping carts to replace our old school five-click tool. They also will help us handle abandoned shopping carts to remarket to existing customers.

To get to the bottom line, the most important metrics for me are my sales and revenue. We look at shopping cart orders, which they call conversions. We also look at RFQs through the website and we look at our positioning in the search results. For example, how many of our 125 key words are in the top 3 or the top 10. We also identify the really strong strategic keywords that are going to transfer into higher value conversions. We get monthly web reports from them and I’ve got complete access to their marketing department to go over their strategies and ideas.

What is the team dynamic?

We work with a group. I typically work one-on-one with one manager who is my main point of contact for all of the work. If I have a specific issue like a design change or an error in the shopping cart, I’ve got one person that I go to. I also have a manager that handles the big picture planning. I also have access to people behind the scenes who do the programming, SEO, and design, but not so much on a day-to-day basis. They’re really coordinated and they’re brick and mortar. Most stuff can be handled over the phone or via email efficiently, but it’s nice to be able to go down the road and visit them in person. If I want my site to look a certain way, they can tell me whether or not it’s going to work with SEO.

How did you come to work with Active Web Group?

I had been looking around and I liked that they were brick and mortar. I had gotten emails and cold calls from companies and some off-shore offers. I knew that the website was going to be a key integral part of my business at the time (about 10 years ago) to grow nationally and internationally. I was driving down our street one day and I saw their sign. I actually stopped in, got a business card, set up a meeting, and I liked what I saw with how accessible and well-established they were. I was very comfortable right there and I basically signed a 10-year contract to work on the website, SEO, and development.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2008 and the engagement is still ongoing.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent a significant amount of money with them every year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have the details available, but they are one of my key business components and our business has grown from roughly $1 million to $6 million in revenue over 10 years.

How did Active Web Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They're great. In certain cases, they have gotten issues fixed in days, hours, or even minutes. They are extremely responsive. When there’s an issue, one of my direct contacts Drew has been exceptional. Within seconds of me sending an email, he carries it and he’s plugged in constantly. It’s amazing—it’s almost real time. I don’t typically wait days unless it’s something complicated that I’m revamping on our site.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve got a really good organization, from the top down, and they coordinate well. Their design team, SEO team, marketing team, and upfront management all work hand-in-hand. These, along with their response time, are the keys to their success. They also stay current with the constantly changing technologies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think so. In hindsight, we could have maybe started with some more fitting computer programs than Magento, but I don’t really know what was out there at the time. I don’t think there’s anything that we would change.