ArtDriver

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a volunteer leader at SCIP, a nonprofit that serves construction specifiers. Our full name is Specification Consultants in Independent Practice.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ArtDriver?

We didn’t possess the in-house talent to improve our outdated website. We needed a new and customized site with a searchable member database.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They created a sample design based on the sketches, mock-ups, and images we supplied as examples. They then built the site after we approved their proposal. They reconfigured our old database to improve its “Find the Specifier” feature, and they fully integrated it with our site for single-password access for our members.

What is the team composition?

We had one main point of contact; his staff sent occasional procedural emails.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in March 2017 and ended in January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site energized interest among stakeholders and previously inactive members.

How did ArtDriver perform from a project management standpoint?

They patiently accommodate our scheduling issues with a volunteer team. We communicated via email and desktop share meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They recommended the most effective methods for meeting our set goals. They worked quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a few miscommunications. However, their team resolved these problems in a responsive manner.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To avoid miscommunication, use desktop share (video-conference) and notes on progress images to explain goals.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

I work for Complete Discovery Source, also known as CDS or CDS Federal. We are an e-discovery company. That’s electronic discovery for the handling of data for corporations, or as represented by law firms, that is being culled as evidence from corporations in lawsuits or investigations. We handle all of the electronic data in the legal process.

What is your position?

I’m the head of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you began the relationship with ArtDriver?

Probably two and a half years ago, I came onboard, and most of the company’s marketing really was with existing client circles. We were going to start pushing our work for outbound marketing to new contacts and such. One of the components of that marketing initiative was creating a new website. We worked with ArtDriver to build that new site.

They actually built a website within WordPress. We’ve been using this website and a couple of microsites spun off that for the last two years. They’re also supporting that process. Even as we’re making most of our own changes, there’s a lot of things that we need extra help for, things that are a little over our heads. They do everything from formatting Web pages to doing backend programming for us.

SOLUTION

Had you already decided upon a content management system prior to engaging ArtDriver or were they part of the selection process?

We had some notion that WordPress was the CMS that we were interested in, but I don’t think we had made that final decision. We definitely researched a couple of different systems that we wanted to test or investigate. ArtDriver was helpful in selecting WordPress. They’ve been great with providing strategic insights.

How did you select ArtDriver as your solution partner for this endeavor?

We’re not a huge corporation. We have 200 people. My marketing department only has four full-time staff. We didn’t really distribute formal statements of work. If I remember correctly, we did some online research for WordPress developers, and they were one of a handful to come up. I contacted them, and we discussed the project and what our goals were. They had some pretty keen recommendations, and I felt confident that they could handle our work.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this project in monetary terms?

The initial site might have cost between $9,000 and $12,000. We had other projects in progress alongside of that one, too. I believe our website expenditure for that year was around $20,000.

When was the site deployed?

It was deployed in late 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback you’ve received that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

Before we built the site that was directed toward outside marketing, we were getting site visits probably in the double digits. Now, we get several hundred visitors a day. That doesn’t sound like a lot for some industries, but we’re a very specific-niche industry, B2B [business to business]. Having 200 people coming to our site is probably the equivalent of 5,000 to 10,000 people coming to a commercial retail or a consumer site. We’ve been very impressed with the growth we’ve seen thus far.

When working with ArtDriver, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about their approach or development method that distinguishes them from other vendors?

I think we were always aware of the fact that they are kind of a virtual office. They have a leadership presence here, but their development teams are somewhere offshore, doing the programming in isolated sprints. That setup, because they’re really less of a brick-and-mortar type of operation, they’re so fast, and they’re able to do things so efficiently. That’s one of the core reasons why we use them. They’re leadership is very reasonable and very capable, and the offshore development teams are really top-notch.

In retrospect, are there areas you think they could improve on as a service provider?

No. I don’t think so. The time zone difference was difficult to get accustomed to in the beginning, but now our workflow is fine. They’ve always been on time with our deliverables, and their project managers are in constant contact with us. We’re always very well informed as to what is going on with our project, what the status is, where in the pipeline we are, and what the estimated times to completion are.