Bop Design

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

It’s only been live for about two weeks, but we’ve already seen a 250% increase in weekly inbound leads. Right out of the gate, we’re already seeing much higher conversions on similar types of unique traffic to our site per week. Overall, it’s a more effective site for explaining what our services are and driving people to take action and contact us. Initially, we’re seeing very strong results, and hopefully the numbers will only increase.

How did Bop Design perform from a project management standpoint?

It was very clear; they set a project schedule from the very beginning and really adhered to it. We had the same project manager for the duration of the engagement, which was really helpful so that we could build a relationship with them. It was always very clear when things were going to be delivered and when we owed feedback. We had a weekly call on Thursday afternoons just to go through any ongoing work and check in on progress. They were really easy to communicate with and very fast in their e-mail response times. They were very polished in that regard. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The ease of working with them sets them apart. They are clearly experts in building B2B websites. They lead with a sense of authority and credibility in that regard, so when we didn't necessarily know which direction to go in, they were able to use that experience to guide us. It all stems from their extensive experience in this domain, which makes them very easy to work with and simultaneously consultative and action-oriented. They got the work done in the timeframe we needed them to.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It worked for us, but if a company is looking for a really out-of-the-box website with a lot of bells and whistles, Bop Design is probably not the place to go. However, if you’re looking for a really polished and professional B2B website that is effective at driving conversions, I couldn’t recommend them more.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have a strong sense of what you’re trying to accomplish on the site. Come to the table with ideas of what types of web pages you’re looking for on your site and what services and products you want to promote. Also, have as many inspirational websites as possible to provide as examples; they really go a long way in shaping the ultimate deliverable that you get from Bop.

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

Typically, when you launch a new website, your SEO takes a big hit but it is normal. It was an important thing to me that we knew we were going to take a hit but we needed to recover as quickly as possible for keyword positioning. It is totally normal to fall but the question is how long you stay down for. I currently track a lot of keywords and monitor them regularly each day to see if we were falling more flat or increasing.

Compared to where we were a year ago, we are up in organic search and we are starting to see the uptick. They made a website that is now working towards our SEO, and I think that as we grow as a company, it is the right website we want people visiting. They did a great job making the website SEO friendly and that is reflecting in the analytics.

How did Bop Design perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they used Basecamp. I sent a lot of emails, and I would say our most dominant form of interaction was probably email. We also had a periodic video conference. We had an internal web design team of about five members who represented different organs of the company. Then towards the end of the debugging process we used a tool called BugHerd where myself and other members of the company would go through and mark areas to fix. It has a Trello board in it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Marketing agencies are not like law firms that are accredited and have to take the bar exam which is a method of quality control. At the end of the day, a lot of people think of agencies have minimal experience, it can feel a little Wild West with agencies and any of them can say whatever they want. If you don’t know what you’re doing, a lot of them can squeeze a company for a lot of money.

When I looked at the price comparison, it was such a good value. I remember talking to one agency who said it would be a minimum of six figures which I thought was absurd. Bop Design has a lot of integrity in how they go about doing their business. That really stood out to me and I thought they really got us. They took the time to interview us and talk to the different members of our company. When they did the creative pitch and reviewed the website and went through the pages, apart from the debugging process, I felt they did such a good job executing on the vision we had. As a company, we loved our partnership with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It can feel like a risk working with a remote company especially on a web redesign and one of the advantages of the company I was thinking of choosing instead of them had at the time was that they were a lot closer to us. Where Bop Design can improve a little bit is to have some more scheduled phone call meetings. We had some of those, but it wasn’t the easiest to have a phone call just to talk about something. They were pretty fast with emails, but I think it is important to have more regular communication and if someone has a question, they can pick up the phone and call that point person for that. I wouldn’t say it was a frustration but something they could get a little better at.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to know your business. You need to know what you are doing and have someone that can do that. In my opinion and with my expertise, I think that often when a relationship goes sour between a client and the agency, I think it can often be on the client-side.

They don’t know what they are doing or don’t have realistic expectations. You need to have real reasonable goals you are trying to achieve, and you need to have an internal evangelist in that company who can argue for that. I have that individual in my company, so I knew what the company wanted, and Bop did a really great job of trying to understand that.

Especially for a lot of manufacturers or anyone is in the technical space, it isn’t really fair to expect an agency to know your business or know your profit margins the way you do. You have to approach them knowing that and give them direction and they will achieve that. I think Bop has been really great at that. They aren’t trying to constantly upsell us, and I think a lot of agencies will try to do that.

I feel a great deal of trust with Bop. I think they are totally transparent in trying to achieve your goals. They know what they are really good at and they stay with that and that is great for companies like mine.

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

 Overall, feedback has been positive, especially form employees. We’ve seen a huge improvement in the UX and how people are contacting us. We’ve also seen an uptick in traffic. We’re doing some feature evaluation, but in general, the addition of new content has helped our rankings for certain keywords.

How did Bop Design perform from a project management standpoint?

There was a lot of email communication, and they were pretty responsive. They’re good at communicating upfront about what the steps are and what’s happening to the provided timeline. As things changed, they let us know when there were issues and how it impacted deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very organized, and from the beginning, everything has been very clear. They tell me what’s going to happen and when. All of their information helped us understand what this project will look like over time. Whereas some of the other providers we talked to gave us general information, they gave us project schedules and walked us through what the process was like.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be a little more proactive on setting up calls to review things. Check-in calls, and having built-in conversations could be helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The biggest thing is following the timeline and putting in effort to making sure that it’s a partnership. You have to make sure you give them all the information to do the job.

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

There’s been a huge improvement in our ability to make updates on our own. The website’s really user-friendly on the back end. It was built in a robust way on their end to easy for non-technical people to use. 

We restructured the site to be more SEO friendly overall. We reduced the average site speed but there’s still room to minimize the code and compress images so we’re working on that.

How did Bop Design perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re in different locations, so our method of communication was digital. We had Zoom calls that involved the entire team. Towards the end, we had a lot of back and forth and I made Zoom calls more prominent to make sure that we could answer everyone’s questions for efficiency purposes. We used Basecamp to track the projects as well as a tool to upload and review content.

We met our final deadline but there were deadlines that weren’t met in the process. It was easy to communicate with them. I’m a huge fan of their web development team’s project manager. She’s organized and detailed. We had good notes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re personable, so I haven’t felt like one of a thousand clients. Additionally, it’s easy to communicate with them to accomplish our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s room for improvement on their end. For example, some of the feedback that we sent back seemed to be a little repetitive. They’re taking on a lot of work, but they could improve by giving the same priority to everyone. That’ll also help with meeting all deadlines.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a holistic view of all of the project requirements built out with specific deadlines so that they’re staggered. Make sure that there’s alignment internally so there’s not a lot of back and forth with the Bop Design team, which makes their work more difficult.