Software Development for Content Marketing Agency
- Custom Software Development
- $50,000 to $199,999
- Jan. 2019 - Jan. 2020
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"Their incredible flexibility, desire to get things done, problem-solving skills, and can-do attitude impressed us."
- Advertising & marketing
- Singapore
- 11-50 Employees
- Online Review
- Verified
BoTree Technologies developed custom software for a content marketing agency. Working in Python and Django, the team built a content marketing SaaS platform, including all necessary modules.
The platform recieved awards and enabled the client to renew their old contracts and gain new ones. BoTree Technologies establishes open communication to ensure a successful partnership. The team is hard-working and skilled, creating to high-quality products that meet the needs of the client.
The client submitted this review online.
BACKGROUND
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am a co-founder and the COO at IMMedia Content, a pioneering content marketing agency based in Singapore. Our team of experienced editors and strategists create content for a wide variety of B2B and B2C clients across multiple industries in APAC and beyond. Our MNC clients include Standard Chartered Bank, UOB, Hilton Group, Trax and KPMG. My responsibilities include growing the capabilities of our business to ensure we build our competitive advantage through the development of innovative and value-adding services, whilst continuously improving the efficiency, revenue growth and profitability of the business.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
For what projects/services did your company hire BoTree Technologies?
We needed to solve multiple business challenges that would in turn open up new opportunities, through the creation of a unique client service. Our challenges:
- Improve the internal workflow processes within our business: we needed software to better manage the communication and workflows between our internal editors, our external content creators (of which there are >1,200 across the globe) and our clients. Emails and spreadsheets could no longer cope with the volume and complexity of the content we created, so we needed a centralised CMS to manage workflows from brief to publish., which also allowed assessment of content performance versus strategy and goals across multiple markets and languages. No off- the-shelf system could do what we needed.
- Assist our editors with strategy development, ideation and content calendar creation through the provision of unique data-driven insights. The insights we required were about content engagement across content topics, formats and messaging styles/intents was not available. We needed a software solution that would allow us to measure, analyse and track content engagement across our clients, their competitors and their wider content landscapes. This information was not available, and could not be collected manually, so we needed an AI and ML-driven solution to harvest, collate and analyse these huge data sets, and make them useful for our editors to use.
- We needed a way to make automated, data-driven recommendations and accurate predictions to help our editors create better content, and therefore help our clients grow faster with us versus our competitors.
What were your goals for this project?
To create a scaleable SaaS platform that would drive efficiencies within our business, and create unique and immensely valuable insights and services we could sell (via subscription) to our clients. The solution had to have multiple modules: (i) Workflow (ii) Analytics & Reporting (iii) Research, Prediction & Recommendations. Ruby on Rails (RoR) for the Content Management Workflow and Analytics & Reporting modules.
Python/DJango for the Predictive content elements using AI/ML, AWS hosting. Platform must utilise appropriate plug-in tech such as Sagemaker, Apache; with ability to integrate with other platforms such as HubSpot, Google Analytics, Omniture and others. This project would transform our business from being 'just' a content marketing agency, to becoming a provider of advanced software that delivers unique, data-driven services to our global clients. It would also be a solution that we could White Label and offer as a standalone solution, to therefore widen our addressable market to include marketing agencies, government bodies and larger MNC professional service brands.
SOLUTION
How did you select this vendor?
We completed an analysis of vendors we had used in past businesses we had owned, plus a new search using the internet, recommendations and platforms such as LinkedIn. We considered 5 companies and took them to final stage of assessment
We chose BoTree as they had a proven experience in creating software solution, their senior team visited us in Singapore to scope out the project face-to-face and they had an in-house team of diverse and capable, experienced developers that utilised SCRUM and Agile methodology for project delivery. Their proposal was complete and comprehensive, their pricing was sensible and their recommended service levels were good.
Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.
BoTree Technologies built a complete content marketing platform for us that we deployed with multiple clients across APAC and beyond. This included architecture and functionality design, project management of delivery team, QA and testing support with go-live to production server.
First phase was development and deployment of the Workflow and Analytics & Reporting modules: completed within 8 months (launched with Hilton Group in APAC) then second phase (Research, Prediction & Recommendation Module) is still in development (as planned), although several POCs have been successfully completed and P3 will be launched with one of our MNC clients in April 2020.
What was the team composition?
Project team of 3-7+ members, size depending upon SPRINTS required under the AGILE development methodology. We had core and consistent support from a dedicated program manager, QA engineer and senior developer. This flexible approach is one we have continued to use with BoTree as they carry on supporting our platform and its associated expansion and development
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?
The platform has transformed our business and its capabilities. Highlights include:
- Winner of Best Use of Content Award 2019 for our work with Trax (supported by our platform)
- Platform supported renewal of retained contracts with our clients, with average increase in TCV of 10-25%
- The platform has been one of the main reasons we have won multiple new client contracts and started new engagements with partner agencies in Singapore, Australia, India, Thailand, Japan and Europe. It is also the main reason we are sponsoring the Content Marketing Institute's ContentTECH Summit in San Diego, over 10-12 August 2020, as we use it to spearhead our expansion into the US market.
- Delivered internal operational efficiency savings of up to 70% in some key tasks such as content calendar creation, weekly and monthly reporting, and content strategy development The results have massively exceeded our expectations!
How was project management arranged and how effective was it?
We were very impressed by the expertise and flexibility of our team at BoTree. We continue to be impressed as we still work with them to this day! Appropriate tools were used, such as Jira and Hangouts to ensure our team members in Singapore, Australia, UK and India were always connected with BoTree and able to add value in a timely manner.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Their incredible flexibility, desire to get things done, problem-solving skills, and can-do attitude impressed us. Complemented by great technical skills, gave us a total A1 service! They even supported us at events in Singapore to help sell-in the platform at launch.
Are there any areas for improvement?
No areas of improvement we can think of.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
"Extremely happy with the quality of work delivered, and the end solution we now have"
-
Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
"Great delivery, on time"
-
Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
"Very good value"
-
Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"We absolutely recommend BoTree Technologies