Canesta

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner of HeadPlant

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Organic topicals for body wellness and recovery 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Canesta to accomplish?

• Great website
• Understand cannabis industry
• SEO strategy

SOLUTION

How did you find Canesta?

Online Search

Why did you select Canesta over others?

Great culture fit

How many teammates from Canesta were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

HeadPlant is very intentional and specific behind our branding, art, and verbiage.  Canesta was very patient as we had to rebrand in tandem to building the site.  That was important because the site being built deserved the internal attention snd detail we had to give in order to help Canesta do their job.  It is a framework new to my team so it is appreciated to have the support as we are now on a learning curve. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A strong website and prompt help with requests along the way

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Canesta was always prompt and patient, which was both needed and valuable 

What was your primary form of communication with Canesta?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Understanding our complex needs

Are there any areas for improvement or something Canesta could have done differently?

My team had to switch from the user-friendly wix platform to Wordpress.  It is certainly not a simple transition especially when trying to figure it out, launch a rebrand campaign, determine additional applications that may not be simple either.  Its not a Canesta thing per se but boy do we wish it was a little easier.  So a repeat to say the patience is appreciated coming from a team of people, including myself, who are stretched in many directions. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an e-commerce company specializing in baby products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Canesta?

We wanted to optimize our e-commerce platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Canesta has helped us do various rounds of website optimization for our e-commerce platform. We’ve worked together on different projects related to upgrading our website, including customizations and updates to the latest themes, focusing on optimizing its UX.

We’ll continue to work with them in other rounds of website changes.

What was the team composition? 

For each project sprint, we’ve worked on average with three members of Canesta’s team. We always have Nick (CTO), our central point of contact, in sync with the project. In addition, Canesta assigns developers who engage with us and implement our change requests.

How did you come to work with Canesta?

Canesta was listed as one of the development themes that understood our platform, and that’s how we found them.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent $50,000–$100,000 with them during the various rounds of projects we’ve done with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've definitely seen an increase in traffic and conversions as a direct result of Canesta's changes to our site. Overall, I've always felt that the changes they've made are clean, and the team uses best practices in carrying out the changes and how they do the coding. 

How did Canesta perform from a project management standpoint?

Canesta's communication is always clear, which also speaks to the quality of their work. Moreover, the team meets our deadlines and budgets. In terms of tools, we use email, which is more than sufficient because Canesta goes above and beyond providing video screenshots if we need them or have questions.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review? 

Nick is super reliable and communicative and always brings the project to the finish line, so we're always happy with the outcome.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our experience working with Canesta has been very positive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Agree on the project's scope early on in a very specific way. We've done that, and it has helped us drive the effort and serves as a foundation for the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Diapedic, LLC. We are a CBD Wellness company with CBD topical creams. We market our products to the consumers through various wholesale and retail channels.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Canesta?

Our company hired Canesta to develop our website and also help with the design and feel of our product packaging. Canesta will also be hosting our website and performing ongoing services like SEO.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We selected Canesta based off of their attention to detail and organized project management aspects during our initial consultation.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Once we finished our initial consultation, Canesta started to immediately present us with the options for our homepage and several suggestions for our product packaging for consistency for our brand. Then we started to layer the other aspects of our project.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

In total, we worked with two people, which relayed the information to the design team. This was nice because we got to work with a project manager consistently, who was able to understand our goals, and cut down on potential misunderstandings. It was good to have direct contact with our project manager!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We needed to redesign some product packaging, and Canesta was able to assist with this issue, while also working on the website portion of the project. This allowed us to meet our deadlines with the printing company.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow is unbelievable. Each day we were in communication and thoroughly updated on the progress of our project.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was highly impressed with their initiative to go above and beyond with the service! Their communication and professionalism gives great confidence to continue a long lasting relation with this company!

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I prefer quality work over everything! As a consumer, I'm very pleased with our business relationship!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at a travertine quarry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digitawise?

We were trying to expand our digital marketing, online presence, and brand awareness.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digitawise created our website for us and set it up as an e-commerce platform. More recently, the team has taken over our SEO and most of our digital marketing. They’ve run an SEO campaign to boost our Google rankings, have worked on keyword research, and write blog articles for us. Currently, we’re also using Digitawise for graphic design. 

What is the team composition?

We work with four people from Digitawise regularly, plus a fifth teammate. The core team includes the CEO, a graphic designer, and copywriters. 

How did you come to work with Digitawise?

Although I’m not sure how we got in contact with them, I believe we found them through an internet search.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €30,000–€35,000 (approximately $30,000–$35,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since working with Digitawise, our Google rankings have steadily improved. Although the growth hasn't been fast, we've seen constant progress. The team is very collaborative and innovative. They're always coming up with solutions for us instead of only listing problems and potential issues. Additionally, our site layout is really good and simple to use, which we're really keen on. 

How did Digitawise perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack, where I can speak to all the teammates and upload files and photos. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate Digitawise's responsiveness. Overall, I'm happy with the work they're doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing they could improve is email communication. We often talk verbally, and I would prefer to keep a paper trail. Otherwise, there's nothing they need to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the digital marketing manager for a luxury fragrance brand with 25 years of experience in department stores like Macy's and Hudson's Bay. My role is to manage all of our e-commerce platforms and digital marketing strategies, including for our DTC website, which is growing exponentially.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digitawise, and what were your goals?

We were looking to grow/expand, and we wanted to optimize our organic reach. We hired Digitawise to provide SEO services to improve our site speed, our organic rankings and grow traffic to our existing pages. Once we worked with them on the SEO project, we added them on as our E-commerce/Web Development team.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were referred to Digitawise by an internal agency partner and compared them to others in the market. After hearing their proposal and meeting the team, we felt their team was the right fit. After the initial SEO engagement, we were very impressed with their work with is why we decided to work with them longer term.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our engagement started with an initial meeting and subsequent audit where they laid out the areas where they could help us improve in SEO. Once we reviewed and signed on, they added us to their internal workflow dashboard. They had three areas of improvement:

• Website Updates Technical
• Website Updates – Visual / US
• Quality Assurance

Each area had tasks underneath. We communicated for each task as ranked by priority until the work was complete. This structure allowed clear and fast communication so was one of the reasons why we decided to engage them for longer term development.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

They have a lead manager who we work with, alongside their team of an additional 2 web developers and a designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Since implementing the SEO efforts and engaging Digitawise longer term, our website traffic, conversion rate, returning customer rate, and sales and AOV increased. We also have more retailers requesting samples wanting to sell our products after initially viewing our DTC website.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Communication is mainly though our Active Collab website. We have project meetings if there is something that is a larger scope and needs to be discussed.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They have a lot of experience with development, UX, design, but it is coupled with a very deep knowledge of SEO so we are confident that everything they build is helping our website get ranked better organically. In addition they are extremely responsive to our requests.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company, Honkaku Spirits, is an importer of shochu, awamori, and other spirits from Japan. I am the founder of Honkaku Spirits.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digitawise, and what were your goals?

We needed to find a website programmer that would work closely with our designer to create a beautiful and useful website to represent our company, display our products, educate our consumers, provide point of sale resources to our partners, and allow people to find our products on store shelves.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed a few different outfits, and we decided to work with Digitawise because they were highly responsive to our queries, made believable promises, and provided a quotation that was right in the middle range of the offers that we had received.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Scope: Digitawise was tasked with building a WordPress website with certain content age-gated and strict adherence to the design themes that our company has developed over the last couple of years.

Steps:

1. We introduced Digitawise to the overall look, feel, and function of the website that we hoped to create. Digitawise provided us with a list of items and best practices that would be necessary in order to develop an effective website.
2. Based on the above feedback, we worked with our design team to chart out the pages of the website, the content on those pages, the media that would be required, and mockups of how things should look. This included specific colors, fonts, heading and paragraph requirements, and general spacing between elements.
3. Digitawise began creating bespoke elements for the website that would do the following: a) satisfy our needs in the near term; b) offer scalability over the medium and long term.
4. Our lead designer worked directly with the Digitawise team to implement our requests and respond to/relay issues that came up during development.
5. The site was launched and Digitawise remained in contact in order to deal with any

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At least two people were on our calls (much of the time), and it seemed like there may have been three people directly involved in the development of our website. The lead person on our particular project is the CTO of the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We don't have any specific data, but I can comment that the website is nimble and beautiful.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We communicated primarily via email and Zoom (etc.) meetings. They were very realistic in their assessment of how long things would take, and they even beat their expected turnaround on a few aspects of the project.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed with the hierarchy that they set up related to post types, tags, categories, and geographical locations. It was incredibly logical and everything was spelled correctly (despite the use of a lot of Japanese words in the above hierarchies).

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really. It was a complicated project, and they worked efficiently and communicated proactively at every turn.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Speedy Appliance Service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digitawise?

We were trying to get service calls through New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut for refrigeration repair.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digitawise did some research on what kind of work we did. The team then did Google Ads and SEO work. They reformatted my website, and they’ve worked on seven websites in total. 

What is the team composition?

Nick (CTO) is my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Digitawise?

They were recommended to us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $2,000 per month on Nick’s fees.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in April 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I had worked with other companies on my website and I didn’t like what they did. Digitawise did exactly what we wanted after the first try. Nick is on schedule, which is unusual since it takes time to build traffic. I’m very happy with the websites.

How did Digitawise perform from a project management standpoint?

Nick does very well, and his project management is exceptional. We primarily communicate via email, and we also use Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

He spends time with us, explains everything he does, and follows up.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was another market that I was looking for but Nick wasn’t able to do work for it, which was a little disappointing. He was very honest about it, which I appreciated, and he didn’t try to spend my money where he didn’t need to.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give him as much work as you can in the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an e-commerce CBD retailer and cultivator of highest quality products and I am the Co Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digitawise?

We are a start up in a new industry riddled with false claims and bad products where we are finding the best products and companies through a stringent 12 point check list. Our challenge was to get noticed for our approach and given most companies are not following any guidelines or moral standards we are in an underdog position.

What were your goals for this project?

organic search discovery

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interview several companies and proposals but the team there just felt like a fit...and it turns out they were!

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

managing existing website while developing and coding new more custom website managing SEO for organic search managing marketing with new ideas and avenues given the restrictions on buying ads for our industry email marketing social media management

What was the team composition?

we had a team of 5-6 all with dedicated jobs and specialties in each area

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They are still working hard and they are a vital part of our company!

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was very effective and we could ask question and make requests to anyone on the team no matter their specialty and it was addressed and answered within at max 12 hours

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their caring and understanding is far most for me but also diligence, ingenuity, creativeness and efficiency.

Are there any areas for improvement?

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Vegetarian Traveler provides plant-based protein products for consumers. I am the EVP Sales

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digitawise?

We were introducing a new product, Munchy Crunchy Protein which needed a new website and related marketing assistance.

What were your goals for this project?

Goal was a website completed in record time prior to an introduction at an international food show. Had less than 60 days from concept to delivery.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed several companies and freelancers. We chose Digitawise based on their capabilities and budget.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Started with wireframes to choose a style and look, and flushed out all the components including the store to purchase and the look up feature where we will list retailers that carry the product.

What was the team composition?

The two founders with two others quickly reviewed each iteration on a very tight schedule to keep it on track. Input was received and implemented very quickly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We met our launch date - unfortunately due to the CoronaVirus the trade show was canceled. We are using the website to introduce using other resources.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We regularly received web pages to test and comment on. Very impressed with the speed and responsiveness.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The budget was one of the lowest while the had the development team equal to other much more expensive players.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No - we expect to engage them for other upcoming marketing projects.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the founder of Inner Heights Meditation. We provide meditation education services, courses, workshops, personal training, and retreats to enhance customers’ well-being.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digitawise?

I needed someone to make several design changes to my website.

What were your goals for this project?

I wanted to have a visually appealing website for my formal launch.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I researched design partners extensively and interviewed three candidates. Digitawise was the most responsive and reasonably priced.

Describe the project in detail.

Digitawise handled two tasks for me: creating a parallax effect (the design changes in real-time as you scroll) and optimizing favicons (the logo that appears next to a URL in the search bar or on a browser tab).

What was the team composition?

I collaborated with two team members. They assisted me with both project management and technology.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Traffic and brand recognition have both increased thanks to the adjustments Digitawise made.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I was impressed by their quick turnaround time, daily communication, friendliness, and efficiency. They handled the project in record time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attention to detail and focus on achieving my goals have convinced me to use them again. They get things right the first time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I’d love for the parallax effect to be implemented on my entire website instead of just my homepage. I’m hopeful they’ll be able to do that for me.