Cynexis Media

BACKGROUND

Please describe your law firm.

We do a lot of Social Security, disability, and workers compensation cases. We represent a lot of healthcare providers, and then we do collections work.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am one of the founding partners. We have about 26 employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the goal with the work with Cynexis Media?

They helped me with Internet marketing and branding.

Was the challenge that you were trying to address?

The ultimate goal is to gain more clients, but also to change where we were spending our dollars and spend it more effectively with respect to our marketing and getting our name out there. 

SOLUTION

Can you describe their work in more detail?

It was the whole entire website design and development. We had a very basic website initially. I scrapped the entire website, and Cynexis Media put together the design, the layout, helped me write content, and helped me with images and branding.

Was search engine optimization work involved in the project?

I believe they do provide optimization. I just don’t understand how all that works. They say they do. They’re a very trustworthy company from my experience.

What was your process for selecting them?

I have a good friend and colleague who was using them for their website, and he raved about Cynexis. Then, I contacted them and met with them. I liked what they had to say. So far, they’ve delivered everything they've said they were going to.

Could you provide a sense of the size of your work with them with a general cost range figure or just the amount of hours they’ve spent approximately on your website?

So far, we have paid $30,000-plus.

Is the work completed or is it ongoing?

We have some ongoing work. They’re fine-tuning some work, and they’re helping me with the blogging. They trained us how to do our own updates, but we’re still in very frequent communication with them.

Does WordPress work well for your organization?

I’m not familiar with other platforms, but WordPress is very user friendly as far as non-tech people being able to put updates on it. I’m happy with WordPress.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of their work? Do you have any statistics or metrics that you could share about their success?

I don’t have any objective data yet. They are working on some new analytics, but I haven’t seen the data yet. As far as getting contacted through the website, the leads have increased. I don’t have statistics now.

Are you satisfied with the work delivered by Cynexis Media?

I’m very satisfied. I’ve recommended Cynexis Media to other people already.

When working with them, is there anything special or unique about Cynexis Media as a company that stands out as different from other IT companies?

The hands-on part of it is unique, they come to my office to meet with me. They took a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted. They didn’t try to force any canned designs on us. They went above and beyond trying to figure out what was in my head and what vision I had and then trying to put it together, almost like a sketch artist.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that you think Cynexis Media could improve upon or something you might do differently?

I initially wanted to write the content, and I was a bit delayed in it. They suggested that they write the content for me, and as soon as I allowed them to do that, they turned it around quickly and wrote better content than I could have written. I would have let them write the content from the beginning and then just have me review it afterwards in retrospect.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your company?

We're a law firm. We have 11 attorneys and a staff of about 35 people. We focus our legal services around workers’ compensation, Social Security, and long- and short-term disability.

What is your position?

I’m the administrative practice manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Cynexis Media?

Local attorneys are a little bit behind the times when it comes to Internet marketing and business development practices. We are still remain the largest providers of advertising in phone books. What we’re trying to do is capture the local market with our service offerings, while simultaneously trying to balance the rural areas outside of the Columbus [Ohio] metro area that may be using the Internet for their information needs, or others that prefer to use the phone book for their informational needs. The challenge was trying to balance the two both priorities from a financial, marketing and business development standpoint. 

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of work of this project?

They provided us with a completely revamped website using WordPress. We did keep the original domain name. They're now in the process of improving our overall organic Web search position. They've performed all of the keyword research and mapping, and then configure and manage our various Google pay-per-click campaigns. 

What was the rationale behind selecting WordPress as your content management system solution?

I was not a part of that process. I was initially under the impression that we were going to be using Drupal as our CMS. After reconsidering our business priorities and requirements, we realized that it wasn't going to be necessary. Drupal is much more of a consumer-based platform. That’s as far as it went. It was at that point that WordPress was recommended. We evaluated it the same way we evaluated Drupal, and we felt confident that it would satisfy our priorities and requirements. 

How did you select Cynexis Media as your solution partner?

We were actually looking at four or five potential vendors for this project. Two of the candidates were the primary firms we were considering. Cynexis entered the picture in the fourth quarter, if it was a ball game, so to speak. They came in after the fact and gave us a very comprehensive presentation. They told us exactly what they would be able to do in a step-by-step process. It wasn’t much different than any of the other vendors, but sometimes you just have to go with your gut, and that’s exactly what we did. To their credit, they've been able to deliver exactly what we needed, without exception. 

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

I really can’t go into that. I’m not at liberty to divulge sensitive financial information. It was a fairly large project. There is now a video production involved, which substantially increases the cost of their services. 

This is an ongoing relationship, correct?

Yes, and I suspect it will remain ongoing for quite some time. 

When was your new website launched?

It was launched in the second or third week of November. I would say it went live on or about the 12th of November [2013].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Let’s just say that we've received significantly more new clients from January and to date via Web referrals. It's been users visiting the website and completing the online form. We then follow up with those leads. We’ve received more leads in January, February, and March than we have in three years combined on our first website. That’s really a testament to the work they've done. Our initial website was poorly designed. They had indicated that between three and six months we'd be able to see a remarkable improvement, and we did. I haven’t looked at the metrics yet for the past month, but I can say we’ve seen an upward ramping up of probably close to 25 percent from organic visits. Those numbers continue to ramp up. It's very impressive. 

When working with Cynexis Media, is there anything you would consider unique or special about them compared to other vendors you’ve worked with in the past?

I can really say it’s from the service side; the project manager you’re assigned makes a huge difference. We've had a phenomenal project manager assigned to our project. She's very well organized and efficient. If she said, “I need to talk to you for five minutes,” within four minutes, you are off the phone. There's always been constant feedback, a constant process of, “This is what we need to be working on right now. Can you provide this to me by a certain amount of time?” This constant follow-up and addressing any questions or concerns has made a huge difference. I can’t sing the praises of our project manager enough. 

In retrospect, are there areas you think they could improve upon, or are there things you'd do differently as the client before approaching this type of project?

When work is submitted to be processed, I would like to see a quicker turnaround time; within 24 to 36 hours would be ideal. I think sometimes the timeliness can be neglected. It could be the result of growing pains, but it's still a legitimate grievance. 

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

We are a single-family homebuilder operating out of Central Ohio. We also do some commercial work. We’re family-owned, privately held, and we've been in business since 1982, so slightly more than 30 years now. We also get into the land development business as well as condominiums.

What is your position?

I'm the business administrator.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Cynexis Media?

I found Cynexis through Google research. They do a great job with SEO [search engine optimization] because they were the very first company that emerged when I was researching Web development firms and SEO companies. I reached out to them for a small project that we were looking to initiate. We decided to have them price out our SEO, content development, and custom application development work. Due to the pricing, we decided to go with them on the SEO and content development for our blog only. During that time period, we had actually redone our entire website with them. We have a huge project going with them right now where they’re doing a lot of information architecture for our website. We've really enjoyed their mockups and visual design work. 

SOLUTION

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

Last year, we spent $15,000, and this year, we’re going to spend approximately $20,000.

When was the most recent project completed with them?

Three months ago [November of 2013].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the very first things we did with them, we redid our user interface for our consumer website. One of the things that we were going for there is for people to spend more time on our website and to be able to find things quicker. I think that shows in our Google analytics. We’ve seen our traffic increase considerably, both unique visitors and cumulative page views. We’ve seen our time on site increase, too. Our bounce rate has remained relatively stable. Compared to industry standards, we’re sitting right there in the low 20s for bounce rates. That’s pretty low, considering how many visitors we have. That’s all coming from the organic search, too. 

When working with Cynexis Media, is there anything you would consider unique or special about their methodology, their approach, or their services that differentiates them from other vendors with which you've worked?

One of the biggest things is that if they see something that they think could be advantageous to us or to our customers, they’ll bring it up. They approach us and explain how it'll add value and how it can enhance our business.

Having that kind of input from an outside expert has been invaluable. They invest the time to build the relationship and treat it as such, too. I've never felt like they were in it solely for the money, and it's been a great experience. 

In terms of constructive feedback, are there areas that you think they could improve upon, or are there things you'd do differently as the client before approaching this type of project?

Depending on the project size and type, it does sometimes run beyond the agreed timeline. From a design standpoint and from an approval process, I don’t think I could to see anything else done better. Their process is very transparent and they make it point to keep us updated on their progress or any issues that arise, no matter how seemingly insignificant.