Rootsy

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the creative director of Dream Quickly. We’re a creative consultancy for branding, advertising campaigns, and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rootsy?

We needed to translate our brand into an online presence and develop a portfolio website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the website for us. It conveys our brand personality and showcases the work we’ve done for our clients.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Huw (Owner).

How did you come to work with Rootsy?

I’ve known Huw for a long time. He’s a good guy and does great work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about £5,000 (approximately $6,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We love the website. It presents us with a new, more professional light. There are a lot of little touches, with a sense of playfulness and creativity all while remaining subtle. We feel confident in sending people there to check out who we are and what we’ve done. It shows us off in the way we were hoping it would.

How did Rootsy perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s very informal. I call or email Huw as needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like the playful creativity. He brought new ideas to us and did what he’s good at. We’re very happy; Rootsy exceeded our expectations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to a collaborative process. You’ll get the most out of it if you let him do what he does best.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Zen Chartered Accountants.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rootsy?

We needed a rebrand. I needed someone to develop our website to represent the culture of our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team developed our website. We started with a few conversations about what our firm was about. Our clients are all creative people, and it was important that the website got our culture across. They continue to provide updates for us.

What is the team composition?

I worked with one person.

How did you come to work with Rootsy?

I had heard of them. A few years ago, they did the first version of our website.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent £2,500 (approximately $3,310 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Rootsy started in August 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had several people comment that they like the website. A couple of people approached us just from a Google search.

How did Rootsy perform from a project management standpoint?

The team at Rootsy is friendly and approachable. We have conversations, and then they have me look at things we like from other websites. They’d go, put together a brief, and send us some images. Then, we’d go back and have another discussion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s not complicated working with their approachable team. They speak in plain English, making things easy to understand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, it was all a good process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a good idea of what you want in terms of content and the brand image you want to get across.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the editor-in-chief and publisher of E-International Relations. The world's leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics – reaching 3 million unique readers per year.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rootsy?

Rootsy has worked with us as a contractor since 2013 when he took a design brief and branding pack we had commissioned and built it for us as a new template to our website. Since then, he has helped us realise a countless number of new features, styles and designs for the website and has been our go-to person for all our design and development work – including annual tech upgrades and maintenance.

What were your goals for this project?

Website design and maintenance

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We are a very small company, all-volunteer. So finding people we can talk to on a human level and perhaps share some values with is very important. We prefer to work with vendors who are geographically close to us so we can meet, or speak on the phone. Rootsy fit that criteria, and upon making contact we found that he had all those qualities.

Describe the project in detail.

Our most recent project with Rootsy (2020) was a full refresh of the design of E-IR.info. We approached Rootsy with a very basic and crude idea of what we wanted in order to modernise the website, whilst still keeping in place many of our distinctive visual features. Rootsy patiently worked with us on it to make it professional and functional, and he is fully to credit for the result which is a notable upgrade on our former design and has left us more than satisfied. Our next goals with Rootsy are the creation of a new section of the website, with an entirely new design.

What was the team composition?

Rootsy worked reporting directly to me, and I fed the progress to my editorial team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Each time Rootsy has done major design work on our website we have experienced notable traffic increases. Most notably, in June 2020, when the above-mentioned redesign went live, we experienced an 80% jump in traffic over the same point in 2019. There are many factors to this, but certainly some of them are to do with the experience our users have on the site and the pleasing design and faster load times due to the optimisations made.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely effective. Rootsy is accessible, patient and capable of delivering exactly

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The interpersonal relationship. Rootsy always is within reach if we need him, and there is never anything we have asked of him that he was not able to deliver in a way that at the very least met our expectations, if not exceeded them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None.