Symmetri Marketing

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was head of marketing at a B2B technology company that serviced government agencies. It was with the outdoor recreation space. I’m no longer with this company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Symmetri Marketing?

It was actually kind of a pickle. We’d been a divestiture of a larger company, so we didn’t even have a company name when we started working with Symmetri. We were in the process of building a brand identity and a company name with a separate agency, and Symmetri helped us rebuild our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked with us through the website redevelopment process, approaching it from a full-service perspective including SEO, UX/UI, conversion rate optimization, and analytics. All of that is built into the building of the site. The site was built in Drupal 8 based on Symmetri’s recommendation.

The engagement began with us sending them all our collateral so they could do a deep dive into our business. Then, they came down to Dallas from Chicago and spent a day with us to learn about our existing buyer journey on the website and devise an optimized one. This kind of attention is super rare for agencies these days, in my opinion.

It was a pretty basic build overall, so it wasn't a massive website. What made it an abnormal website project was that we didn't have a brand presence to hand over to them at the start. They were building the site as we were working with our brand identity agency. Thankfully, Symmetri was right there alongside us as we made those decisions.

What is the team composition?

We had an account manager (our core person) and a project manager. The project manager helped manage the backend details, but the account manager was high-level. While we had full access to their developer and their SEO team, the account manager understood both the marketing and technical side, so she could translate our ideas to them.  She knew exactly where our project was.

While other firms on the market oftentimes hire entry-level folks for that manager position that don't have a full grasp on the ins and outs of SEO, and how they relate to website development and conversion rate optimization. Symmetri has hired senior-level people that do get it. That person was really our life. We also had two conversion experts, two UX experts, an SEO resource, an analytics person, and a developer

How did you come to work with Symmetri Marketing?

They came as a recommendation from someone I worked with at a previous B2B tech company. They were up in an RFP process against two other digital firms, and it was a pretty aggressive RFP in terms of what we were looking for and some of our unique circumstances.

We were owned by a larger private equity firm, and because they had so many technology companies, they had established partners. Most technology companies in their portfolio would go to one of those vendors, but we ended up going with Symmetri because they were just able to fit our needs in a unique way. The price point was certainly right, comparatively, and their presentation blew us out of the water. They had a phenomenal understanding of UX/UI, why people do the things they do, and how that relates to us.

It was really the best presentation I've ever gotten from an agency, as they had done so much research about us as a business. They want to know who they're going to be working with, and if they can make them successful. I think they're quite picky on their end, so they had done their homework before they even pitched us.

How much have you invested with them?

The website development cost between $100,000–$250,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September of 2017, and they were only doing website maintenance with them when I left in August 2018.

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

Fairly soon after we launched we were in the top three positions for all of our targeted keywords, and, currently, they’re top two. We had some SEO equity to build off of on our previous site with the larger company we divested from, but Symmetri helped us channel that into our new web presence.

From a conversion rate optimization standpoint, I think what made the biggest difference was the buyer journey mapping and the deep understanding of our personas that they had. I, as a digital marketer with 15 years of experience, would have never guessed that Symmetri’s wireframes and design would have made anybody convert. It goes against digital best practices, but it spoke to our buyers, and so some of those pages were converting at 22%, which was incredible.

How did Symmetri Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We were demanding a high level of detail from both sides every day, and they helped us build out a detailed plan. We knew we're going to have to review content for this certain page on this day and that we’d have to get it back to them on this certain day. Being a new business, we were a small shop, so being able to get down to this level of detail really helped us. There were never surprises. Smooth sailing the entire time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The level of marketing sophistication they brought was above and beyond what I’ve found in other agencies.

They're able to work with you as a senior marketer and understand your needs in a certain way. They’re not just there to execute, build, and design a new website. They want to get more traffic to your site and more visitors to convert. I think that's very broad, but it's what they did the best and what I think makes them stand out versus other folks.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Obviously, we have the normal hiccups that came up, but they were all common issues. It was really easy to have conversations with them as a partner about anything that came up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I think that the more information you give them, the more impactful they're going to be. So, make sure you are really well organized in providing information about who your customers are and what makes them tick.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the senior marketing and business development analyst for OPTO International. We are a retail fixture manufacturer and designer in Wood Dale, Illinois.

What challenge were you trying to address with Symmetri Marketing?

We manufacture in-house. Our prototyping capabilities, and our ability to mold our solutions to exactly what is needed by a particular retailer, were really muted for a long period of time. We were previously always underselling our custom capabilities in the marketplace, and hence, would-be clients were not really aware of the capabilities that we truly did have. We needed to re-position ourselves, bolstered by a new website, to help us flip the script on this.

Our previous website had been developed by a team in India which brought a lot of challenges; culturally, time zone wise, and having things done in a timely manner. It was a sufficient website for us, but it didn’t go far enough in terms of being a huge selling tool internally as well as for our clients and visitors. One of the main goals was to take the weaknesses and make them a strength on the new site. The product section in particular really wasn’t constructed well in terms of being able to find products quickly that you either knew the category of or new a part number for. It was a real major problem. We had the previous website up for about two and a half years.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We enlisted Symmetri to reposition us in the marketplace to show that we were equally adept to provide standard options as well as customizations. Part of that was to do a complete website overhaul as well, in addition to digital marketing. I did a lot of research with my own team before even enlisting Symmetri on what a lot of the pain points were in the existing site. But Symmetri also did their own thorough research with our team as well.

I had a pretty good idea going into the relationship of the direction we wanted to go for the website. We wanted searchability and to make it look a lot of sleeker and more personable. They really brought to the forefront of our personality, which was not there previously.

The new website was created on Drupal 8. There is a lot more authentic and collaborative photography that they came in and helped us out with. We wanted to make sure that the site was up to date with the most current web standards from a UX and functionality standpoint and they were able to do this for us.

The timeline was essentially them helping us reposition, and then build the website, but along the way, they also helped us with a digital presence, in terms of social media organic and social media, PPC.

We are in the infancy stage of talking about eCommerce as we have never offered that before. This new website has not touched eCommerce in any way and is more consultative in terms of our clients submitting a web inquiry or they can give us a call.

What is the team composition?

I have worked with four to five people. We have worked with a project manager who has been with us since day one. She has been the main contact for us from an overall standpoint. From a website standpoint, I knew there were going to be additional fixes and enhancements post-launch once we start sinking our teeth into it. On their development side, I deal with two people. One is the project manager on the development side as well as a developer. The person creating the content for social media is a junior-level social media coordinator.

How did you come to work with Symmetri Marketing?

If we were just going to do a website, we probably would have gone elsewhere to a place that focuses on web technologies as their main specialty, but because we needed to do the repositioning piece as well, we looked locally and wanted to find a place that was accomplished in the B2B space in downtown Chicago, and we found Symmetri.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent somewhere between $250,000–$300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in July 2018, and the work is still ongoing.

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

We began with the social media front at the beginning of the year where they helped us out with all the content information for organic as well as PPC, and we were going in thinking that this was another way of establishing brand awareness, not necessarily assessing ROI in terms of initiatives. We know our business and knew that we weren’t going to be able to track a PPC ad and following that all the way through to a sale because it can take a long time. We approached it as more of an additional way to get our name out there and not so much determining what the cost was versus the benefits in a literal ROI sense. They managed the administration of the PPC as well as organic, as well as did the creative refreshes for us for all the social media ads.

Our website traffic increased because of the exposure that the brand was getting through PPC in particular through Pinterest and Facebook as well as Instagram. The bounce rate was very high, so it was almost empty traffic because maybe people clicked and realized it maybe wasn’t quite what they were looking for. However, the goal was certainly achieved. The quantity was there but not quite the quality just yet. It really hasn’t been that much time at all from a social media PPC perspective because there is still testing and trying to find the ideal audiences using the platform’s algorithms to find the best people to target. The next six months will be the telltale now that we have the measuring tools in place and a much better idea of who to target. Symmetri is going to lead that for us most likely.

As for the website, internally our retail designers that are in-house had been the most frustrated of everyone with the previous site in terms of searchability and the UX of the site. The new site has been up for a month now and we have heard great feedback from our internal team about that. A lot of the problems and issues from the previous site were fixed. We and Symmetri made a point to really involve all these stakeholders early on in the process of building the website so there would be no surprises later on.

In terms of the repositioning, we are still in the infancy stages of it because we launched the new brand in July and the gestation period can be a while with a relationship turning into a sale. But we have very much enjoyed the process of repositioning ourselves with Symmetri. They gave us a lot of options in terms of new logos, messages, and colors, and it was a great process. What we came up with feels like an effective re-positioning thus far.

How did Symmetri Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management from the beginning was pretty great. The project manager was always in touch with us and we always knew what was going on at any given week. We always knew what particular issues or outstanding items were their responsibility or our responsibility in order to stay on track. Throughout the process, they needed a lot of information from us, and not just information but also access and content. They helped us out with a lot of photography and abstract stock imagery that we use on the website, but they obviously needed a lot of assets from us from a product imagery standpoint, both vendor imagery as well as professional photography which we invest heavily in. Often we had difficulty keeping up with providing them with what they needed in order to keep to the schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Right away, we knew we were dealing not just with experts, but personable people. We were very impressed early on when their entire team of specialists for each department came to give their pitch to us. The owners of the company came, the creative team came, and there was some web development representation as well, and they really overwhelmed us in a good way with their perspectives when it came to the direction we needed to go. It's always a really powerful positive in those face to face meetings just to show the true breadth of their capability and I think they backed it up for the most part throughout the entire time. Communication was one of their strong suits during the entire process. One of the reasons I wanted to find someone local was so that we could have face to face meetings and they certainly took advantage of that being so close to us. They came during the interview and customer journey stage early on for the website project in particular. They were here every week in some capacity for a good five or six-week span. That really showed us a lot of investment and ownership in the project and that they cared about what was happening. Their personalities are great; we related to them and they related to us. We are similar in terms of our size and that we are both growing pretty rapidly, and we found some kinship in that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The prelaunch project management was great. The one critique I would have would be the post-launch website report and communication. In the past five weeks, since the launch, I don’t think the project management has been as top-notch. Prelaunch, we had very timely meetings, we knew what was going on up until launch, and we even had to delay the launch a little bit because of us as we needed to provide some more assets for them and fill in some holes before we actually pushed the launch button. We signed a contract with them for three months afterward and might go longer for any post-launch Drupal care for any bugs or upgrades. They do use an application with a task list where I can create a ticket which they will then assign appropriately. Since the launch, I have not gotten timely or regular updates on where they are with fixing these bugs or making these upgrades so I think that can be improved. They get the work done eventually, but I would never know at any given time, where we really were at relative to the deadline.

I liked their process from day one. They ironed out the entire strategy all through the repositioning and the website launch. When we started working with them, we knew how long this could take, and we weren’t dissatisfied with that because we wanted to go through the research phase and customer journey phase. They hammered in a pretty rigid schedule that was reliable and realistic that we could adhere to all the way from concept to completion. I had no complaints during that period, and in fact, there were times we were slowing them down a little bit. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

One thing we weren’t getting from our previous web developer was a back and forth; like a give and take. They are supposed to be the experts and we would reach out to them with something we wanted to do, expecting them to come back saying they could do it but giving us the best way to do it, and we weren’t getting that at all with our previous developer.

Collaboration is a strong suit of Symmetri. We knew what we wanted and we thought we knew how we wanted it to be done, but because they are the experts with web technologies, they were giving some push back when needed or letting us know the best way to do it or providing us with alternative ideas or directions, which we appreciated.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the web developer in IT for Kettering University.

What challenge were you trying to address with Symmetri Marketing?

We had a catchall site that we hoped to segment by audience. Our marketing department took the external site, and we took the internal one. Symmetri helped us design and implement the internal site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The site is information-centric and entirely behind login, and our main audiences are employees and students. We started with another company that merged with Symmetri partway through our process. The site didn't exist, so we built everything from the ground up.

They helped us with requirements gathering, design, structure, implementation, and templates. I did a lot of the ground work internally, and Symmetri took that information to form the final product. It's a Drupal-based site, and we integrated with some of our data feeds using XML and SSTP. There are also a couple of single sign-on services, but primarily rely on CAS. We also integrate with Google Calendar and Google Docs.

What is the team composition?

We’ve had about eight project managers over the past few years, and there was a lot of turnover related to the merger. A lot of the original crew has cycled out. In all, I've worked with about 20 individuals.

How did you come to work with Symmetri Marketing?

We picked our original vendor, but they were absorbed by Symmetri a few months later. We considered a number of software solutions, leaning toward open-source options and Drupal. Most of the vendors we considered were in and around Michigan, and we met three or four in person. We liked their personality and dynamics, and they instantly clicked with our goals.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested between $100,000-$200,000 over the course of the collaboration.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in May 2016. They still provide ongoing Drupal support.

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

Our president likes the site, and our individual users respond positively. Analytics show how easy the site is to navigate, and we have much fewer requests for information than we did previously.

How did Symmetri Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a number of good project managers, and I was very pleased in the beginning. Lately, we've rotated through managers, and I'm less happy with our more recent contacts. Responsiveness is down, and we have to revisit some issues. We often have to start over when a new project manager comes on, and we feel like less of a priority than we did early in our engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Most of their work is fabulous. The code is clean, and they do well with our timelines and deadlines. They also do well with user interface and user scenarios.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As I mentioned, my only major complaint is with the turnover and some of our most recent project managers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you want, and explain your goals to them. They will pick things up from there, but they need a good idea of the end case and user scenarios.

Could you briefly describe your company?

We are a manufacturer and distributor of artisan ceramic art tiles located in the Midwestern United States.

What is your position?

I'm the founder of the company.

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Commercial Progression?

We paid a previous firm a lot of money to build a Drupal website that was going to integrate with QuickBooks on the backend, which I didn’t realize was cutting-edge Web activity. The previous firm was simply falling apart as our project was progressing, and they weren’t succeeding. I eventually bought them off, brought my code up and handed it to Commercial Progression to see if they could finish it and make it work. We were at the margins of their businesses. We’re really small. We had a minimum retainer. They were able to get our system working.

Since that time, we have actually decided to cease using Drupal altogether and transitioned to Shopify because Drupal and our work with Commercial Progression didn’t give us the ability to do what we wanted with our site. I don’t know if there was too much gunk hardwired in the old code or what was responsible for the failures. They fixed it, and they were sure nice to work with. They got it working, which was a great relief, because I had invested $60,000 or $70,000 into the initiative. 

How did you select Commercial Progression as your solution partner?

I started Googling around in the Drupal space. [Commercial Progression founder Alex Fisher] turned up as a speaker at some event. I think it was a marketing thing where they were debating Drupal against WordPress, and I asked around about this guy. I sent him an email or letter. He got right back in a really friendly and quick way. I’d heard he was an expert. People told me he was an expert. My initial contact with him was great. He was just getting Commercial Progression started at the time. They seemed to be very professional and I was confident that we'd be able to work with them. 

What was the basic rationale behind transitioning from the Drupal to Shopify e-commerce?

The truth is that whatever we were theoretically able to do with Drupal just refused to materialize. There didn’t seem to be much going on. The whole thing was very difficult to digest. Nothing I wanted seemed to be taking place. 

The thing that made us change was that I have a second company, and I told that second company they needed a better website, but they couldn’t get a custom one. They had to find one off the shelf and figure it out because I had no budget for it. What they figured out, they ended up with Shopify. Once we learned what they were doing, we said, “Well, this is going to be great. We can control it. We can go in and make out these changes ourselves and test it. At the end of the day, Commercial Progression rescued us from the initial project, but I was too frustrated with that whole solution for our site. It didn’t work in the long run. It had to be abandoned. 

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

The retainer was approximately $1,500 a month. It doesn’t feel minimal to me. I was expecting a lot for $1,500 a month.

When did they complete that project?

It was in a few months. They took it over in February and we launched the site a couple of months later.

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

It’s not that our Internet sales have gone through the roof because they haven’t. There hasn’t been a noticeably large impact on the company or the direct internet sales actually. Working with Commercial Progression was definitely a great experience, but the solution simply wasn't right for us. We went into the endeavor with a specific set of expectations and priorities, none of which were ever met. Had we initiated the project under the right circumstances, I'm sure the results would have been much more favorable. 

When working with Commercial Progression, is there anything you would consider unique or special about their approach, methodology, or service compared to other vendors with which you may have worked?

They were able to get things done and communicate about them reasonably well. I wasn’t the frontline communicator. That person is no longer with us. I’m not the one that actually worked with them the most. That was delegated to my project manager at the time. They were friendly and easy to understand. They’re excellent communicators. In that sense, they definitely surpassed the previous firm we were collaborating with. 

In terms of constructive feedback, are there areas you feel they could have improved upon or are there certain things you might have done differently as a client before initiating a project like this?

As a client, unless I’m hiring Menlo Innovations or something. I would say you’d really need to know that Drupal is the correct tool for you. Apparently, it’s for a much more sophisticated in-house user than we were. We should've known that to begin with. Our previous developer was obligated to provide us with reasonable and accurate recommendations, and that was just not the case. I have no idea how the guts of Drupal work and I still don’t. But, now, I know how my site works and how to change things and make it work. 

Could you briefly describe your company?

I work for TRW Automotive. We’re a large Tier 1 supplier to the Big Three [Automakers], actually more than just the Big Three. We’re a global company. We have approximately 66,000 employees and 200-plus locations. We develop automotive safety systems and instruments for vehicles.

What is your position?

I work in the marketing and communications department as the manager of identity and design.

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Commercial Progression?

We had previously migrated the website from a ColdFusion environment to a Drupal environment. What we wanted to do was update our website with the Drupal CMS [content management system]. We didn’t have the expertise in-house so we had to search for a technology partner to handle the transition.

Could you describe the scope of the project? For example, did it involve custom visual design, backend development, training, or support?

I worked extensively with Commercial Progression on the design, development, and launch of our new Drupal based site. They helped us with data preparation and migration, systems integration, UI/UX [user interface/user experience] testing, QA/QC [quality assurance/quality control] testing, information architecture, database configuration, and support.

What was the rationale behind the transition from ColdFusion to Drupal 7?

The marketing communications department recognized that we should and could have a more engaging and interactive website. We were limited by our previous platform. As a result, we began researching viable alternatives in the CMS space. Ultimately, we were confident that the Drupal environment would be the best fit for us both in terms of functional capability as well as simplicity for the user.

How did you select Commercial Progression as your technology partner?

After conducting our research, I was able to find Alex Fisher [the founder of Commercial Progression] and his team. They were very well established in the Drupal community. In a similar vein to how we selected Drupal, we just felt confident that Commercial Progression would be the best fit for us. We understood their business approach and their development methodology, and they seemed very realistic to us. There’s always some degree of calculated risk when trying to choose a business partner, but I’m happy to say that we made a great decision in selecting Commercial Progression for this project.

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

There were many facets involved with this. We have since rolled it out in several different languages, so the total was approximately $100,000.

When was the project completed?

I believe near the beginning of 2013.

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

We utilize Google Analytics and we’ve already witnessed a steady increase in user traffic. People are becoming more familiar with it. I think the entire site is just easier to navigate. Information is easily accessible and readily available to our users. We had a great turnout for many of our more recent events, at least partially because it’s now much easier to learn about our programming through the site and register for them.

Do you remain confident that Drupal will continue to meet your business needs adequately into the foreseeable future?

Yes, I think so. Nobody has a crystal ball, but I do like Drupal. I like the whole environment. It has served us very well. Having already experienced a platform transition, I’m not really looking to make another big change while we’re still pleased with the current system.  

When working with Commercial Progression, is there anything you would consider unique or special about them compared to other vendors with which you’ve worked?

They have a solid understanding of not only Drupal, but also the business ends of things and the technical aspects of trying to get some of these sites deployed. That was extremely helpful, especially when we had different teams working on this. If our implementation team was getting stuck, they were able to come in and explain how things had to be done in a clear, concise manner. They were always extremely flexible throughout the implementation process. They were absolutely invaluable.

In retrospect, 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?

As a client, I would probably try to scope the project out a little bit better. Just having gone through what we’ve gone through, there were certain aspects, for instance the multi-site event, where some of the registration information that we were asking for could have been structured better. Of course, that’s easy to identify in hindsight. The planning process is definitely where we could have made improvements as the client. If we’d spent some more time really evaluating our challenges and goals, we might have had a better handle of the implementation process. That’s really the only thing I can think of right now.