Tactis

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a management consulting firm. We work with every sector of the federal government.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blue Water?

Our client needed an app to help aggregate various claims in a comprehensible fashion. It needed to include several modules, primarily for survivors of national disasters to use to file claims and access other information. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Blue Water team began the process by creating wireframes and designs for the app. Once we approved, they moved into the development stage and built the platform using Microsoft SQL and C #. They built several modules into the app to manage litigation, expenses, and our client’s other needs.

What is the team composition?

Blue Water provides three software developers and one software tester. There is also a dedicated development lead who helps with daily technical issues.

How did you come to work with Blue Water?

Blue Water had an existing relationship with our managing director. The project was ongoing when I joined the team, so I was not involved in hiring them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

I joined the project in October 2016, though the collaboration began earlier. The main development is complete, but they are currently adding new features.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although we don’t have specific metrics, our client is highly satisfied. The app has been reliable and functions as expected. Additionally, the Blue Water team adds immeasurable value to our work and engagement with customers.

How did Blue Water perform from a project management standpoint?

My team manages the project between our client and Blue Water, and we primarily use Jira to communicate and work in scrums. We speak with their team on a daily basis to make plans and solve issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have an impressive technical acumen—their skills are superior and make them easy to work with. Blue Water also has strong interpersonal skills. We value that they take guidance readily and interact with our team well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be helpful if they improved their back-office processes so we could provide our client with software quicker.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having daily touchpoints will make the engagement smoother.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Nom Nom, a company that crafts nutritional lunches for students, busy professionals, and businesses. Our meals are fully prepared and ready-to-eat upon delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Blue Water?

We were looking brand development help which included generating a mission, vision, and taglines. We also needed someone to design and develop a website and an app for our business. Finally, we needed content creation, marketing, and advertising aid, for both online and offline channels.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a brand that resonated with diverse target markets and demographics, as well as provide a platform that increased awareness and promoted education. Lastly, we wanted a seamless and easy to use point of purchase.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were referred to Blue Water from our investment group. We evaluated five other agencies as well, but ultimately selected Blue Water.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Blue Water spent a significant amount of time with us early on to learn our business, customer segments, and markets. This helped them understand our value proposition, company mission and vision, and the "why" of our brand. We then collaborated to create our logo and taglines, which appealed to both kids and adults. Their digital team worked closely with our staff to bring the vision to life on both desktop and mobile platforms. Once the site was complete, we continued to work with the senior strategy, marketing and advertising staff to increase user engagement and sales across multiple channels with engaging and innovative ideas. 

What was the team composition?

Their cross-functional team included senior leadership, strategists, designers, developers, UX specialists, and marketers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since site launch, we’ve tripled the size of the business through online ordering alone, and we're working to accelerate growth through marketing and advertising ideas. We look forward to continuing to work with them to accelerate our growth. 

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Having multiple key people involved at Blue Water throughout the relationship has been key. At one point, our account manager had to go on leave, so having other senior team members that were familiar with our account facilitated a seamless transition. Blue Water also uses lots of cloud tools like Basecamp, Dropbox, Zoom, and Jira, which really helps our teams stay on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The integrated approach has been key to the success of our project. The creative team that handled brand development stayed involved throughout UX design, development and even now, in the marketing and advertising effort. Full service isn't a benefit unless all the pieces work together, but Blue Water has that part figured out.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We would like to have more in-person meetings, but when things are moving quickly, that isn't always a good use of time. The collaboration software has helped with this.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Director of Marketing at the Association for Accessible Medicines. I run the print and digital advertising campaigns for advocacy and lobbying on Capitol Hill. All our digital properties, email, social media, branding guidelines are under my purview.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blue Water?

I began my role during a rebranding effort to change our organization's name and direction. Our site redesign aimed to build national awareness about generic competition’s positive role in the marketplace. Most of our site visitors are patients, current members, or work in the generic and biosimilar industry. We hoped to expand our reach by targeting new audience demographics.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided a creative brief that walked through our ideal end-user experience. The team pushed the site out in phases to meet our savings and access report deadline. We really wanted users to land on our new site after that was published. The MVP included our key business goals. Blue Water completed the critical pages by the requested date. They finished the remaining sprints over the next six weeks. To increase our visual content offerings, they produced videos and storytelling to illustrate our mission.

The new platform features current events related to drug pricing. Since we lobby on Capitol Hill, we specifically targeted the D.C. area demographic. We tailored our platform to the media and FDA employees who visit our site for regulatory concerns. Evolving our content, direction, and goals attracted new audiences we wanted to reach. Engaging people with new blog content and tagging content appropriately make resources easy to locate.

What is the team composition?

Our project manager was my primary point of contact. I also talked to one of the initial sales personnel during an early stage of the project.

How did you come to work with Blue Water?

Our VP of Communication's colleague had worked with them before and provided a reference. Blue Water responded to our RFP along with three other potential vendors. We chose them based on key factors like cost.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

They signed the contract in November 2016. We started the designs two months after I came onboard as the project manager. The site was fully functional by the end of August 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Blue Water is knowledgeable about nonprofits and advocacy. We made very few changes to their design and storytelling deliverables. We won first place in healthcare for the Acquia Engage Award. Within the first month following the launch, our visitors were spending three times as long on our site. Our traffic between January through October increased 170% compared to the previous year.

Blue Water made substantial and impactful architecture changes to our site. The traffic attribution breakdown satisfies our content marketing objectives. The old platform’s “Events” page attracted 26% of traffic, with “Media” and “About” soliciting 16% each. Conversely, the new site’s resource area attracts 30% of traffic. Just 3% visit the "About" page. That drop indicates that visitors no longer have to read our description. The home page and overall experience provide that information.

How did Blue Water perform from a project management standpoint?

Rebecca (Director of Account Management, Blue Water) was organized, highly communicative, and easy to work with. Since we lacked automatic notifications for timeline changes, she had a challenging role. We used an agile rather than waterfall method for development sprints. The workflow was fluid through our final MVP launch deadline. Using BaseCamp was quick and efficient. We could easily reference that document and use the calendar to share materials, changes, and new priorities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've worked with numerous development firms during my 20 years in the field. Their best strength was conducting the discovery phase. We were taking a new direction and targeting additional audiences. They quickly developed personas based on data from our old site. Blue Water posted a questionnaire on our old site and interviewed our stakeholders to better understand the ideal UX and content. They combined data from industry experts and conversions and aggregated that insight into a viable proposed architectural structure.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their agency specializes in Drupal websites. That's something to consider, whether you’re fixed on platform choice or want to transition. They genuinely tried to educate us. Instead of just building each page, they gave our team layout templates. You could hire Blue Water to set up the framework and messaging strategy, and then have your internal team build the site.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of a nonprofit business development for Acquia. Our company provides software and services for organizations leveraging Drupal's open source CMS to deliver amazing digital experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Blue Water?

The nonprofit client was in need of a site redesign and re-platform from a legacy-based CMS to Drupal.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a partner that could provide the right level of guidance for content strategy, design, and the best technology to use.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Blue Water seemed like the best fit in terms of expertise, capable of delivering on a diverse set of requirements for a project that also had a relatively tight timeline and budget.

Describe the project in detail.

Their team took the lead on managing and running the project, which is one of the things I liked about partnering with them. I know that if I refer one of my clients to them, they can expect great service and great results.

What was the team composition?

I don't know the composition of the team that managed the project, but I do know that it came out on time, within budget, and my client was very happy with the results.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Post project, my client has seen an increase in site traffic and click-through rates. More people are spending more time on the site as well, which is translating to more awareness. My client’s strategic goals seem to have been met based on every metric that we planned to evaluate and measure success with.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As a technology provider, it's vital for me to know that my clients are going to be in good hands when I refer them to one of my partners. I need to make sure that I don’t have to micromanage anything or worry about the work. Blue Water's team is one of the best in terms project management execution and communication.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The amount of preparation work that they put into their client engagements is remarkable. They also go above and beyond when trying to understand client needs. I've seen a few instances where they have actually dedicated development resources to build prototype ideas very early on in their client relationships. Quite simply, they are great people with great ideas who are great to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I wish I could find more ways to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My organization is a large accounting firm.

What is your position?

I am a manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Water?

We had won a project with a federal client who needed to build a series of web applications, and we realized pretty early on that we would need help from an outside company that understood marketing and design. We specifically were seeking out someone with expertise in the design and user experience aspects of product development.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We've been working with Blue Water for three and a half years on this contract. They have three full-time employees that support us, two developers, and one quality assurance tester. They also provide us with a user experience specialist on an as-needed basis, and I interact directly with a project manager.

How did you come to work with Blue Water?

We were looking for a partner that had a strong presence, strong brand, and design capabilities. We were very impressed with the work that Blue Water had done for a mutual client, and we invited them to participate in our RFP [request for proposal]. They and two other companies bid to join the project, and they won.

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

Their subcontract to us is $250,000 and above.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Blue Water in 2013, and they continue to be an important part of our team. We have gone through several iterations of this contract with the same client, and we are currently slated to go through July 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

My team has marketed what we've done for our client internally, and we've received very positive feedback from that. Many people comment on how professional our web applications look, which is a testament to Blue Water's skill level. They have brought us some good ideas and great designs that have caught the eyes of both our clients and other people within our company.

How did Blue Water perform from a project management standpoint?

They use Basecamp as their project management tool, which has worked out well. They also provided a project manager for the engagement who is ultimately responsible for the overall quality they deliver. We have a standing meeting every week where we talk about how the team is doing and feeling. From a project management standpoint, they certainly know what they're doing, and they've done all the right things.

What distinguishes Blue Water from other providers?

The talent that Blue Water has on the design side of the house is their specialty. They have some folks who understand visual appeal and how to pull out a professional website or web application. Their user experience side has some very talented people that have brought us good ideas, and they've helped us add structure to how we approach engaging our users. They have a formal process that they use, Rapid UX, which we have since adopted ourselves. They have brought a lot of value to how we deliver to our clients.

Is there anything Blue Water could have improved or done differently?

They are a smaller business, so occasionally there are challenges with staffing. If we need an additional resource from them without giving several weeks' notice, it can be problematic. If they could operate in a way that allows them to deliver resources more readily, that would be helpful. That's the only thing that comes to mind, otherwise, I've had a very positive experience with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My organization provides and promotes quality legal representation and services to indigent clients in the District of Columbia.

What is your position?

I am the Special Projects Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Blue Water?

We needed to redesign our website, improve its navigation and functionality, and rethink how we wanted to position content for our target audiences.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

The Blue Water team was involved in all aspects of the site redesign. Working with our preferred software platform, Sitefinity, Blue Water developed a plan of action and guided us through the process of creating our new website. A very helpful service was that they evaluated the website analytics of our former website and provided us with feedback that aligned with what we believed about our audiences. It was great to have that validation before going forward with a new design. From there, Blue Water Media worked with us to create a modern and artistic design for the site that was in line with our vision. They then worked on the back-end in Sitefinity to create the site and its different modules.

How did you come to work with Blue Water?

I knew what the requirements were going to be for the project, so I went on the internet and searched “web design firms.” I was looking for a full-service firm that had both the design and technical experience to handle our project. I came across Blue Water Media and thoroughly reviewed their capabilities.  I was quite impressed, so we sent them, and a few other vendors, our RFP.  Our evaluation team felt Blue Water was best qualified to do the job, and the price was right. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project officially began on October 1, 2014, and ended in September 2015. Thereafter, we had a debugging phase and a small maintenance contract in order to allow time for our IT team to get up to speed with the site. We have now taken complete ownership of the site

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our priority was not to increase leads or sales because we are a service-oriented organization. Before this project began, we were already the first search result for anyone familiar with the work of our organization. I think it will take about a year for us to be certain of any changes that have come as a result of the site (due to traffic related to curiosity and ongoing updates and training), but as long as we continue to address the needs of our target populations, we are happy.

How did Blue Water perform from a project management standpoint?

I adored working with our project manager, and the Blue Water team was very strong on design and user experience, but I felt they could have better managed the technical aspects of the project. 

What distinguishes Blue Water from other providers?

The Blue Water team understood our vision and they delivered—we love the website! I was extremely impressed with their design and user experience teams.

Is there anything Blue Water could have improved or done differently?

The management of the technical aspects of the site was a rough road, at times. There were some realignments within their company after our project, so this may have been an isolated situation.  Blue Water is an impressive company, but the tech team was struggling during our engagement.