Yes& Marketing Agency

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior digital strategist at Brown Advisory, an investment management firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Yes& Marketing Agency?

We needed to update the firm’s digital presence and make functional updates to our public website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In preparation for the updates, Yes& did security and compliance projects because we’re in a regulated industry that governs how we display information. Next, we initiated a discovery phase for the redesign that identified stakeholders by business line and how each segment would use the site in an international context. Both teams went through a design exercise with mock-ups and reviews for functionality, content delivery, and content discovery. For UX design, we used wireframes to facilitate conversations about our core audience. The teams also used flow charts to map out user paths. Consequently, the redesign aimed to also streamline navigation; we also examined several SEO tactics, in addition to aesthetic concerns. Yes& then developed functionalities on Drupal, tested them, and then handed the site to our team to manage content.

The site launched in April 2018. We’ve completed two phases and just signed terms to start phase three, which will include sites in addition to the main public one. Currently, we use Moz for SEO and Google Analytics tracking. We subscribed to an IP database to do more intelligent regional personalization, which is the next step as we integrate our websites. Going forward, we want better illustrations, user feedback features, and a more personal browsing experience with push notification or email components. We’re still in the early data collection stages for that project, which will hopefully align with phase three’s completion. Overall, their work responds to changes within our company; we wanted to incorporate our mutual fund site and this project allows us to revisit and continually improve our digital components.

What is the team composition?

We work with a senior VP and the VP of Digital.

How did you come to work with Yes& Marketing Agency?

Originally, we signed with a company that later merged with Yes&. We found that agency via referral through our web host. We analyzed their capabilities and compared them against a local competitor before hiring the agency.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $200,000 to date and plan to invest another $200,000 for phase three–it will be $400,000 total.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in December 2016 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

Yes& reduced the number of approximate clicks from six to two. From a content exercise, our publications page entered the top 10 pages for the first time last month. Prior to that, the page was only in the top 100. In addition, total monthly site page views increased 10% to 80,000 and the bounce rate decreased from 40% to 35%. Web forum submissions and web leads have increased as well. Traffic levels are higher and organic search referrals are up 30%.

How did Yes& Marketing Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Although Yes& is in an industry with high turnover, the account management side has been invaluably stable. That consistency has made this engagement a better experience than we’ve had with other vendors. Communication is great; we use Basecamp, email, phone, and occasionally meeting at each other’s offices. Yes& provides regular progress reports and proactively keeps us informed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their service is outstanding. Some companies hire vendors for low costs, but we’re happy to invest in quality. Yes& understands our industry as well as our business, specifically. The teams have a great dynamic.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I prefer to work in agile, which is methodologically difficult when the project doesn’t use a retainer model. I did speak with senior VP about moving into agile and a fixed price arrangement for phase three. In the meantime, I’ll start using standup and sprint meetings to make corrective actions sooner in development. I plan to take a more active role in communication and management to increase efficiency.

Any advice for potential customers?

Their team size is ideal for companies like ours. They provide a level of service and dedication we wouldn’t get from a large agency.

Please describe your organization.

We are a restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C.

What is your position?

I am the owner.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Yes&?

We were building a website for our restaurant and were looking for people who had experience and could give us an aesthetic. We wanted a small, hands-on boutique firm.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Yes& did all the web development and are currently doing maintenance for us. They have also taken on social media and are keeping us up to date and fresh. For us, it all ties in together. They are helping us liaison with our social media and analytics, and they are guiding us in the right direction. They have been consulting on what things we need to add and avoid, which was totally out of my knowledge and comfort zone. Social media has become much more important through the years and Yes& has helped facilitate a need for our business.

How did you come to work with Yes&?

My wife works with them.

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

The initial engagement was between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We're now on a monthly retainer with Yes& for our social media and website maintenance because we have many things that need to stay current. They continue to design our web advertisements, quarterly newsletters, and email blasts.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're only nine months old. Since we turned to Yes& for guidance, our following on social media has grown three to four times from what it originally was. We've also gotten many comments from people who have noticed the quality of our site and the other work that we've been doing.

How did Yes& perform from a project management standpoint?

The quality of work has been stellar. Yes& is extremely on top of things, sometimes they know about things before we do. It's harder to measure success from a restaurant standpoint because we're looking for reservations and engagements rather than conversions and sales, but Yes&'s analytics and reporting have been super helpful for that. The website platform and social media campaigning has done a lot to keep our guests informed of what we are doing. It's been a fun and interesting process. We've been able to learn a thing or two from them.

What distinguishes Yes& from other providers?

We're probably one of the smaller companies that they've worked with. My biggest thing was not feeling like you got lost, which is why we wanted to go with a boutique firm that could also handle growth. You feel like you're getting one-on-one service from Yes&, which is great. They have a very nice touch from a customer service standpoint.

Is there anything Yes& could have improved or done differently?

Honestly, no. Yes& has exceeded 100 percent of our expectations and have brought a lot to the table for us. It's been nice to have that guidance from them, and it's been a phenomenal working relationship.

Please describe your organization.

We are The International Franchise Association, which is a trade association that protects, promotes, and enhances the franchise format business model.

What is your position?

My role is in business development, and I oversee our advertising department.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Yes&?

We have a team of representatives that sell advertising. Our main driver is our website, which generates nearly a million dollars annually in advertising revenue. We were on an outdated and dying CMS [content management system] and needed to upgrade.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Yes& started with a discovery phase, then moved into architecture, followed by developing and building out the site. We realized the best structure for us was an open source CMS. Our site works with and needs to communicate with our database, so Yes& handled that functionality. We have two unique membership databases and needed all of those parts to communicate with each other. They ended up migrating about 9,000 web pages to the new platform. Part of the reason that we chose Yes& was because they understood how our systems worked and what needed to get done in order for them to integrate successfully.

How did you come to work with Yes&?

We put out an RFP [request for proposal] and about 25 companies responded. Yes& had the most detailed submission by far – it was about 85 pages long. You could tell they had done their homework and took the time to understand how our company works and what the best solution would be.

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

The total cost was more than $200,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking with them in early 2014 and the project lasted a good nine to 10 months. We launched the website in February 2015, but our relationship with Yes& is still very active. I talk to them on an almost daily basis, and we've recently been in conversations that are more geared toward revenue generation.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our bounce rate has improved and our stickiness – the time spent on our site – has definitely improved. Obviously, when you launch a site, it takes a little bit of time, but we're slowly getting back to where we want to be. I'm confident that these upgrades will get us past where we were.

How did Yes& perform from a project management standpoint?

They use a centralized system called Basecamp. They are very thorough, everything is documented and tracked, and there is lots of clear communication between the project manager and the developers. We were assigned a project manager and head developer and they are extremely responsive. We've actually had the same project manager for the past two years and she's fantastic. She does a great job converting our wish list into actionable items.

What distinguishes Yes& from other providers?

The biggest thing for us is to have freedom, flexibility, and ownership of the site. The goal of our engagement with Yes& was to be able to pick up and switch to another Drupal developer at any point, which they are very cognizant of. What I like about Yes& is that they know how to bring my visions to fruition, and I feel comfortable working with them. Their founder [CEO Greg Kihlstrom] is a very bright guy, and he's been a sounding board for me to bounce my ideas off of and provide feedback. He opened my eyes to many things I wasn't seeing before, and he has a background in advertising, which lends a helpful perspective.

Every web developer has their own approach, and I like the demeanor of Yes&. They're very good at what they do, but they don't make you feel like they're better than you. I appreciate their approach, dedication, and responsiveness. It's because of them that we've been able to increase our revenue on the website. I plan to keep them around for as long as possible.

Is there anything Yes& could have improved or done differently?

They certainly had many problems to solve for us, especially since we're not a technology-savvy company. It's helpful to have some flexibility for the unknown when working on a project like ours, but I've experienced problems in that area with every web developer that I've worked with. Sometimes, we've needed them to work on something outside the scope of the original project that causes slight issues, but nothing major.