York & Chapel

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a full service consultancy to the life science industry. Our work helps pharmaceutical manufacturers get their medicines to patients around the work. I am the director of marketing. Our company was acquired a year ago and required an entire branding revamp including the website.

For what projects/services did your company hire York & Chapel?

Create a new modern website that incorporated a long established brand with our values based approach in talking about our work. We moved away from being a services only organization. Our website needed to reflect this higher level of thinking to reach customers on a different level and one that considers their business objectives.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The team at York and Chapel knows websites but also knows what's best practice from a user perspective. The point is to resonate with customers and they helped us keep that focus throughout the project when key decisions were being made. They have been around a long time and since we used the same people in 2014 we felt the same confidence going into this new project. It's not that challenges happen along the way but it's the responsiveness and professionalism that I can always count on that made the difference.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

I'm a marketing person and not a web developer. I relay on the experts to tell me the stages and keep the details for the tech people.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I think there were 4 or five. Nelson, Sinam, Antony plus others.

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

Our new website has received rave reviews from our internal stakeholders. It's not only fast but very easy to navigate and we're already receiving contact forms even while we are still ironing out some programming details.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very responsive to every inquiry along the way. Any day and any time. We appreciate that especially when we are trying to meet deadlines.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The quality and consistency of their work and the team. They did a really good job of explaining simply to someone who is not in the field. Once I let them know that this is what I needed they accommodated.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

B2B marketing manager at a large, global technology company

For what projects/services did your company hire York & Chapel?

In an effort to enable our regional and local marketers around the world with great thought leadership content, we needed a way to efficiently version and localize for activation.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Having worked with York & Chapel once previously, and knowing their superb project management and design abilities, it was an easy choice to turn to Y&C for this project. We knew we were getting a team well equipped to balance the large volume of work with our need for quick, accurate turnarounds, given their top-notch communication, attention to detail and problem-solving skills.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

This was a collaborative effort that involved Y&C being a partner agency, which can oftentimes be a challenge. They handled it with grace and intelligence, effectively communicating their needs and considerations. From there, we sharpened the scope of work and corresponding timelines to ensure Y&C was ready to jump into action once the original files were handed off from the partner agency. At that point, Y&C entered into a phased approach to systematically tackle a large volume of work. Despite some hiccups from our (client) end, they rolled with things and managed expectations accordingly. It truly went as smoothly as it could, much in thanks to the team's strong preparation in the lead-up and continued communication all the way through project completion.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The project was led by a great group of account leaders, who streamlined all communication. This made for a super-smooth experience, even though I know there were designers and producers working in the background the whole time along as well.

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

We were under significant time pressure to roll this program out on a global scale, with a number of stakeholders dependent upon the content in order to activate previously committed plans in market. Ultimately, we hit our target timing and enabled all of these groups. Metrics are still coming in, but the usage rate and overall engagement with the content from our internal teams has been superb.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We used a combination of Basecamp and Google Docs to communicate about the project, which made our weekly status calls pretty tame, as we were usually already caught up! The use of technology like that really allowed us to stay organized and cut to the chase that much faster.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Strong communication is way too rare of a skill, but the team at Y&C has cracked it. They made it so easy on me as a client. I was able to trust them fully that they were on top of things, thinking proactively and problem-solving however needed. Even beyond the work itself, that stands out to me because it defined my experience so much.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No; another great experience with the Y&C team!

Please describe your company and your position there.

North Park University is a private Christian liberal arts university in Chicago, IL. I am the web content manager for their marketing and communications department.

For what projects/services did your company hire York & Chapel, and what were your goals?

York & Chapel has worked with North Park University since 2016, offering a wide range of support from developing a new website and marketing brand to ongoing web master support. As our goals have shifted from creating a new brand and web presence to maintaining and improving our website functionality, York & Chapel has continued to adapt their services to support our needs.

How did you select York & Chapel and what were the deciding factors?

I was not part of the institution when they first selected York & Chapel for the website development, however, as the need arose for continued web support, we chose York & Chapel for their previous knowledge of our website and their proven reliability, web developer expertise, and excellent client service relationship.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Ongoing web master support of custom WordPress website. Includes regular review and support of website functionality, managing site and plugin updates, performing system backups, and consulting on a range of performance issues as needed.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Typically we engage with two team members, an account manager and a web master. Other team members have provided additional support as needed.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

With York & Chapel's support we've improved the accessibility, performance, and functionality of our website to face ever changing needs in higher ed marketing.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Their project management style is very organized and communication is direct, clear, and timely. Our account manager is always quick to respond with either a solution or appropriate plan to address any issues as they arise.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They always put their client first and are quick to go above and beyond to provide solutions to unforeseen challenges.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP at a kosher food media company that’s owned by one of the largest food distributors in North America. We function as our parent company’s media arm.

What challenge were you trying to address with York & Chapel?

We’d been working with a web design and development firm that we were not happy with. Our existing site had a lot of issues, and they wouldn’t admit that it was bad. The final straw was when we asked for a feature and spent a lot of money on it only to find out that it was completely unusable. We decided to switch to York & Chapel to revamp our food media site.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

York & Chapel is our primary development agency. When we first brought them on, they spent a lot of time redesigning, redoing, and fixing our site’s previous issues from our past service provider. Our site publishes recipe videos and articles, so we wanted to start with our homepage before fixing up our other areas and adding new features. 

They’ve since continued to be our go-to provider for Laravel development; all changes that we make to the website go through them. That could be something as minor as fixing technical bugs for our comments section to improving our print design so that a recipe doesn’t take 20 pages to print.

Recently, we’ve decided to build an iOS/Android app with them, which is in progress. It’s evolved a lot since the beginning. Their designers have sent me Figma files back and forth, making several changes until we were all happy with the final product. They’re also developing B2B sites for two of our brands. 

What is the team composition? 

Our current contact is Katherine (Account Manager). 

How did you come to work with York & Chapel?

One of my co-workers was friendly with Jill (CEO). They’d worked together on projects at previous companies and stayed in touch afterward. That’s how we found them for this project.

How much have you invested with them?

I can’t tell you the full amount, but the app will be about $150,000. We actually explored a budget with them because we weren’t sure if we could use them to build the app. In the end, we went with them because they had the best proposal and plan.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in November 2018, and we’re still working with them. We have them on retainer. 

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

Overall, we’re happy with their work. It’s hard to tease out cause-and-effect because they were fixing problems that we needed to be resolved on our site. For example, we’re not necessarily going to see an increase in time spent on our site because users can now read recipe comments and reviews, but they still need to have that function. 

How did York & Chapel perform from a project management standpoint?

We used to use Basecamp but have stopped using it. Now, we just have a weekly check-in where I review everything that’s come up during the week and what we have to get done for the next. I’ll send Katherine and email, and she keeps things super organized. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very professional with great in-house resources. The development team is super capable, and their account directors are really great to work with. 

I can’t sing Katherine’s praises highly enough. Whenever I ask for something, I know that she’ll take care of it. She’s quick, reliable, and innovative — she doesn’t drop the ball. I’ll often ask her for her opinion on how to accomplish our goals, and she’s very good. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing in particular. They’re expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t come into the engagement without knowing what you want. You should present them with many ideas so that they can come back with their best work and execute.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Humanscale Healthcare www.humanscalehealthcare.com designs and manufactures equipment used in clinical environments to help facilitate Point of Care.

For what projects/services did your company hire York & Chapel?

Humanscale Healthcare hired York & Chapel to support all tactical and strategic marketing objectives. The business relationship has grown into a full extension of our internal marketing team.

What were your goals for this project?

Brand awareness and business growth.

How did you select this vendor?

A full interview and Request for Information process was conducted. We also enlisted several firms to do what we considered simple projects to determine who performed best.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Y&C participated in planning meetings and strategy meetings. Both were handled separately. They were tasked with growing our brand through campaigns and website development. They completed both with success.

What was the team composition?

We had a main Y&C Account Manager and an assigned Account Representative. The two interacted with our day to day contacts along with our Executives.

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

Our business has grown as a result of their efforts. The numbers don't lie. We've experienced significant double digit growth each year of our relationship.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective, again, the numbers do not lie.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their experience and breadth of offerings. They are a full-service agency that has the ability to adapt to sudden changes in market demands.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are always areas for improvement. When the team has been confronted with challenges and areas to improve upon they always rose to the occasion.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Senior Marketing Manager, Americas for ZEISS Consumer Products, focused on photography and cinematography lenses

For what projects/services did your company hire York & Chapel?

We were given the task of developing a large scale marketing campaign, focused on driving sales of a specific consumer lens product family. As we are a small team, we knew we would need a rock star agency to implement and manage the digital portion of the program.

What were your goals for this project?

Goals were to increase awareness for and sales of our Batis Lens family within the consumer photography market.

How did you select this vendor?

Y&C had provided ZEISS with branded content in the previous year, and we interviewed them alongside another agency and chose them based on their advanced digital skillset. Costs were also favorable for this campaign

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Y&C was tasked with social media and programmatic ad placement and SEO optimization. They also administered a ten person influencer campaign that ran concurrently. Not only did they knock it out of the park in terms of KPIs, the influencer campaign produced many new content creators that are aligned with the company today!

What was the team composition?

Their team comprised a mix of disciplines managed by one account manager. Their management was also involved to properly administer the campaign and present the results to our senior management. It seemed that the whole company was focused on our success

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

Impression counts were fivefold the success targets. Sales increased by 56% above prior year.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Y&C was always available for communication. We also established a weekly call to discuss all aspects of the campaign. All team members were made available to me.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their eagerness to engage and improve as we went along. They didn't "set and forget," rather there was constant attention to the campaign and many tweaks and revisions to get the most out of the spend. They were always ready to offer suggestions to improve our results

Are there any areas for improvement?

I only wish I had another campaign for them to work on!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for SAP Ariba, a company that offers procurement solutions. I work as the global director of customer marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with York and Chapel?

We were trying to target a particular segment group on the network, our suppliers. One of the challenges with this particular segment group is that they are forced to come to the network by the buyers. It’s not by choice, so there is a really tough relationship with these customers from the beginning. We engaged with York and Chapel to figure out how we can better engage with those customers. We want to do so in a way that was not just relevant, but also very different from everything else that they are receiving at this point.

What was the scope of their involvement?

From day 1, York and Chapel helped us create a new strategy for the program. It was basically a cartoon story for each of our personas: 1 for sales, 1 for marketing, 1 for procurement. It was a different story for each role that we were targeting. Based on that, they also helped us put together the script for each of the stories. They designed everything, including the templates and call to action for the email campaigns. If you think about the email campaign, it was a teaser of the story, so they created a whole thing for that. As a call to action, the contacts would click and they would open up a new landing page with a whole story. They could also see some resources and original information related to the story. York and Chapel also helped create the design for that particular case.

That particular project was about 2 years ago. Since then, we have been working with them on several other projects. We have engaged with York and Chapel in a number of projects in the last 3 or 4 years. For example, Arriba changed their branding last year. As a result of that, we had to change the branding across the board for our email campaigns. They have been helping with that effort, coming up with a new concept for the marketing pieces that we create. They put together a set of deliverables for us to use down the road to reflect our new branding. It was the same exercise we had to go through a couple of years ago. They also helped with the conceptualization of the project, helping put together the final design. We have been working with them for everything from a design perspective.

How did you come to work with York and Chapel?

They were recommended by a colleague. She used to work with this company a long time ago.

How much have you invested with York and Chapel?

I would say we’ve paid them between $30,000 and $50,000 per year. In total, we’ve spent more than $200,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since 2013. The engagement is ongoing. For this project specifically, we worked together for around 3 months. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The program was very successful. We got the business-to-business award in 2015 for one of the supply companies they helped with. As part of the whole initiative that we have been working on, there’s been an increase of over 10% in our overall open and click-through rates for our email campaigns. That is huge, given the concerns that we had with this supplier group. Like I explained before, they are not the typical customers that are there willing to receive information from the company. For us, that was a huge improvement. It was a change that we noticed from the moment that we released the new campaigns with the new design. It was not that we changed the copy or we changed anything else; it was just the design. It was something that was very appealing to the customers. We also conducted a couple of focus groups to evaluate the quality of the overall branding of our campaigns. Everything went pretty well according to the results that we received, which were pretty much spot-on with the results we received from our open and click-through rate perspective.

One of the things that I really loved about York and Chapel is that they offer a quick turnaround. Usually, when you work with a design company, it takes several rounds of back-and-forth until you’re satisfied with the deliverable. That did not happen with York and Chapel. From the first draft, they are there 99%. They just need to do some fine-tuning to get it 100% perfect. That’s something that helps to simplify the whole process. Also, as a client, it allows me to get what I want in a really short period of time.

How did York and Chapel perform from a project management standpoint?

They usually go above my expectations. The communication is flawless. They use Basecamp to help manage the different projects because sometimes they don’t just work with me, but also with my company managers. We have never had any issues. They respond pretty quickly, with a turnaround of fewer than 24 hours every time that we requested changes to the designs. The moment I make the request to Nelson, I hear back from him in less than 24 hours. I have my first draft in my inbox 2 days later. Sometimes, they go even beyond the scope of work to help us facilitate what we need to get to the point where we want.

What did you find most impressive about York and Chapel?

They’re very creative and they have a strong ability to translate what the customers want in very simple terms. Usually, when you start with a new design company, it’s tough to get them to understand what you want. It can be difficult for them to create the concept that aligns pretty well with your company’s overall branding. That’s an issue that I have never experienced with York and Chapel, despite several changes to our branding. We just provide a couple of branding signatures to them and they get it right away. I know that if I need something, the next couple of days they will deliver, and it’s going to be something I’m happy about.

Are there any areas York and Chapel could improve?

Not that I can think of at this point.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Laura Medanich Marketing Consulting. Our company handles marketing services for a variety of clients. Currently, it's restaurants in San Francisco, in the marketing demographics area.

What challenge were you trying to address with York and Chapel?

We were entering a brand-new market. The San Francisco Bay market was pretty new to the idea of luxury high-rise condominium development. We approached it with a packaged goods mentality and surrounded them with a packaged goods branding mindset. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

York and Chapel helped us with some of our luxury branding experience, specifically the showroom and the website. They helped us with identity work, print materials, some light advertising work, and brochures. We collaborated on the showroom, things in the physical space. The showroom was pretty innovative in terms of using all of the senses to communicate the benefit of the development. We did 2 types of the traditional brochure. The buyer brochure was very dramatic and expensive. At the same time, the prospect brochure was something more innovative. York and Chapel did digital marketing, website lead generation, SEO, and SEM. Back in '05, that was really groundbreaking. The digital space was pretty new, rather questionable and often challenged. Now I'm working with them on restaurant menus and some exterior signage. Bringing the identity on-site, wayfinding—they're really good at that.

I had an industrial client way back that York and Chapel helped me with. They did some work for an international trade show on pipe coupling and desalination of water. For this client, York and Chapel did some logo work and identity work. They helped us break through the clutter, which was really hard to do because everyone had the same look and feel. They did some really great looking booth work for this trade show and some advertising. They also did some website work and it's really great looking. I'm not sure if it's still in use, but it looked fantastic.

How did you come to work with York and Chapel?

I was introduced to them through another marketer in the real estate marketing space way back in '05. They had experience in all of the disciplines that bring to bear when marketing real estate.  I think that's how I met Nelson Ho, way back when. Ever since it has kind of morphed into a continuing relationship. I've worked with him well beyond real estate.

How much have you invested with York and Chapel?

We’ve paid $200,000 to $1 million for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in 2005 and it’s an ongoing engagement.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

This project was way back in the early days of website development and many things have changed. Back in the day, lead generation and website development were a pretty innovative thing. York and Chapel were trailblazers in that area when we were in Silicon Valley. At every turn, they would do something extremely innovative in digital. They did brochures on memory sticks and things like that. For real estate developers, that was controversial because it was so new. Real estate developers tend to be risk-averse and the innovation challenged their thinking, I suppose. It was very successful in the end. It turned out great.

For the trade show, the desalination plant saw improved sales because they were able to stand out from the clutter. The identity work clearly helped that client.

How did York and Chapel perform from a project management standpoint?

We're using Basecamp and Kevin. When Basecamp doesn't work for us, for example, if I'm offline, then Kevin listens to me. It’s great. Kevin will be offline and he'll hear that I'm offline, so he would respond either by email or phone. He's a listener.

What did you find most impressive about York and Chapel?

Their team has so much talent and earnestness. They have an honesty which I so appreciate here in Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, it's hard to come across any marketing agency with such a positive honesty. I've worked in this market for too long. There are too many young bucks that need to learn some skills from Kevin and Nelson and his group. They need to learn manners from Kevin and Nelson. The young ones also need some basic account management skills, listening skills. They know all the basics and I think it just takes some basics. Not only do they have the skills, they have the follow through. They have the interest and the desire. They have the tools. They have everything needed to succeed and they do succeed. They work during weekends when needed. They just do what it takes, which is so unusual these days. I work with so many agencies and I can't believe how unusual it is these days.

Are there any areas York and Chapel could improve?

I wish they were closer to me physically so I could walk over to their offices. You know what? Being closer to Silicon Valley might ruin things.