Ash Brokerage
- UX Design
- Content Strategy
- Web Development
Going the extra mile through intentional collaboration, advanced personalization, and user-focused customization.
Ash Brokerage is the largest privately held insurance brokerage firm in the United States. Its leadership and team have an incredible reputation for excellence, quality, and care. We were thrilled when the Ash team came to us to completely revamp their website from the ground up.
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Their old site failed to accurately reflect the company’s commitment to exceptional service nor the vast amount of offerings Ash provides. Managing the site was challenging, the structure of the site had become unorganized, the content was difficult to find, and many technical issues were present.
The Ash team wanted a big change, and they were prepared to go the extra mile in every area possible—resulting in one of our favorite sites we’ve ever created.
OUR APPROACH
From the extensive amount of work completed during the discovery portion of the project to the final touches, every phase was integral to the success of this site. The talented and committed Ash team members were intentionally involved in every step. We believe this strategic collaboration is what brought this site to the next level.
"Reusser was the perfect partner for our organization. They quickly understood our culture and needs and came alongside our existing team to help us distill our fragments of content strategy into an organized battle plan. They changed the way we do marketing. By the time we launched the new website, we were ready to scale and repurpose content that moves our clients through a comprehensive digital experience — one that is as meaningful to our clients as it is to our bottom line."
Phase 1
DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH
- Functionality requirements - outlining every technical piece on Ash’s wishlist
- Content inventory and audit - diving deep into understanding what content we were starting with and what strategic improvements could be made
- User experience audit - analyzing strengths and weaknesses of the current UX
Phase 2
CONTENT STRATEGY & USER EXPERIENCE
- User personas - creating six user personas representing Ash’s target audiences, complete with needs, goals, and desired website experiences
- User flow - strategic site map design
- Content model - outlining every page on the site with the overall goal, user persona considerations, and content priorities
- Content workshop - writing for the web, uploading optimized assets, creating a content production plan, keywords and SEO, and more.
- UX mood board - capturing the brand’s overall tone with design elements, a color palette, and imagery
Phase 3
FRONT-END & BACK-END DEVELOPMENT
- UX wireframes - creating the structure and visual look of the site
- UX library - designing a collection of custom components
- CMS setup and configuration - turning the UX design into code
- Content integration - placing optimized, strategic content into the new site
Phase 4
QUALITY ASSURANCE & SUPPORT
- Quality assurance testing - making sure every single piece of the site is working properly
- CMS training - equipping the Ash team to manage their website content
- 60 days of support - offering full access to the Reusser team post-launch for any questions or issues encountered
THE SOLUTION
In tandem with Ash, our team of developers, strategists, and designers were all hands on deck to create a site with the goal of exceeding user expectations. Custom personalizations were implemented throughout the site for users who utilize Ash’s client portal, including recent search terms, auto-filled forms, and recommended contacts specific to the user.
Another key section of the site is the educational library which includes PDF downloads, webinars, blogs, videos, podcasts, and case studies. All resources are searchable as well as filterable by category to quickly find desired resources. Other key features of the site include an event/webinar countdown, the ability to pull in categories of resource types into almost any page, a strategic mega nav, and mega footer to quickly locate information, two timelines outlining Ash’s corporate office build and company history, and searchable FAQs.
"Personally, I would say Ash Brokerage was an ideal client. Throughout the whole process, we experienced mutual respect, positivity, collaboration, clear expectations, and laughter. Mariah and Ryan brought excellent leadership to the table. In a way, REUSSER was able to flex every “business muscle” that makes us great at what we do. We began with an in-depth strategy on content, audiences, and user journeys. We designed and developed robust UX and UI experiences. We built meaningful business relationships along the way."
We could go on and on. In short, this site is smart and strategically interrelates content. It is intertwined with Marketo in order for Ash to receive measurable results to continue to understand its customers and keep them engaged. We also were excited to integrate Contentful to allow Ash to simultaneously publish key content through multiple channels.
The Ash team wanted to go above and beyond in every area possible to provide their current and potential clients with an enjoyable, efficient, top-of-the-line user experience.
