Garbage and the internet. When you put those two words in the same sentence, you may first think of such negative terms as SPAM, tabloid gossip, or downloading illegial music and movies. But trash and the web can be positive terms.

Take a look at Rumpke, one of Cincinnati’s most recognizable companies. Founded in 1932 by William F. Rumpke, they have used technology to help minimize waste, promote greener practices, and capitalize on waste hauling and recycling innovations. So it comes as no surpirse that Rumpke would turn to the web to present themselves as a leader in the waste industry.

Rumpke dipped its toe into the web in the 1990s. Since then, they have been working with USDP for over 7 years on various web design initiatives. Together, the two companies have produced successful interactive websites for Rumpke Clean & Green, Rumpke Recycling, Rumpke Ballpark, Rumpke Restrooms, and Rumpke Hydraulics.  The most recent success has been the re-launch of Rumpke.com.

The re-development of Rumpke.com brings with it a good number of new features, content, and a fresh look (pun fully intended). One new feature is the ability to provide custom information tailored to where the visitor lives in greater Cincinnati. This customization allows for Rumpke to provide information on holiday and inclement weather delays, updates on services, and more.

So why the change?
Molly Broadwater, Corporate Communication Coordinator at Rumpke, had this to say:

“Pre-2012 Rumpke.com was overloaded with information. It was easy for a customer to become overwhelmed. When we looked at re-designing the website, we took a step back and took a hard look at what was currently on the site, and what information really needed to be there.”

After consulting with their website users and taking a look at their visitor stats, two things really stood out: online bill pay and checking on collection schedules.

“We wanted to make it easier for customers to find these answers. ‘Pay your bill’ is now a main line navigation item and ‘changes in collection schedule’ are quickly found on the homepage by a ticker feature,” stated Molly.

By listening to their customers and adapting to the customer’s needs, Rumpke has been able to provide not only the right type of information, but the right types of service that its varoius customers need. Be sure to check out the re-launched Rumpke website, www.rumpke.com.

Moving from one office to another can be a chore. Everybody loves moving, right? We managed to capture the entire process in this short video. Wish you could have been there to do the heavy lifting!

All comments welcome.

Moving Day from US Digital Partners on Vimeo.

It’s always good to cast a light on those who do good in a community.  For this blog post, we wanted to highlight The Kroger Co. who makes such a large contribution to our city and also to our country.  In case you missed it, Kroger was just recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the most generous companies who give back to their communities.

The Kroger Co. contributed more than $200 million to local communities and nonprofit organizations in 2010 as part of its Neighbor to Neighbor charitable giving program. Over the past five years, Kroger has contributed $830 million to charitable causes around the country.

These contributions included donations made by The Kroger Co. family of stores, the company’s charitable foundation, and funds raised in partnership with customers, vendors, and associates. Local schools, hunger relief agencies, youth programs, and nonprofit organizations in communities where Kroger operates stores or manufacturing facilities received support from the company.

According to Janet Ausdenmoore, Director of Corporate Affairs at Kroger: “Kroger’s family of stores has a long history of giving back to the community, not just during the holidays but throughout the year.  We share our core commitments of feeding the hungry, fighting breast cancer, supporting our military and helping our neighbors in need in traditional media and in-store promotions.  But the impact of those messages is even stronger when we leverage the Internet, mobile and social media.”

US Digital Partners is proud to be a partner in this effort.  In fact, over the past couple of years, several websites created by US Digital Partners have been at the forefront of Kroger’s efforts:

Sharing Courage (Breast Cancer Awareness) www.sharingcourage.com
Kroger’s Facebook Page –  www.facebook.com/SharingCourage
Honoring Our Heroes (USO & Kroger) www.honoringourheroes.com
Bringing Hope to the Table –  www.bringinghopetothetable.com
Community Gifts (Donation Requests) www.communitygifts.com

Congratulations to our friends at Kroger on a well-deserved award!

To view the full article by Forbes Magazine, click here.

How about a little inspiration for the new year? US Digital Partners has just designed and built a new iPhone app for SparkPeople.com, one of the worlds largest health and fitness websites. The app offers an inspirational quote each day, cross promotes some different products from SparkPeople, and is also integrated with the Apple iAd system.

Downloads of the app have be great so far, and with more than 11.5 million SparkPeople.com users world-wide we expect the number of users to go through the roof. To take this new iPhone app for a test drive, please visit the iTunes store. It’s free to get inspired.

To learn more about what makes SparkPeople such a successful Cincinnati-based company take a look at this recent article on the Cincinnati.com EnterChange website.

One of our favorite things to say to people we meet is, “Why don’t you talk to a few of our customers about their web projects, to see what they think of the work we did for them?” Usually such conversations yield good results and, as a consequence, we gain new clients because of positive feedback from our customers.

Along these lines, we decided recently to ask a few customers to share with us some thoughts about working with US Digital Partners.  The feedback we got sure made our team feel great.

Sometimes a business doesn’t really know what customers think 0f them until the business asks!  We are certainly glad we asked. Testimonials like this sure beat one-time industry awards. Some of these customers have been working with us for years–and we thank them for their trust in us!

Tis’ the season to celebrate! And with the warmth of holiday cheer comes the many thanks we give for all that we have. We want to take some time to thank our families, clients, co-workers, and other supporters for a great 2011.

This year has been a great year of new growth. We want to take the opportunity to share our good fortune with others. The employees at US Digital Partners will be giving their financial support to some local organizations. We have taken the money we would normally spend on client appreciation and holiday cheer, and we have made donations to these local charities who serve those in need.

We hope that our efforts this season will provide some much needed relief.

Click here to view our full holiday newsletter.

For anyone who missed our December newsletter, here’s a link to all the latest USDP news. We’ve got mobile websites, apps, social media campaigns, cause marketing websites, and much more. Don’t miss the new faces at USDP, too!

If you are not on our newsletter email list, then look for “stay up-to-date” in the footer of this page and get signed up.

Friday night we had our holiday party with the crew from Cooking With Caitlin (@cookingwcaitlin). This has traditionally been the time when all employees, spouses, and fiancees get together to celebrate the year (food and drinks required). We have much to be thankful for, especially our loved ones who allow us to do what we love for a living. It was a marvelous event with some really nice people (Caitlin, Kelly, and Molly). Enjoy the photos!

It was a nice surprise this week to be featured as a “Cincinnati Growing Company” by Soapbox Cincinnati. Many thanks for the story. It’s been a great ten years in business in a wonderful town! If you haven’t been down to see the new office, please give us a call for a tour or just drop in. Lots of holiday candy!

We want to highlight a great project just completed for Buechner Haffer Meyer & Koenig Co., LPA, based here in Cincinnati. This boutique law firm came to us with the opportunity to recreate their brand identity (that means logo, business cards, etc.) and website (www.bhmklaw.com). Of course, we were all ears and eager to work with another great company right down the street.

Now, we know what you’re thinking. It’s a law firm, right? How can you make that steak sizzle? Working with law firms can be a big challenge because they all tend to think alike, write about themselves in the same way, and update their marketing materials about every half-century. Fortunately for us, BHMK is far more nimble, aggressive, and business wise when it comes to thinking about the future.

The fun part is designing a brand identity and website that fits the personality of the firm and that will be easily identifiable by clients. It all has to come together just right to be a great first impression for the target market.  It also has to offer a well-developed written and visual story. A website like this should not attempt to do too much or share too much information about abstract legal topics. Many companies make the mistake of adding to their website white papers, perspectives, opinions, journals, manuals, archives, and anything else they can find. There’s an appropriate phrase for that:  it’s called “too much sharing”. It’s kind of like learning way too much about someone before you even go on the first date (yikes!).

The truth is people want to hire those with whom they feel they can work well. A thoughtfully done website only needs to start the conversation so that a trusting relationship can begin to form. In this case, it’s up to good lawyers to do the rest.

We hope this perspective is helpful to all of you service firms out there (you know who you are). In a world where we assume everyone always wants more, sometimes the notion that “less is more” really is true.

US Digital Partners is a Cincinnati-based interactive marketing agency. We do law firm  and many other web design and development projects, iPhone and Android app design and development, social media marketing, email marketing, single malt tastings, and much more for Cincinnati clients and beyond.