Feature
Issue No. 36 - August/September 2007
Promise delvery does it for Deadline
Website developer Deadline Media was established in May 1996 in very different form and steadied to join the Fast Mover ranks after some turbulent early years.
“When the business was first conceived it was primarily a traditional graphic design agency, although one of the directors was studying HTML programming at the time,” says MD Sean Heylen.
“After about six months we realised the web offered a great future opportunity as a commercial medium for communication and that good design would be an integral part of that.”
Although essentially right, this idea took a long time to get going. The firm had to struggle in a difficult, overly enthusiastic environment.
“The Dot-Com boom of the late 1990s and bust in 2001 really made it tough for us to keep convincing potential customers that there was value in investing in their web strategies and that real ROI for their marketing dollar would be achievable,” Sean says.
“The organisations that showed some foresight back then have certainly reaped the rewards now!”
Sean says persistence, hard work “and a commitment to listening to our clients and stakeholders” got Deadline through the formative years. He admits to “a bit of luck coupled with wonderful loyalty from most of our key clients” as vital ingredients.
“Once we established ourselves as a professional, credible and reliable website development and graphic design company, our reputation for excellent customer service and delivering a premium product grew,” Sean says.
“A focus on maintaining and cultivating good working relationships with our clients, and putting in extra effort for no immediate reward when required, gave us a solid base to work from.
“We have really only started growing fast recently (in the last three to four years) in conjunction with the acceleration of the uptake of the web as a medium for finding and sharing information.
“Our clients recognising the ...
