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Network9


Gold Stevie Award Winner 2012, Click to Enter The 2013 American Business Awards

Company: Network9, New York, NY
Entry Submitted By: Melissa Sones Consulting
Company Description: Network9 is a fast-growing, New York-based Web design firm at the cutting-edge intersection of traditional marketing and online communication. Founded in 2005 by former fashion designer Carmen Yazejian, its customer-centric approach brings clients of all sizes a highly talented team with individual expertise in graphic design, search engine optimization (SEO), copywriting, branding and more.
Nomination Category: Marketing Professional / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing or Advertising Agency of the Year

Nomination Title: Network9

Tell the story about what this nominated consultancy or agency achieved since January 1 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

To borrow a phrase, there’s no “I” in Network9.
Make no mistake: This trend-setting, New York-based hybrid-Web design meets full-service agency-is all about the talent. The branding masters who capture any client’s essence. The SEO guru whose expertise brings Google traffic in droves. The programming "princes" whose tech savvy underpins just about everything N9 does.

Each, among others, was hand-picked by Network9’s Founder and President, Carmen Yazejian, a former fashion designer whose work graced Saks Fifth Avenue’s windows.

But “I” or “me” or “mine”? Sorry, wrong agency. Because where work’s concerned, it’s hardly run-of-the-mill: Network9 is and always has been about the team. And the team is family.

That attitude informs how N9 serves its exploding client list and has put the firm at the forefront of a tectonic shift that has quickly turned marketing online-out. The medium is, of course, the Internet, and few agencies of any size seem to have taken advantage in the way Network9 has. To be sure, N9 does stellar branding, websites and print work—everything the full-service firms do—for businesses from medical centers to global Fortune 500 firms. But it does so from a unique framework that begins with an intense three-week-long collaboration with artists.

Moreover, its team/family concept carries over to how N9 works with clients: walking them through the design-to-development process (even on the N9 website) -way beyond norms; adhering to schedules in a business well-known for using technological snafus as an excuse; sticking around long after other agencies typically move on; and allowing for "think time" instead of rushing jobs so the team has time to develop "big ideas."

The results have been remarkable. Since 2005, Network9 has produced and/or maintains over 150 websites, and has some 70 active clients. Revenues rose by 32% in 2011 (average cost for site design/development is now $15,000 -$20,000, up fivefold since 2005). The client base expanded by 41%; productivity soared by same. Maybe most impressive, what started as website design for local clients in New York, and (of all places) Nashville, TN, has exploded, with 2011 a watershed.

Indeed, in 2011, a New York medical practice grew by 70%—and Web stats are off the charts—since Network9 created their site and SEO campaign. The head of a leading technology firm says N9’s work pushed them past the competition, and new sales rose 37%.

And Network9 made a splash in international waters with a website redesign for KDDI Global, the US division of the Japan-based telecommunications giant with business throughout Asia and South America. N9 had previously designed the site for another U.S. subsidiary, KDDI America, and their Data Center brand, Telehouse America. Thanks to a family of websites that compete with other global leaders and an SEO optimized site, the client now has a powerful global brand.

Says client Dave Bresler, who runs a business networking group, “To say that Network9’s work is sharp, excellent and right on point would be an understatement of monumental proportions.” Indeed.

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Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated consultancy or agency:

“Design is just problem-solving and communication,” says Network9 President Carmen Yazejian. Raised in a close-knit community of multigenerational families—a model echoed in Network9’s Manhattan studios—she studied fashion design and co-founded two companies: Harrow Clothiers, a line of English school blazers that graced Saks Fifth Avenue’s windows, and Pirelli Bags, rubber artist portfolios that rocked the art supply market. (The latter left a scar: Yazejian was betrayed by a longtime business partner and vowed to trust her instincts, not others’ promises.) One marriage and two kids later, she retooled her brain, and founded Network9 in 2005, one of the fastest growing agencies in the country.