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DIGITAL SPACE: From their downtown office, Mostly Serious owners Jarad Johnson, Joe Donohue and Clay McGee are preparing for the Give Ozarks nonprofit fundraiser and a new website for CoxHealth.
DIGITAL SPACE: From their downtown office, Mostly Serious owners Jarad Johnson, Joe Donohue and Clay McGee are preparing for the Give Ozarks nonprofit fundraiser and a new website for CoxHealth.

Business Spotlight: Serious About Results

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Don’t take the company’s name too seriously.

While Mostly Serious LLC takes pride in providing a laid back, perhaps progressive atmosphere for employees – think pingpong table, flexible hours and open workspaces – the firm is serious about results and deadlines when it comes to digital development, marketing and branding.

Its niche has caught on in an area where companies like Marlin Network Inc. and Noble Communications make headlines, but they largely work in the food space. Mostly Serious co-owner Jarad Johnson, one of two founding partners, says his firm has focused solely on digital products.

“There weren’t any agencies that were focused on digital, that could take a company from front to back, start to finish and handle every aspect of the project,” he says. “We focus more on understanding digital as a whole and then applying those best practices across industries.”

Word of mouth and awareness has localized the company’s projects. Mostly Serious now does 70 percent of its work for regional clients.

The company’s longest-running client, Holloway America, is joined by the likes of CoxHealth, International Dehydrated Foods Inc., People Centric Consulting Group, Metropolitan Farmer and the south-side Farmers Park development.

#GiveOzarks
An important project for Mostly Serious is tackling the crowdfunding world.

In December, Mostly Serious purchased crowfunding portal CauseMomentum.org for an undisclosed sum from Marlin Network in the wake of its buyout last year by Irvine, Calif.-based Advantage Sales & Marketing LLC.

The platform is leased by Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. – a partner in the venture created in 2013 by Mostly Serious – to help its agency organizations fundraise online via project-based pitches.

“We were fortunate to be in the position when this site came into development to work with a local company,” CFO Media Director Matt Lemmon says. “It’s just been everything you would hope for with that experience.”

An offshoot of the platform, GiveOzarks.org, is scheduled to make its return May 3.

Last year, Give Ozarks – built by Mostly Serious for use by CFO and partner agencies – raised $1.02 million for community causes. The 24-hour fundraiser garnered more than 7,600 donations for 150 participating nonprofits representing 46 communities in CFO’s 58-county service region.

“We woke up at midnight to launch the site and then we went to bed at midnight. There really wasn’t sleep. We napped at CFO in the middle,” Johnson says. “It’s something that you can see in our culture – just immediately everybody perks up when those days come along and we see the impact.”

In May, more than 200 organization are signed up to participate, Lemmon says.

Mostly Serious is stepping up its game in response, creating a more efficient experience focused on the donors.

The largest change is a shopping cart, which Johnson and team refer to as a gift list. Donations to multiple nonprofits can now be made in a single transaction.

“That was one of the biggest things people wanted,” he says. “It also helps CFO to cut costs, because instead of making that credit card transaction fee over and over, we’re making it one single time.”

CFO organizers say the organization’s 2016 goal is $1.5 million.

“We have some anecdotal evidence from groups that added this in year two,” Lemmon says of the new shopping cart. “The fact that people can make a lot of $5 gifts at once can only help.”

In 2017, Mostly Serious plans to take advantage of its efforts with Cause Momentum and Give Ozarks to take the platform nationally.

Major redesign
Mostly Serious is nearing a summer launch for CoxHealth’s new website, which the firm has been building from scratch for nearly three years.

The website is designed with user-interface improvements, a shift Johnson has identified in recent years.

CoxHealth Web Content Coordinator Stacy Fender says the project includes adapting some 600 Web pages and fully redesigning the website to largely be driven by searches.

“We’re happy to be working with a local company on this,” she says. “I think that’s made this project easier to tackle, even though it’s taken us some time to get to the finish line.”

Kristin Butler, system director of marketing for CoxHealth, says the redesign’s length doesn’t reflect poorly on Mostly Serious.

“Integrating and optimizing content in an organization as diverse as ours is a huge undertaking,” she says of the 10,680-employee health care system. “This was compounded to some degree by staff changes in a couple of key areas.”

In April 2013, Mostly Serious was among nine firms that responded to a request for proposal by CoxHealth, the area’s second-largest employer.

The company was chosen based on competitive costs, search engine optimization experience, knowledge and development of content management systems, and design talent.

Mostly Serious’ Springfield headquarters gave it the edge in securing the contract over two other finalists. The winning bid was not disclosed.

“Based on the criteria, our decision to work with Mostly Serious was unanimous,” Butler says.

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