A manufacturer asked for a new website quote. I had several calls with the sales team and the CEO. Everything looked and sounded good. I sent the proposal; a few weeks later, the CFO emailed to say, “We don’t pay for ‘Discovery.’”
What he meant was, they didn’t want to pay for my team and me to do the upfront work of getting to know the company, its people, sales process, industry, etc.
Our Discovery process is quite thorough. We take the time to get to know you, including your company’s sales process: what works, what doesn’t; your audiences’ challenges; and the objections and feedback your sales team hears.
What we learn during Discovery becomes the foundation for the website strategy and messaging – and future ongoing marketing that drives lead generation.
I wrote back to explain this to the CFO, but . . . crickets. Several weeks later, the company had a new website.
When reviewing the new website, our designer Rachel Cunliffe and I were aghast at the number of errors we saw – especially since this project had been overseen by a large agency with lots of glowing reviews.
Surely the company CEO hadn’t given this website the green light? I gave the team the benefit of the doubt — maybe they needed to make the website live super fast and would go back and fix everything.
Ah, nope. After two months, the errors were still there. Going through them again, I realized the agency didn’t spend a lot of time learning about the company, its products, or the industries it served.
Even worse, it was apparent no one on the team did a thorough proof before go-live.
And, because many of these errors are still live, I’m guessing the sales team isn’t using the website to help sell products — which is one of the main jobs of a website.
In this special report, learn about the copy, messaging, and design mistakes the agency made — and why these mistakes created a whole different message than the company intended — namely:
“Despite what we say, we don’t pay attention to detail and the products we sell you might be pretty shoddy, too.”