We often speak to potential clients who feel that they have been ripped off or miss-informed by design companies. Yet when I look at what the design company has produced it looks really nice. They have often answered the brief perfectly and usually at a good cost.
So why do these clients feel ripped off? Well simply because they often aren’t making the sales they expected the new sexy frontage to bring. In this situation we often have to make the client aware that in effect it was their fault and not the design companies as the design company did exactly what was asked. The real issue was the client didn’t know what they wanted or more to the point what they needed. In their mind the thinking went, we need a new website to attract new customers, let’s get a web design agency in and ask them to do the job. However a sexy frontage doesn’t necessarily stand you out from the competition or re-align the brand message. What they really needed was some strategic thinking before they started designing to make sure what they were going to market with and the target markets they were approaching were being spoken to correctly. You see a pig is still a pig even if its wearing make up!
A sexy front is great and certainly gets attention (Pamela) however with a Pamela type website when you start to look underneath the exterior (don’t be rude!) there isn’t much substance and the viewer although attracted at first can get bored very quickly. Have you ever brought a cake that looked awesome and when you ate it found it really disappointing. This is the feeling a Pamela website can bring.
However when you have a great frontage/design and a great brain/message (Kate) the two can work brilliantly together. The frontage attracts the attention of the intended parties and the message makes them act or more to the point buy. They stay interested and interact.
Both are critical to success, however the message/brain must be created first as this will impact everything (Navigation, look and feel, message, image choice, colours). If you don’t do this you are designing blind and probably won’t attract the clients you require. The impact this can have on a business can be huge with companies realising that they need to re-design to create the expected results. Creating further cost and further delay which can be terminal.
The simple message behind this blog is, sexy frontage attracts but it’s the marketing message that makes the sale. So if you have an underperforming website don’t have a go at your design company it was probably you that briefed them!
Happy hunting.
