Innovative marketers are re-assessing how they approach website redesign. Growth Driven Design is a smarter web design process that avoids risks and promises greater outcomes.
A company’s website is fast becoming the main face of any B2B company, yet many websites fail to keep up with their task of moving customers along the sales funnel.
Is the old method of redesigning a website is broken?
The traditional web design process
By now, I’m betting your company has probably experienced a few website redesigns. Did you find the task of reaching a new website long and tedious? Or getting in the way of normal business activities?
The process would have gone something like this:
- You are not happy with your existing website because:
- It’s looking a little tired and dated.
- It’s not functioning very well.
- You want more traffic to your website.
- Your business has evolved, and you need to reflect that on your website.
- People within your company decide which pages to have and which to throw away, based on their personal assumptions.
- Those same people choose a design that appeals to their personal taste.
- Months go by and there is still a struggle to gather all content for all pages. Everything ‘must’ be on the website and working by launch so the job is over and done with.
And so, it’s completed and launched. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and it is left alone until 2 years or so later when the process starts all over again.
Do you know if the new website is doing great things for your business? Is it doing better than the previous website? What are you learning from your website about its visitors and how you could win more of their business?
The growth driven design process
Growth Driven Design is a new, smarter approach to building and growing a website. It delivers greater results guided by measurable business incentives.
There are 3 pillars of the Growth Driven Design process that drive these improved results:
- It minimises risks associated with traditional web design
The activities and results surrounding the existing site are taken into account and used to create a new site more quickly and more on-target. - Continuous learning and improving
On-going monitoring, reporting and testing provide information about users to create continual improvements to the website. - Integration with marketing and sales
The learned information is passed on to the sales and marketing teams to help improve their strategies, while their feedback helps improve the website.
The Growth Driven Design process consists of 2 major phases:
PHASE 1: STRATEGY / WISHLIST / LAUNCH PAD SITE – THE GROUNDWORK
Strategy
Like any website or marketing project, the first step should be to build a strategy so there is a clear, concise direction:
- Goals – what is the desired outcome, and the expected impact on the overall marketing strategy?
- Personas – being specific about who you are marketing to, how they think and what they want means the website can be set to resonate with these particular types of people and lead to better outcomes
- Quantitative research (website analytics and audits) – observing the existing website’s data helps to identify what is and isn’t working already and where visitors are dropping off.
- Qualitative research (user research) – reaching out to existing users to gain a better understanding of who they are to find ways of improving the website experience.
- Fundamental assumptions – explaining user behaviour and motivations based on what has been learned.
- Page strategy – laying out in detail a page-by-page strategy to best engage the user.
Wishlist
This is where the team involved in the website get together to brainstorm impactful ideas to apply to the site.
These ideas may include pages and sections, tools and resources, design elements, or an experience based on device or country.
Launch Pad Website
While the traditional website is launched as ‘finished’, Growth Driven Design is different. Of the preceding Wishlist, only about the top 20% of the items would need to be included.
The launch pad website is only the starting point at which on-going Growth Driven Design activities and improvements commence.
It should be launched quickly. And giving all the preparation and research going into planning the site, it will likely be a big improvement on the current site and a high starting point set for continual growth.
PHASE 2: GROWTH DRIVEN DESIGN – CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Once the launch pad website is live, the on-going cycles begin – resolving around the personas.
The remaining Wishlist comes into play piece by piece, and is reviewed along the way in accordance to what is learned about the users.
The Continuous Improvement cycles play out as follows:
Cycle Step 1: PLAN
The remaining wishlist is prioritised and the top few included in the current cycle.
The PLAN phase has 4 steps:
- Performance vs Goals – Where do things stand in relation to the goals?
- Additional Data or Research – This may be needed on top of step 1 to clarify what to add to the cycle’s wishlist.
- Learning from Marketing and Sales – Key items learned about users since the last cycle.
For example, a blog was added to the site that attracted a lot of traffic. How can this popular topic be used more on the website?
- Brainstorm and Prioritise Wishlist – a fresh brainstorm based on new evidence to add to the wishlist
The resulting actions of these 4 steps generally fit into these buckets:
Cycle Step 2: DEVELOP
- Start implementing the plan – put the wishlist items into action.
- Experiment with each action item.
- Once the item is launched, consider a campaign to drive traffic to that section of the site. And collect the data.
Cycle Step 3: LEARN
- Learn from the new data – were there successes? Why? Why not?
Cycle Step 4: TRANSFER
- Transfer the new-found information to other parts of your business.
- Can you see any patterns about your users?
For example, did more impactful testimonials on the site result in more conversions?
RINSE & REPEAT
Go back to Cycle Step 1, and start planning your next cycle.
The cycle repeats itself, each time bringing in greater results. More cycles, more impact.
Growth Driven Design vs. Traditional Web Design
To sum up the comparison, traditional web design is about taking a leap of faith with a totally new website, while Growth Driven Design involves studying users and analytics to create and develop a data-driven website – continually learning and improving.
Companies adopting Growth Driven Design are finding huge successes, as can be seen in 6 Remarkable Cases of B2B Lead Conversion Growth.
Do you think it’s time to re-evaluate the redesign approach used on your website? Download the Growth Driven Web Design checklist, and see what you think…
- Why websites don’t convert visitors into buyers - January 17, 2020
- 4 ways to charge up your customer conversion rate - December 15, 2019
- How Conversion Rate Optimisation Boosts Marketing ROI - November 15, 2019
