Stallard Kane is a great example of an agile client, who we work with to continually identify potential. What do we mean by all that? Well, in the case of web projects such as this one, an agile client is a client who we work on a recurring basis, whose needs shift depending on how planned business goals need to be balanced with circumstantial industry reaction or user needs. With Stallard Kane, we have a bi-weekly meeting to update them on what we’re doing, what they need, and to see what else we can add to the development timeline.
Which brings us on to identifying potential. With every website that has ever existed there is always some way it can be improved, whether that be UX (User Experience) or content. The practice of identifying potential means that we will continually return to the site and using usage analytics, we can find ways to improve the site and increase digital footfall. The better a site is at answering users questions, the more likely they are to convert into paying customers.
What did they come to us wanting? (They wanted…)
Quite simply, they wanted a website that would better support their sales team in generating qualified leads. In practice, this meant a site that reflected who Stallard Kane is, what services they offer and the vital support and compliance they bring to businesses. It needed to make it far easier for prospects to contact the sales team via their preferred contact method and also integrate with other business systems in Stallard Kane’s operation.
Their existing website, while on-brand, was lacking a persuasive showcase of the many services they offer. The content was minimal and the design wasn’t in keeping with modern practices. Essentially, this was going to be more than just a cosmetic reskinning of the existing site. It was totally rethinking how the website could become a key tool in the company’s business development process.
One of the main objectives was to make the site much more prospect-focused. What on earth do we mean by that? Simply: a site that could better support the prospective client with their needs, rather than just what SK wanted to say about themselves. This aspiration underlined that Stallard Kane was approaching our partnership with absolutely the right mindset, which would lead to much more success, satisfaction, and results over time. It allowed us to work together to build something that would benefit their business far more than your average brochureware site.
What did that actually translate to? (That really meant…)
We were served a slight curveball initially; Stallard Kane already had an existing positive relationship with a design agency so wanted them to lead on the visuals and for us to work with them to bring the designs to life. We’re collaborators at heart though, so we worked really well with the partner agency to develop an initial prototype.
Our involvement properly kicked off with the web build itself. Working with client, we developed and launched a brand new website, introducing landing pages for every service/course they offer, making the site much more effective for driving leads. This directly supports their paid advertising and has improved their presence on organic search. A fully-configured Google Analytics 4 account was implemented, which helps Stallard Kane measure their marketing more effectively, including which forms are driving leads and from what campaign or source. Previously, only a basic Universal Analytics account was in place which wasn’t truly measuring their marketing efforts.
Following launch, the proactive and agile work began, bringing into play a rolling fortnightly meeting schedule where we could identify future potential within the site to drive forward the business’ digital presence and impact. Liaising with Stallard Kane’s many system partners to better integrate the site with the business tools they have has been required to ensure bespoke integration work to be carried out by our development team; a step to help critical business systems talk to each other and make them more efficient as a result.
Working across multiple teams, each of which need to benefit in one way or another from the website being an effective tool, by having an agile approach our team could deal with requests from the different teams, plan them into a schedule and make what could have scaled into a monstrous project manageable for everyone involved. Likewise, a single point-of-contact at Stallard Kane ensured comms were efficient and handled in one way, from day one.
This project is an example of what is considered an MVP (minimum viable product) project. This means that we identify the absolute basic requirements of the site to get a great working site out there. The steps after that includes organising the ‘would-likes’ into a list of most to least important. This is then completed over time meaning that more complex solutions can have more time dedicated to them.
