FRONT - A Strategy, Design and Technology Studio

At Front we regularly work with clients who are re-starting projects; in many cases because an agency couldn’t grasp, or didn’t care about the fundamentals of the client’s business - they basically got off to a bad start.

We believe that there are a few key pieces of information worth thinking about before you get started on any project. If you can communicate this information to your web agency early on, you’ll speed up your procurement process and will help them respond in a way that meets your needs. Great! Where do we begin though?

Step 1: Who Are You, What Are You Doing Here?

Start every project with a company as though you’re welcoming a new person onto your team. If this new person is to effectively work as part of your project team, they’ll need to know about the company and its strategy, your customers and what you are trying to achieve as part of the project If you can already answer these three questions about you, your customers, your objectives then you’re already off to a great start. In business jargon this is something that’s called a value proposition.

Your value proposition should effectively communicate who you are, what market you’re in, the benefits you are trying to deliver to your customers, what pain/problem your customers would experience if you didn’t exist, what makes you fundamentally different from your competitors and how you deliver your services/products to your customers.

Getting agreement on all of this in big companies is sometimes tricky, but it’s definitely worth trying to build a value proposition at the beginning. Your external agency will gain valuable insight into what you do every day, what problems you can solve and how you interact with customers. If you want to earn extra points, pass on any relevant documentation related to your company’s strategy.

If an outside company don’t know or care what makes you tick, then they are probably not going to be able to solve problems on your behalf, and will be unable to add any value to your business. Your project will fail.

Step 2: Who Are Your Customers?

If you need to build an online service, like a website, then you should probably know who you’re building if for. Every company has, like it or not, an internal view of who their customers are and why they buy/use their products/services. Some companies acknowledge that the internal view isn’t enough, and conduct market research into who their customers are and what drives them. More and more companies are now using deeper methods to gain insight into their customers, such as ethnographic research, to gain detailed information into the complexities of their customers’ lives.

There is no one way to find out who your customers are and what’s important to them, but you should give your partner agency as much insight as you can on your customers. Crucially, you should identify the sources of this information. Any good company working with you should challenge an internal view of customers and ask questions about all other methods - some companies will help you gain greater insight into customers as part of the project, this is a good sign. Don’t be shy - if your perception of your customers is gained purely from internal perception, say so; you have a great opportunity to learn more and tailor what you do online to the real needs of your customers.

Knowing about your customers is incredibly valuable for any online agency. One size does definitely not fit all, and this information will help your agency develop ideas specific to your customers’ needs, rather than engaging in well-meaning guesswork.

Step 3: What do You Want to Achieve? How Will You Know if You Succeed?

Spending money is fun, but unless you get something in return it can be a bit of a futile exercise. Let’s assume that you’re bought into the idea of what you do online being tied to what makes you tick; your strategy, and that you want to delight your customers - great, but what are the objectives for your project? What do you want to get in return?

Develop a clear set of objectives for your online project. They could be financial (make more money, make more profit). They could be process related (reduce complexity, help staff achieve more in their day). The might relate to your brand (strengthen the perception of our brand, change the way we’re perceived) or they might serve your customers (offer new services to customers, improve the experience of our online services).

Each object should have some sort of measure; a way for you and your company to step back during or after the project and to see that your objectives have been met. Financial measures should be easy to track, but take some time to apply some sort of measure to less tangible objectives. You might conduct some ethnographic research in new markets to see if the perception of your brand has changed as a result of your new site, you might measure traffic to your site using an analytics package, or you might conduct usability tests to see if customers can use your services more efficiently - try to propose measures for all your project objectives. If you can’t think of a way to measure one of your objectives, throw it open to your partner company - they might be in a position to help.

Only you will know your own objectives. Be open to having these objectives challenged, or developed further as part of the project, but make a start before you engage an outside company. The bottom line is that without objectives and measures you’ll have no way to say whether or not your project was a success - definitely not something you want to explain to shareholders, directors etc. 

Closing Words

These are just some ways you can improve your procurement process when you go to buy online expertise or develop an RFP.

Thinking about what makes you special, what delights your users, and what you want to get out of the project will make sure that what you do online forms a part of one, single company strategy - designed to return value by delighting customers.

These tips will help you partner with companies who have the success of your whole company at heart, and who will spend your money solving the right problems. Everybody wins!

I hope you enjoyed this article, and I’d welcome your feedback.