So what went wrong?

WeAreVI was both too large and too small. Though we were pitching for a sizeable amount of business every month, we weren’t getting the conversions, partly because we were a new agency and new to the pitching process. And asking our team to slog away, churning out mom and pop projects, was unsustainable and terrible for morale.

As director, I had a few options: downsize the business, ride it out in the hope of business getting better, look to be acquired (we did have some offers) or close the agency. Some of the staff were in favour of downsizing, which would have been very painful and meant a lot of redundancies. There was no way to be sure we weren’t just prolonging the inevitable. We could have tried to ride the storm out, but that would have meant taking on dozens more of those demoralising small projects. As for selling the company, it would have meant I’d personally have to work in an industry I’d become disillusioned with for another two years, which wasn’t very appealing.

Reluctantly, after discussing the situation with the staff, I chose the last option. I had limited finances available to keep the business afloat and it would have been irresponsible to carry on with no money available to provide for staff and get projects completed.

I’m very proud of the fact that we managed to complete so much of the outstanding work to such a high standard. The projects we didn’t complete we offered to settle or refund. Unfortunately, there was one client we couldn’t satisfy no matter what we did, but all I can say in respect of that case is: nightmare clients that don’t respond to emails for months on end, or are too busy to work on their project with you, should be dropped. Sometimes you need to stick up for yourself and say enough is enough.

This has been a sad post to write, but I’ve been meaning to do it for some time now. It only remains to say thank you to all our clients for entrusting us with your brands and your projects. We had a great few years. To my great regret, a combination of prevailing economic conditions and the particular DNA of our business made continued operations unfeasible.

Damian Kimmelman

You’ll have spent time and money on “web design” and maybe even specifically on “user experience design” and solid “information architecture,” but if you want people to buy, subscribe and enlist, you must be persuasive.

Here’s a great checklist to print out and abide by when trying to be persuasive online.

1. Provide a starting point.

• Your users need to start somewhere, or they’ll just click X.
• Whatever the landing page – make it easy for a user to jump right into your content or move on to something else.

2. Cover the basics

• Who are you? Your people, organisation.
• What do you do?
• Where do you do it?
• Why do you do what you do?

3. Explain who you are across the whole site

• A huge portion of your visitors won’t come to your site for the first time on the homepage.
• Use a universal header, footer or sidebar to have the same content across your site for reference.

4. Show us the proof – Back up your claims

• Portfolios
• Case studies
• Testimonials

5. Make Your Navigation Show How Great You Are

• Show off your value through clear labeling.
• Be original in how you label content – users will want to know more.
• These work for SEO too, remember.

6. Link to Related Content

• Use buzzwords as hyperlinks around your content.
• Make text within copy link to further reading.

7. Offer Site-Wide Search

• Search is synonymous with the experience of browsing the web.
• Don’t make users search the Google bar in their browser instead of in your site.
• Make it easy for users to browse more and more of your site.

8. Use a Great Headline on Every Page

• It’s the hook to get your visitors to read the rest of the page.
• It could be a call to action.
• It’s powerful search engine juice.

9. Keep the Copy Brief

• We read 25% more slowly online.
• We scan more than read (79% vs. 16%)
• As a rule of thumb, use half the amount of blurb as you would in print.
• Express one idea per paragraph
• Link succinct comments to more detailed copy

10. Be Consistent With Your Calls-To-Action

• As users navigate through your site, don’t upset their journey with inconsistencies.
• Repetition will work in your favour when they do choose to subscribe or buy.

11. Use Permission Marketing Everywhere

• This refers to opt-in requests to sign up for newsletters or more information.
• Place it prominently across the whole site – you will dramatically increase sign-up.

12. Make The Contact Page Usable

• Make sure all your contact details are here, clearly laid out.
• Make sure you use a HTML contact form
  • It’s the easiest way for you to be reached from your site
  • Some corporates will block email links
  • You can prompt users to select a category of enquiry for easy management

13. Provide an Effective Site Map

• Clearly show the categories of your content and how they are inter-related.
• Easy to submit to search engines & directories for maximum exposure.

14. Answer Your Users’ Questions in Advance with a FAQ Section

• Save on your customer service
• Make the process of conversion as smooth as possible

15. Be Honest

• Be upfront about your offering and its price.
• Make it easy for people to see what they’re getting.
• Provide useful notes where confusion may arise.

16. Keep it Personal

• Avoid bland, detached corporatespeak.
• Use a customer-centric style of writing.
• Be conversational – involve your users.

17. Overcome User Anxiety

• What might your users fear on your site?
• Is there too much on the screen during crucial payment stages?
• Keep the distractions down.
• Keep it simple.

18. Let Your Users Know It’s Safe to Use Your Site

• Especially if you’re asking for their financial details – they need to have peace of mind.
• Let visitors know that you do everything possible to ensure safety and privacy.

19. Don’t let site registration get in the way

• Putting up a registration wall around your content could drive away valuable traffic.
• Using this as a prerequisite to shopping online could lose you customers – leave it til check-out.

20. Good SEO everywhere.

• Leave no stone unturned.
• Metadata, page titles, headers, images, links and copy should all be optimised for search engine crawlers.

Some of it is rather impressive.

We’re honoured to have been shortlisted for this year’s Innovation Awards held by digital marketing experts, Econsultancy.

VI has been nominated for “Innovation in SEO/Natural Search,” alongside Latitude, Majestic-12 and Stickyeyes.