Company + Challenge
Crafty Penguins is a team of IT consultants based in Canada that provides Linux, DevOps and Kubernetes Consulting Services.
They’ve done some work on their website themselves in the past: wrote the copy, optimized it for SEO and started running AdWords PPC campaigns. And it did help them get more leads than before. But something still seemed to be missing.
“Our website wasn’t getting us enough quality leads”
The ads we were running had a good click-through rate, and we were getting enough traffic. But the bounce rates were quite high, and the prospects who reached out to us didn’t really seem to have read any of the pages.
Solution
Step #1: Analyze the current state of the pages
At first, Wim reached out to me for a website review. I analyzed his homepage, About and several service pages and then presented my findings in a written report.
The verdict:
- The pages didn’t have a clear coherent structure for the copy to have a chance to move the prospects towards a conversion.
- The copy itself was too vague, lacking specificity and value.
- There were too few effective testimonials.
It became clear that small tweaks here and there wouldn’t be enough, and that the pages would have to be written from scratch.
“
Gill really nailed the analysis in terms of diagnosing the issues and came up with really solid and logical recommendations. It gave me the confidence that she would be able to deliver on new design and copy as well. I appreciated Gill’s ability to understand what’s going on in our world of IT, our minds and the minds of our customers, and the fact that she had a very close eye to detail.
Solution
Step #2: Zero in on value proposition + collecting customer feedback
Wim and I had already talked about the offer and the target audience of Crafty Penguins before I analyzed the pages. And that helped us understand what kind of information was missing on the website.
Yet, to uncover the exact words and phrases to say what the prospects needed to hear, we had to dive deeper into what makes Crafty Penguins different and hear from Wim’s customers.
I designed a questionnaire for Wim to conduct customer interviews. The feedback his sales team collected helped us understand:
- What his prospects expect from an IT consultancy firm in terms of services
- What’s important to their prospects when they decide whether to reach out
- What their current clients value most about Crafty Penguins
- What words and phrases their prospects use to describe their problems and results
“
Gill asked great questions that got me thinking about our business, team and clients in a way I hadn’t before. She wasn’t afraid to call out the BS and challenge me where required.
Step #3: Create valuable, specific copy that resonates
Using the insights from the website review and customer data, I created new copy and fully fledged mockups for several web pages. Here’s how I approached the main ones.
Homepage:
- Make it clear from the start who Crafty Penguins are and what they offer
- Immediately after that, make it clear why their prospects should choose Crafty Penguins and not their competitors
- Provide a clear overview of the services Crafty Penguins offer and technologies they have expertise at
- Use effective testimonials to show that the company is reliable and trustworthy
Services page:
- Group related services into one page section to make it easier for the prospects to find relevant information
- Make the benefits of each service clear
- Use bullet points, headings and subheadings to keep the information scannable and easy to process
About page:
- Show that there are likable and trustworthy people behind the company
- Tell the prospects about the values of the company in a relevant way without boring them with self-centered statements about mission and philosophy
- Introduce the main team members with a headshot and a short paragraph about the skills they bring to the table
If you want to learn more about the strategy behind the About page, I explained it in this video:
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I didn’t want generic, boring cliché content that appeared to be syndicated. And Gill created really good copy that resonates with our target clients. Working with her was a great experience. She was always quick to respond, delivered by when she said she would and communicated really well.
Deliverables
At the end of the project, Crafty Penguins got:
- Clear and valuable website copy that resonates with their prospects
- Fully-fledged mockups for every page to make sure the design supports the message and doesn’t get in the way
- A video walkthrough where I presented the new mockups and copy and explained the rationale behind some important copy and design decisions
- Final review of the new pages after implementation to weed out possible design issues that may impact user experience or credibility
Results
Several months after the new pages went live, when Wim analyzed the website performance, he was glad to see that the conversions went up, with more leads coming in from both ads and organic search.
“We now get more and better leads through our website”
Since launching the new copy, we saw an increase in both, conversions and lead quality. We are having better conversations with the prospects that reach out. And the bounce rate for the pages Gill wrote are much lower – about 15%, which is almost half of what it used to be.
Even though I’d been researching a lot about marketing and copywriting the last 10 years, working with Gill, I learned a ton about copy and design that sells.
Want your website to drive more business?
Let me review your web pages and suggest changes to design and copy that will get you more sign-ups, sales or inquiries. Or write you new web copy that makes your business message clear and resonates with your prospects.
