A new B2B Website design, for a New Brand? Often the best choice for an entrepreneur choosing to enter a new B2B category isn’t necessary to start a new brand from scratch. In fact, it’s usually much easier and faster to purchase an existing B2B company and build upon the foundations the previous owners have laid down. This was the case with our client Ramburi – a traditional Thai Spa products development house acquired by Mr Daniel Frick and a number of partners in 2010. The company, which Daniel now manages had existed for a decade and was already exporting its products to over 20 countries.
Legacy B2B website design that’s “Embarrassing”
The old Ramburi website:
An old and unappealing website is a common issue in these scenarios, and this was the case the new Ramburi team faced.
The existing B2B website design didn’t represent what Daniel had in mind, in terms of the brand’s vision, services or products. From a functional perspective it, in Daniel’s own words, ” left a lot to be desired” as well…
When, during our initial brief, we asked Daniel what was wrong with the site he made a brilliant analogy to the differences of experience between eating at good and bad restaurants – “It’s not my area of expertise, so it’s hard for me to define the problems, but I feel coming to our site isn’t like eating at a fantastic restaurant…”
Understanding B2B priorities
A B2B website is “Good” only insofar as it serves a company’s business goals as they evolve and change over time.
When we first started working with Ramburi, Daniel stated his business objective was to get a new site, one that wouldn’t be a source of embarrassment, up and running ASAP, so as to help drive marketing and sales.
This is pretty much a textbook reply, and one that makes perfect sense – After making a hefty investment in buying a B2B business, who wouldn’t want to start seeing ROI on their investment ASAP?
It’s this simple reality that drives my belief that for businesses speed beats perfection in 9 times out of 10. Interestingly in 9 out of 10 cases, our web designers feel the opposite to be true. I guess it’s the difference in outlook between marketing and design considerations ????
Create B2B ROI ASAP
The design we proposed :
The answer is – As soon as the new B2B website design is marginally better than the old one – That’s the moment it makes sense to put it online and start getting Return-on-Investment.
Changes and tweaks can and should come later, with subsequent improvements in user experience further improving ROI, but the immediate problem – in this case embarrassment due to a poor website, was already taken care of.
Any website is always a work in progress – The process of constant improvement is inevitable for B2B companies as they seek to continuously improve their ROI, and that’s why we’ve dedicated a post to how best to evaluate and add new features to your B2B website.
B2B website design – A case study for Fast Beats Perfect
Financially it always makes sense to have a website go online as quickly as possible, than to have it be “100% perfect”. This logic is extended into app development and user testing as well.
The logic is simple:
- The sooner your new site is out the door, the faster you get return on your investment.
- The sooner you launch your website, the sooner you’ll learn how to improve it from your audience, and make no mistake it’s THEIR opinion that matters the most (rather than your web-designers or even your own).
- Both your business and the web are constant states of flux and evolution – There’s really no such thing as a “100% perfect”. At best, and this is what we aim for, there’s “Great for the here-and-now, with a decent plan for future improvements”.
