In the very first part of your journey, you’ll need a website brief that explains the problems you’re facing and what you want to solve. It gives crucial information about your business, considerations you want us to keep in mind and any limitations.
Creating a website brief is the best way to communicate ideas. It means that everyone is aligned and agrees on what needs to be achieved.
It’s not a test and we aren’t expecting it to be picture-perfect — it’s something we can help you with and build upon.
If you’re just getting started on your brief and want some direction, read on for some helpful pointers.
1. Getting to know you
We want to know all the basics about you and your team: what you do, what products and services you offer to customers. It’s also handy to know when you were founded, where you operate from and what sort of company ethos you have. Is there anything that represents your brand that you think we should know about?
At this point, you should let us know who from your business we’ll be communicating with throughout the project. We’ll introduce them to the project manager they’ll be dealing with on our side so they know where to direct questions.
2. Your industry, competitors and audience segments
What is this process really all about? At the root of it, it’s about your customers.
Everything that we design, develop and optimise has your target market at its core; that means understanding the industry you operate in, the competitors you’re up against, and what will appeal to customers, so they pick your products and services every time. How do you want to stand out in the crowd?
If you have any previous research or insights into your audience and their demographics, we’d love to know. This can be research into current audiences, or the ones you want to tap into in the future. Every little helps here!
3. Timeline and budget
You might not know exactly what budget you have available at the very start, and that’s okay. If you can give us a ballpark figure or range, we can always amend this later or provide you with the most effective website possible within your current budget.
The same applies for timelines. If you tell us when you want to finish the project, we can factor this into our plans. Perhaps you want to be ready for a new quarter, an event or want to line it up with the launch of other campaigns.
4. What does your website look like?
Even if you don’t use your current website right now, it’s useful for us to see. If it’s one of the things your customers know you for, you may want certain aspects to transition into your new website. Similarly, you should consider the aspects of your current website that you’re not as happy with.
More often than not, we can get a decent grasp of what you ‘need’ by looking at your website content; we’ll make recommendations and help you visualise the potential of your new website.
5. The nitty-gritty (technicalities)
As well as design elements, we need to know the technical systems to be integrated. Are there any systems, databases or functions that are critical to your business? Think accessibility, APIs, payment functions.
To learn more from your favourite manchester web designers about how we can help your business, contact us today.
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