Part 2 - New website key questions

What helps make the process of developing a new website go more smoothly? 

In the previous blog (some time ago), I discussed about getting the project brief as detailed as possible in order to save time in the long run and for the creative lead to get under the skin of the project more effectively. In this post, we are talking about a similar aspect of creative development - key questions to answer before getting a website built.

Before embarking on the journey of building a new website from scratch, there a key facts about your business and your business model that would be very useful to know, some of which might not seem particularly relevant at this stage.  However, all information about a business is useful and can only help the creative process. 

So, what kind of questions?

It's important to ask as many 'top line' questions as possible, so to start you could ask:

1.) What kind of business is your company in? Describe the products/services you sell.

It might also be worth asking at the this stage if the business has a premises from which they are based.

Then the following questions would be:

2.) What problem does your business solve for customers?

In addition to gleaning the above information, having a summary, such as an 'elevator pitch' would also be useful, e.g.

3.) If you had to describe your company in less than 15 words, what would it be?

These top line questions are key to understanding what the business objectives are, which in turn will help inform how the website should be developed and designed.

Then, once these questions are answered, the next round of questions should focus on the existing digital presence. We can look at those types of questions in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

Ned Collier
Mushroom Creative Services

Part 1 - the brief

How can you get your creative materials working for you as they should? For example your printed brochure, your website or even your business cards.

The answer is isn't as easy as you might at first think.

Clearly, the design brief should be as accurate and detailed as possible in order for the objectives to be fully realised, but whether a project works is about more than that, it's about fully understanding the intention of the piece in relation to your whole communications mix, in addition to fully understanding what the aims of the business are.

On many occasions, in my own experience, the absence of both of these things has led to a longer more drawn out creative process.

But once these have been identified, in addition to a detailed brief written, then the creative has every reason to deliver what it's supposed to do, even if it's for mere business cards.

Ned
Mushroom Creative

www.mushroomcreative.co.uk
info@mushroomcreative.co.uk