We recently updated our website to reflect our various services and better showcase our work. It was an eye-opening experience and we learned a lot along the way about ourselves as a brand, our past work, our current clients, and what new companies we want to attract.
We didn’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel when it came to our brand, but we did need to think strategically about how to position ourselves in the current market.
Our team worked hard on the new look and feel. The result? An intuitive, well-organized, optimized website.
Here are eight things we learned along the way:
1. Optimization matters.
We weren’t leveraging our website as a true sales tool. We needed to consider the user’s experience, which led to a more intuitive tagging strategy and helped us organize our various services, case studies, and content. Plus, we leaned into SEO optimization tactics to help our visibility when clients go to Google to find PR and marketing agencies for specific industries.
2. Keep the key elements.
The best rebrands have a connective thread so there’s clear evolution from the old to the new. We didn’t want to shock or surprise users who already knew us.
We kept the enso ink swirl but updated our colors and typography. By keeping it simple, we let our impressive client work speak for itself.
3. Accessibility is imperative.
By doing extensive research into the audiences we were hoping to reach, we had a better idea of what they would expect from a well-designed website. We uncovered pain points with our previous website and doubled down on making it more intuitive.
4. Internal timing is everything.
We knew we were at a vital inflection point after we joined the BerlinRosen Holdings network. Our work had evolved and we saw the perfect opportunity to update our messaging and visual appearance.
5. A brand is more than just a logo.
The meaning of a brand has evolved. Yes, you still need a good logo but it should represent your company more deeply. What feeling does your brand evoke? Does it represent the general sentiment toward your company?
Website content and look and feel are ways to activate the brand in a tangible way but clearly and consistently telling your story across all messaging is what makes people pay attention.
6. We are at the right place at the right time.
We are in the early days of AI mis- and disinformation. While we’ve already seen the effects of Google taking authentic and unique content seriously, flagging AI-produced content, it is only the beginning.
We considered our current landscape when planning our new site to reflect our services and integrated campaigns pulling us into the future.
7. Connection is still at the heart of it all.
The world of PR is changing rapidly but storytelling is still a core strategy for connecting audiences. The vehicles for messaging might be changing but the work of community building through sharing ideas will stay the same.
Our CEO, Beth Monaghan explained:
“Our site is designed for anyone who wants to have a stake in the thought leadership about the future of innovation and human connection.”
8. We are always growing.
Inkhouse is always growing, not only in numbers, but in experience and making well-informed decisions from data-based insights. We are constantly improving upon our client work, pivoting to strategies that will work tomorrow. We’ve grown from a scrappy startup to an agency for top innovators nationwide. Our new site reflects our journey.
We are so proud of our new website and excited to embark on this new chapter. Rebecca Solnit was recently interviewed about the climate crisis and said, “Changing the story is not all you need to change the world. But you can’t change the world without changing the story about who matters, what matters, and who we can be.”
We get up and do PR and marketing every day because we believe minds can change when we tell the right story. Our website is an opportunity for us to tell our own story while proving to innovative clients that we can tell theirs too.
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