The best way to ask for a website quote

Phil: So Steve, a regular topic for us here at Bespoke is a discussion we have internally and with clients. It’s how to create an accurate website quote for the client.

Steve: I don't think you necessarily know how to get the right quote actually if you're on the client side often or how to get the best quote. When somebody comes to us asking for a quote we'll often sort of pull back and zoom out a little bit and look at what's the full picture of what you're trying to achieve. But, we know that if somebody's firing off emails to lots of agencies, some people are just going to reply with literally a quote for literally what they've asked for and it's often not quite the right thing. It's not the thing the business needs often.

Phil: You know if we're doing our, you know with all the experience we have over 23 years, we wouldn't be doing our job properly if we didn't look at that wider picture. You know if we simply gave that one-dimensional figure and didn't look at how we could improve or enhance the strategy or how we could enhance the website project with campaigns, then we'd be failing.

Steve: We could maybe illustrate it actually if we imagine a bell curve. Where there's a point where there's a size of project that's really worth a business doing and there's a size of projects that's too big and will be wasteful on budget and you shouldn't be requesting that, and there's a size of projects that's too small that it just can't have any impact. And we've had I think we've had even in last week we had one that I think was very specific. There was a £10,000 budget, we want these things, is it possible to deliver it? Yes. Is it going to deliver anything for the organisation? Definitely not, it's going to have no impact, zero impact so we step back for that reason. But if the question is, you know, we’d like a call with you about a project we're thinking about, what's the different ways we might approach this? We'll be able to say well you've got this option down here, you could go at a mid-level here or a higher level here. Here's three people like you and this is what they're doing, have a look at them, we can show you the results and you can choose where to go in these areas but these are all highly profitable projects. Whereas a prescribed brief, asking for a quote, I mean for one thing, it implies that the key thing is going to be the cost. You know, we might go with the cheapest quote for example, which often isn't, well it rarely is the highest return quote. So it's where’s the sweet spot I guess, for size of project and what does the business actually need? 

Phil: So I guess the point you're making is instead of it just being the cost or the basic quote, this is about outcomes isn't it for the client, ultimately? Whether the outcomes are good, middle or you know, amazing. But there has to be that return on investment doesn't there?

Steve: And actually, maybe it's worth us sharing as well, that it wouldn't be unusual for us to recommend something smaller than what a client's asking for in some cases. Because there are, I mean what's the size of sites that we've built this year? We've got 10,000 pages, 20,000, 30,000 pages. You know organisations with lots of information to share and lots of services to share, lots of products to share and so on. And typically when they come asking for a quote, these organisations, they point us to the existing site, which might have 30,000 pages and ask for the cost for rebuilding and redesigning it, and it's as simple as that. That's the request. But the question there is, these days what's actually needed? Because it's often a lighter, leaner, simpler site, but it's some really clever lead magnets around it, or some really clever campaigns, or really targeted campaigns actually. So it can be half the size of your project that you're asking for, but do this as well and you've got a really big return on that. 

Phil: From that initial request for a single figure, if you like, if that's what's being asked for, there's often a lot of questions to be asked. Areas to challenge information, to find before we can look at that fuller picture that from what you're saying Steve, involves not just the site quote, but you know what tactics we can do to create campaigns or drive traffic, or is the overall, you know, the overarching strategy correct as well?

Steve: I think knowing what we know, I mean we've got hundreds of projects between us haven’t we? Hundreds of clients and over a long period of time as well. I think the question that I would go with if I was on the other side of the fence now would be, I'd find an agency that's very matched on sector and deals with companies like mine, and I'd ask for a call with them, and in that call, I just want to know, businesses like ours what are they currently doing? What's the typical budget? What's the typical tactics? What's really working this year, next year and the year after? And just give me a breakdown of those and then I'll come back to you with my brief. So it’s that sort of level of conversation I think is the most valuable.