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Ever wondered how we manage a website project? The immersion session is where it all begins.
So you’ve agreed to work with us on a website project. First of all, thanks! It’s an honour to be working with you. Now, go home, put your feet up, we’ll have that website over in a few days.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that.
Some brands are surprised when we tell them that we can’t begin building them a new website until we’ve met a number of times, and are able to get fully stuck into the project. But in order for us to deliver the best website that we can, and do so efficiently, we need to ensure that all of the key stakeholders and teams are aligned.
And the first step to achieving that is the immersion session.
The immersion session, as the name suggests, allows us to fully immerse ourselves into a website project. But more importantly, we view this as step one of the project getting fully underway.
Whilst we’ll have certainly introduced ourselves to a brand in detail before this, these deep-dive meetings are our first real opportunity to connect in person. They allow us to get the right people in the room to explore insights and ideas and create an open and interactive space for us to explore the brand’s vision and goals.
We’ll dig into the details of who the brand is, who their competitors are, and where they want to go. With sessions typically lasting around four hours, the preparation is as intense as the session itself, ensuring that every minute is impactful and full of structure that can sculpt the rest of the website project.
An immersion session is made up of multiple stages, and each is as important as each other in ensuring that the remaining project runs smoothly.
“You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.”
In short, immersion sessions happen to make 100% certain that we’re on the same page as a brand before a website project begins. As eCommerce experts, we could very well ask you to fill out a short questionnaire, and go away and build you a best practice brand suite and website. But, whilst we are a team of eCommerce experts, we’re not experts in your brand. You know your brand’s history, goals, and nuances down to a more minute level of detail than we ever could. As a result of your insights, we’ll strategise in a way that keeps your ideal customer front of mind. After all, the most popular route may not be the best for your unique audience. It’s crucial that we work together to create the best site possible for a brand’s unique customer, and the immersion session is step one.
Secondly, we like to think we can get a good sense of what a brand’s goals might be, but the reality is we don’t hit the bullseye 100% of the time. So, if we find that there is a difference in focus between us, however minor it might be, we’ll look to better understand your brand and its goals, so that we can move forwards in unison.
No meeting can run smoothly without some preparation done beforehand. And our process starts with an onboarding form. This isn’t just a questionnaire…it’s our way of getting to know a brand from the inside out, and the people that make it up - both employees and customers. We explore the product offering, goals, and target personas, breaking down the brief to understand exactly where a brand wants to head and what they want to prioritise.
We’ll then step into doing some good ol’ research. All eCommerce stores will have a similar skeleton for the most part. So, it’s actually quite simple to directly compare them, provided you’ve done the work of getting all of the data in one place.
We’ll look into your brand’s homepage, collection landing pages, collection listing pages, and product pages. The whole time we’re on the lookout for unique elements that stand out, as well as areas of improvement based on eCommerce best practices.
Once we’ve said our hellos and have actually got stuck into the meat and potatoes of the immersion session, step 1 is the brief in brief. Off the back of the onboarding form, we’ll go away and think about the project, and your brand as a whole. From this, we can present what we believe your goals for the project to be.
It covers…
The brief in brief often uncovers something to a brand that they may not have even known beforehand, and reveals to us any nuances that we need to be aware of.
You likely have a preconceived idea of where you stand in the market in relation to your competitors, regardless of if you see yourself as a big fish or as being in a pond full of them. But from the outside looking in, you may be in a better or worse position than you think.
During the immersion session, we’ll thoroughly analyse the websites of your brand’s primary competitors, dissecting each page to identify what works and what doesn’t. This analysis helps us pinpoint where you truly sit within the market and how we can leverage insights to give you a boost.
Once the competitors have been looked into, we’ll move onto establishing your brand’s customer base, and the type of customers that make it up. This starts with an analysis of who you are currently targeting and the motivations of your existing audience.
Customer personas have helped 82% of companies create an improved value proposition, and we’re surprised it’s not 100% based on how effective they are for us.
By understanding the shopping habits and preferences of a brand’s ideal customers, we can set goals for the website that align with delivering an exceptional user experience and a seamless journey through the site.
A website and a “brand” don’t exist in isolation of one another. In fact, branding is at the heart of every successful website.
Your brand expression is crucial in differentiating you from your competitors. Through its presence on your site, it will provide a user experience that feels unique to your brand, going further it can create emotions and feelings that align with your brand and audience, building brand equity and loyalty.
So, with this in mind, even if your existing creative suite is serving you well, our immersion sessions will include a focus on branding, with a member of our creative team directly. This focus will review existing brand guidelines, explore new ideas, and ensure consistency across all touchpoints - from the website to marketing assets and social media. This approach allows us to strengthen brand identity, increase recognition, and build customer loyalty throughout the development of a new site. So we would deem it a disservice to not include a branding focus.
Add in how brand expression is important to differentiate from your competitors, and provide a user experience that feels unique to your brand and evokes emotions and feelings that align with your brand and the audience, building brand equity and loyalty
In addition to it acting as a point of affirmation that you’re actually getting a new website soon, despite their long run time, brands often leave an immersion session with a refreshed outlook on their business as a whole.
These sessions help them revisit areas that may have been overlooked and identify new opportunities.
The top three reasons we prioritise immersion sessions are simple:
A strong brand identity creates a community of loyal customers and generates organic growth through earned media and word-of-mouth. Understanding competitors clarifies market positioning and highlights gaps that your brand can fill with its unique selling points, making your brand stand out. Lastly, stepping back to reassess the brand and its goals with our guidance ensures that the website we build together aligns perfectly with your brand’s long-term vision.
Our immersion sessions are collaborative, eye-opening, and essential. They set the stage for a successful website project, ensuring that when we begin, we’re all on the same page, ready to create something exceptional.
Want us to take a deep dive into your brand and get started building you a stunning site? Let’s talk!
Olivia joined Cake as a Junior Account Executive fresh off from the oft travelled digital marketing fast track course at Birmingham City University.
Bringing with her a wealth of experience working in social media management and client facing content creation, Olivia has got stuck right into the world of eCommerce and delivering projects for our vast range of clients. Assisting in managing some of our toughest projects from ideation through to completion across the full mix of digital marketing channels, Olivia ensures that our work is to the high standard that we pride ourselves on, that our clients are happy, and that everything is finished on time.
