Understanding Growth-Driven Design For a Powerful New Website Launch

Traditional website design is broken. Website projects are too often inordinately expensive and overwhelming. But it doesn't have to be that way!

If you want to improve results from your site, then this article is for you. You'll get a concise list of articles and resources that can deepen your understanding of growth-driven design: a new approach that helps you affordably create an online presence that continuously drives website traffic, engages potential customers, and converts more visitors into qualified sales leads. That way, you can make an informed decision about how to invest your website budget.

• What is Growth-Driven Design (GDD)
• Business Benefits of GDD
• 5 Building Blocks of GDD
• Required Technology for Holistic Sales and Marketing
• Budget Projections

What is Growth-Driven Design? (GDD)

Growth-driven design is founded on the principle of continuous improvement. Here's how the experts describe this approach:

• The New Playbook: Growth-Driven Design [Growth-Driven Design]
• What is Growth-Driven Design? [Ascend Business Growth]
• What is Growth-Driven Design? [Guide] [SmartBug]
• Growth-Driven Design Introduction [Lean Labs]

Business Benefits of GDD

Growth-driven design leverages real data and science to smooth the conversion paths from an Internet user to website visitor to lead to customer. Here's how the experts describe the benefits:

• The Benefits of Growth-Driven Design for Your Website [STRATEGIC]
• Benefits of Growth-Driven Design [ebook] [Sage Lion Media]
• Benefits of Growth-Driven Design Over Traditional Web Design [IRONPAPER]
• The Advantages of Growth-Driven Design [THAT Agency]

Building Blocks of GDD

The 5 building blocks of a growth-driven website include:

1. Personas: Resources for Creating Buyer Personas [Ascend Business Growth]
2. Website Strategy: Set smart goals, understand user behavior, solve design problems, and connect with customers [Growth-Driven Design]
3. Launch Pad Website: Quickly launched and the foundation for future optimization [Growth-Driven Design]
4. Continuous Improvement: Identify high-impact actions you can take to grow your business [Growth-Driven Design]
5. Research, Brainstorming, and Testing: Discover what’s working and not working [Growth-Driven Design]

For more information about the process, check out the article How Does Growth-Driven Design Work? [Growth-Driven Design].

Required Technology for Holistic Sales and Marketing

Finding the tools that have the functionality you need is essential to the success of your website. There are 10+ tools that round-out a growth-driven design technology stack.

1. Content Management System (CMS), e.g., Hubspot, WordPress, Squarespace, Weebly, Wix
2. Marketing Automation, e.g., HubSpot, Marketo, Infusionsoft, Pardot, Eloqua, Silverpop
3. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, Nimble, PipelineDeals
4. Email Marketing, e.g., HubSpot, Constant Contact, Active Campaign, Mailjet, AWeber
5. Social Media Publishing, e.g., Hubspot, Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout social, Sendible, MavSocial
6. Social Media Monitoring: Truescope, Brand 24, Mention
7. Search Engine Optimization, e.g., SEMrush, SpyFu, Moz, Alexa Marketing Stack
8. Research and Testing, e.g., CrazyEgg, Loop11, Hotjar, Website Grader, Attensee
9. Analytics, e.g., HubSpot, Google Analytics, Spring Metrics, Kissmetrics, Woopra
10. Project Management, e.g., Asana, Basecamp, CoSchedule, Wrike, Workamajig

When choosing your tech stack, remember the three p's of business: people, process, product. It's a given that your tech stack (the product) must include the functionality you need, but tools mean nothing if you don't have a savvy person at the helm that can create smooth, repeatable processes to use them and get the job done.

My motto is, choose your marketer first and together pick tools that align with your business objectives and the marketer's strengths. You'll be much more efficient and profitable in the long run. For example, we can crank out work like nobody's business using HubSpot and a couple of other tools, along with the related processes we've developed to keep projects moving forward. When we get tossed into using a tech stack outside of HubSpot, we can still do a great job, don't get me wrong, but our methods have to be tweaked, which can slow us down for a bit.

A weak or misaligned tech stack can dramatically hinder efficiency due to integration or process related issues. For more information about choosing the right sales and marketing technology, check out the article Tips for Modernizing Your Sales and Marketing Technology [Infographic] [Ascend Business Growth] (or contact us).

Budget Projections

Determining what percent of your current budget you should spend on your website isn’t easy. Just remember: you get what you pay for.

• Website Redesign Cost: Growth-driven Design vs. Traditional Design [Rizen]
• Growth-Driven Design: Why Does it Cost So Much? [iMPACT]
• The Cost of Growth-Driven Design vs. the Overwhelming Value [BLULEADZ]
• How Much Do Small Businesses Spend on Marketing? [Ascend Business Growth]

Learn More

My favorite way to learn about new topics is to watch/listen to YouTube videos. I put together this Growth-driven design playlist so you can listen in the car, walking the dog, making dinner, working out, etc. There’s always time to learn! Growth-driven Design YouTube Playlist