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Big Ideas in Brand Story Marketing



Like many fledgling small business owners and solopreneurs, Pamela Hock googled budget website development services when she started her practice, and clicked on some high-volume low-touch agency that cranks out template websites for naïve new business owners.


Here's the website they did for her mental health counseling business:


Cheap website example
Budget webdev – via agency cookie-cutter

I mean...where is that? Why the boats? She's based in Richmond, VA. What does any of that jungle imagery have to do with her, her business, or her clients?


And why did they just take her raw writing and stick it in for copy? How could someone sign off on this work and be proud of their job?


And they charged her hundreds of dollars for this.


Website development on a budget


She doesn't have the funds for a major website project, so we agreed to build her website gradually over several months with a retainer.


First priority was rewriting the page for her counseling services, where current clients could access their portal, and new prospects (from Psychology Today) could contact her—while we developed her Big Idea.


On our discovery call, she told me her story and why she does what she does. And how she helps her clients. And why she's willing to work with sex offenders after having been victimized for years.


I asked her what her clients ask about most frequently, their most common doubts and hopes. Then we reworked her one-page website, concentrating on customer-centric copy and simplifying the drag & drop design.


Ditching all the irrelevant cluttered imagery.