Workflow & Automation

Every website project, from inception to launch, passes through numerous phases that require input from various contributors. These stakeholders typically include project managers, team members, and customers, and each brings unique perspectives and expertise. But bringing these parties together isn’t enough on its own.

With so many different individuals involved, understanding how to engage stakeholders is crucial. Their insights, feedback, and support are pivotal in navigating project challenges and unlocking new opportunities. This engagement ensures you consider different perspectives, enhances your decision-making, and aligns the project’s direction with broader organizational goals, steering it toward success.

Understanding stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement is the process of actively involving individuals and groups who have a vested interest in a project’s outcome. This engagement goes beyond initial involvement and requires ongoing collaboration with key parties throughout the project’s lifecycle.

It requires collaborating with internal contributors, like project managers and team members, and involving external stakeholders, such as investors, sponsors, and customers. Their participation is vital because web development and design success depends as much on how well you understand, cooperate, and align with stakeholder interests and expectations as it does on technical skills and creative talent.

Engaging stakeholders effectively also fosters a sense of ownership, turning passive observers into active contributors. Starting this involvement early in the project builds trust, produces valuable feedback, and cultivates a positive, supportive environment. By taking this approach, you ensure the project benefits all involved parties and achieves its intended goals.

Types of project stakeholders

Of course, key project stakeholders vary between teams and industries. While the specifics differ, here are some of the most commonly involved types:

• Project managers. Project management oversees the project from planning to execution. They align the project’s objectives with the company’s long-term goals by coordinating tasks, managing resources, and ensuring timely, budget-conscious deliverables.
• Resource managers. These professionals manage and optimize human capital, materials, and budgets. They balance project demands with available resources to ensure smooth project progression.
• Team members. After project and resource managers set milestones and allocate resources, team members take over. When creating websites and apps, project teams typically include web developers, designers, and content creators who all collaborate on specialized tasks to bring the project to fruition.
• Executives and high-level management. Leaders at the executive and management levels provide strategic direction to align the project with the company’s mission and strategy. Their strategic input also opens doors to essential resources, enables higher-level approvals, and helps the project team navigate organizational hurdles — all to provide the project with necessary support.
• Sponsors. These stakeholders provide crucial financial and strategic project support. Whether internal or external, they focus on the project’s outcomes, like increased revenue or enhanced market presence. Their involvement brings significant value because they often have substantial resources and influence that you can leverage for project success. And their association with a successful project can enhance their market reputation, making it a symbiotic relationship for all parties.
• Customers. Customers are central to every project as the end users who buy into your company’s values and offerings. Catering to their needs and preferences, collecting feedback, and ensuring a positive experience are key to your project’s success.

6 effective stakeholder engagement strategies

After identifying the relevant stakeholders for your project, you’ll need to implement best practices to maximize output. Here are six practical strategies for stakeholder management and engagement.

1. Involve the right stakeholders

Actively map out the project’s scope and pinpoint areas that require specific expertise. Then, identify and engage individuals whose roles or interests directly impact the project’s outcome, including managers, executives, and customers.

Involving diverse stakeholders provides a broad spectrum of insights and ensures you integrate comprehensive perspectives into the project. Such an inclusive approach streamlines communication, reduces misunderstandings, and aligns the project with the organization’s goals.

In a website redesign project, you might include project managers to coordinate workflows and align tasks with the broader project goals. And executives such as department heads can offer strategic guidance to ensure the redesign aligns with the company’s vision. Involving customers, possibly through focus groups and surveys, provides direct insights into user preferences and needs. This collaboration ensures the redesigned website is user-centric, functionally sound, and seamlessly integrated with existing systems, fulfilling the organization’s specifications and objectives.

2. Identify needs and expectations

Conduct comprehensive analyses, like a competitor or stakeholder analysis, or specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goal-setting to understand each stakeholder group’s ideal outcome. Consider leveraging surveys, interviews, and workshops to collect direct input and feedback. Doing so ensures you address each group’s concerns and priorities to drive more tailored and effective project outcomes.

When developing an ecommerce website, such analysis might reveal that user-friendly navigation and secure payment options are top priorities for your customers. Aligning these expectations with project objectives resonates with internal stakeholders like the marketing team, which values customer satisfaction, and the IT department, which prioritizes security. This alignment ensures the final product meets both internal objectives and user requirements, creating a well-rounded and successful outcome.

3. Communicate early and regularly

Early and ongoing communication is pivotal for stakeholder engagement. Initiating these dialogues at the project’s onset quickly addresses emerging concerns and keeps everyone on the same page. It’s important for alignment and adaptability because it allows the project team to respond swiftly to changing needs and feedback.

After establishing smooth communication lines, maintain the momentum by regularly updating stakeholders on progress and challenges. Consider using visual aids like wireframes and mockups to make complex concepts accessible to stakeholders, regardless of their technical expertise.

4. Seek feedback

Proactively seek stakeholder feedback and integrate suggestions throughout the project engagement. Taking this iterative approach demonstrates your commitment to meeting their expectations, lets you make timely adjustments, and helps you adapt to evolving project needs.

When creating a website, you might present stakeholders with interactive user interface prototypes and solicit their opinions on key elements like navigation, brand messaging, and overall functionality. Before the official launch, you can also use A/B testing to refine the site based on real users’ feedback. Leveraging feedback this way aligns the final product with stakeholder expectations and user needs and reinforces both groups’ involvement, making them feel valued and heard.

5. Stay ahead of market changes and trends

Regularly update stakeholders about market changes and emerging trends relevant to your project’s focus and industry. Keeping up with the latest developments in your niche helps you maintain a competitive edge and meet evolving user preferences, positioning you for long-term success.

To stay current, monitor industry publications through RSS feeds, participate in conferences and seminars, and engage with professional networks and social media. By incorporating up-to-date trends and advancements into your project, you ensure it reflects modern design preferences and cutting-edge functionality. Doing so enhances the project’s stakeholder appeal and resonates with end users, making it more relevant and attractive in a constantly evolving market.

6. Measure and modify stakeholder management strategies

Assess the effectiveness of your stakeholder engagement plan using key performance indicators (KPIs) and adjust them based on feedback and market dynamics. KPIs are essential because they provide quantifiable data that enables you to objectively measure the impact of your approaches. This objective measurement is vital for making informed decisions and fine-tuning strategies for better outcomes.

A relevant web design and development KPI is the project milestone completion rate. This metric measures the percentage of project milestones achieved within set time frames and factors in stakeholder collaboration. A lower-than-expected completion rate signals delays in receiving stakeholder feedback and approvals. To address this, you might need to enhance communication for timelier responses or recalibrate milestone deadlines based on realistic expectations.

To enhance this assessment, consider using data visualization tools like Google Analytics. Data visualization helps identify trends, patterns, and improvement areas, which is helpful for optimizing your strategies. You can use these data visualizations to simplify complex information and better communicate the insights to your project stakeholders. This clarity helps them grasp key points more effectively and enables smoother discussions and more informed decision-making.

If existing strategies aren’t providing optimal results or smooth workflows, consider tweaking them according to stakeholder preferences. For example, if investors prefer video calls over in-person meetings, switch to online collaboration tools for more effective engagement.

Implement stakeholder engagement strategies with Webflow

For a new website project plan to truly succeed, you need more than just a stakeholder engagement plan. You need the right web development and design tools to transform stakeholder ideas into reality.

Webflow Enterprise offers a visual web development platform for building dynamic, functional websites without relying on code. It enables real-time collaboration and design editing that allows for seamless collaboration with stakeholders regardless of location.

Whether you’re developing an ecommerce store or seeking creative inspiration for your next project, Webflow provides comprehensive tools for hosting, publishing, and securely maintaining your site.

By introducing app development into our business model, Flowout boosts Webflow’s capabilities and expands our own revenue streams. 

Flowout is a Webflow Enterprise Partner that helps businesses design, build, scale, and maintain their Webflow websites. Our team of 25+ web designers, developers and project managers is ready to start on a project in less than 3 business days, providing unlimited web design, development, website maintenance, and optimization services. Additionally we help teams successfully migrate from other platforms to Webflow.

Working with some of the world’s fastest-growing companies like Jasper, Moz, Clearbit, Riverside, Sendlane, and others always puts us to the test and calls for custom solutions — which we can offer by building Webflow Apps. 

So far we’ve worked with over 100 different clients in Webflow, all requiring specific solutions for their businesses. Because of their different needs, we’ve been able to gain invaluable insights into the platform’s capabilities. 

Webflow is an extremely powerful tool for teams with a variety of business needs, so we wanted to offer Webflow users an even more versatile environment for their projects. In order to make this a reality, we started building Apps that seamlessly integrate with its framework. 

Our motivation to create these Apps comes from a commitment to provide solutions that go above and beyond. Webflow serves as an amazing foundation for our products, addressing specific pain points that we, our clients, or other agencies have encountered.

The Webflow Apps we’ve built

The first tool that we built for Webflow was Linguana, a multi-language solution that lets you easily translate Webflow pages in a few minutes. That was long before Webflow’s Localization feature was launched, and a lot of our clients were asking for solutions to their localization problems. 

The second tool was Vidzflow, a video hosting App for Webflow. Vidzflow expands the capabilities of videos in Webflow, allowing you to manage all of your videos without code. It provides hosting for raw video files or an embeddable and fully customizable video player – features that are not natively supported in Webflow. You can also upload and customize videos from other sources, like YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia, simply by entering their URL. 

Videos are usually a crucial part of every business, whether they’re on the landing pages, blogs, or docs. We needed Vidzflow for our internal projects and for our client work, because without it, we would be forced to continue using third-party options that are not optimized for Webflow. 

Our third app, Optibase, is for A/B testing in Webflow. Improving conversion rates on websites is the most important goal of many startups and businesses. With Google Optimize saying goodbye and the overly complex or pricey nature of similar tools, it felt like the perfect time to start building it.

The integration of app development within our business model has brought us a couple of advantages. 

Apps present a steadier revenue stream compared to the sometimes unpredictable nature of service-based models. We think it’s the right way to offer complementary SaaS products next to our Webflow service business. 

For example, a service business can witness more spikes in revenue, while apps are harder to grow. However, there are less drastic changes once your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) increases. 

On the other hand, our Apps also serve as great marketing and lead generation magnets. We are able to generate leads for our service business and vice versa because we are building Apps that we know will solve a lot of pain points for our clients. Additionally, it gives us the aircover of having tailored solutions readily available. The same goes the other way around: all of our SaaS users are potential customers for our design and development business in Webflow. 

Additionally, our experience has emphasized the importance of team allocation. The teams that we use for our agency client work and products are different. If you use the same team for both, you will always prioritize clients (rightfully so), which will compromise your ability to generate value from product development.

If that happens, timelines for your SaaS product will be longer and you won’t be able to focus on product development or enhancements as much. By assigning different teams for each product, we can build Webflow Apps  much faster while still making sure that our clients stay a top priority. 

We execute a lot of client work in Webflow, and over the years, we’ve run into limitations around video hosting and video management in general. As a result, we wanted to fill that gap for us, for our clients, and the whole Webflow community. 

Webflow’s App marketplace has been a key factor in Vidzflow’s growth. Since launching our app on the marketplace, we reached some amazing milestones. 

Our user base is steadily growing, surpassing 2000 users, including companies like Jasper, Memberstack and Flowbase. 

There are also more than 4000 videos uploaded to Vidzflow already, exceeding 6 million views. From a technical point of view, so far we’ve encoded more than 8000 videos, serving as great growth indicators for us going forward. 

We just released a new App called Optibase for testing websites in Webflow. Optibase lets you A/B test or split test different versions of your website so you can find the best performing versions to improve your conversions. 

Instead of guessing what works and what doesn’t work, you can make data-driven decisions to drive better website results. It equips you with the tools for testing everything from copy to design and even entire pages. Additionally, Optibase doesn’t impact your website performance; you can segment the audience based on their geolocation and screen size, and it’s completely no-code friendly. 

All that considered, it’s easy to say this is just the beginning. The marketplace’s rapid expansion and the community’s positive feedback inspires us to continue developing current and all future apps.  

Webflow’s App marketplace offers so much potential for agencies and experts to innovate and contribute to this ecosystem. The marketplace is growing so fast and we’re extremely excited for the opportunity to help shape its future —  one that will fundamentally change how websites are built.

Whether you’re delegating a task to an intern or allocating resources for the company’s next big project, operational decisions influence how your business protocols run. These day-to-day decisions add up. They create a rhythmic workflow where each employee knows their role and takes impactful action to propel the organization forward.

With a proper structure in place, supported by able project managers and team leaders, you can ensure that every choice and action lead to results that align with the company’s overarching strategy. Learn how to make better operational decisions and bring your team together for success.

What are operational decisions in business?

Operational (or operating) decisions are the daily choices and actions that drive an organization’s routine activities. Unlike strategic planning, which shapes an organization’s long-term direction, these decisions immediately impact your business in the short term.

Operational decisions are the most common, repeated choices in business. Managers and high-level employees must typically make quick judgment calls, whether regarding customers, team members, products, services, or online content.

Every company, big or small, faces these daily decisions in high volume. One choice — for instance, in response to a single customer’s call — may not be a high-impact action for the business. But hundreds to thousands of operating decisions add up over time.

What are the different types of business decisions?

Various types of decision-making contribute to a company’s short-, medium-, and long-term functioning. Operational decisions affect a company’s operations in the short term. Here are two other types of business decisions that affect a company in the medium and long term.

Strategic decisions

Strategic decisions form an organization’s high-level planning and direction. These choices, typically involving top executives and managers, direct high-level initiatives that shape the company’s mission, vision, and objectives in the long term.

The effects of strategic decisions impact an organization’s market position and scope for growth. They also resonate throughout the entire company and influence other decision-making in areas like project management, employee relations, and customer care.

Examples of strategic decisions include company mergers and acquisitions, major investments in technology, and partnerships.

Tactical decisions

Tactical decisions focus on medium-term objectives and bridge the gap between strategic planning and operational decision-making. Mid-level management, such as department heads and project managers, typically make tactical decisions that support their executives’ higher-level business strategies.

Examples of tactical decisions include budget allocation, personnel changes to meet a specific project’s demands, and targeted marketing campaigns.

Examples of operational decisions

Companies make hundreds of operational decisions every day, like managing internal business processes and external vendor relations. Some common types of day-to-day management choices to support business protocols include:

• Setting daily objectives. Operational decisions involve establishing specific goals for day-to-day results. For example, a production manager at a manufacturing company decides how many units the team should deliver daily based on demand, available resources, and production capacity.
• Calculating expenditure. Determining the cost of raw materials and how to invest limited budgets are crucial in operational decision-making. Whether negotiating with third-party vendors, analyzing the average market pricing, or finding the right balance between quality and cost-effectiveness, managers must make financial choices that influence an organization’s overall financial health.
• Managing vendors. Alongside budgets, operational decisions include choosing and managing reliable third-party vendors, negotiating contracts, and maintaining open communication channels. Effective supply chain management ensures a smooth flow of materials and services, which minimizes delays to production and delivery.
• Scheduling deliverables and deadlines. Project managers make operational decisions when creating schedules, allocating tasks, and setting deadlines for team members to ensure timely delivery. And they use centralized platforms, like an enterprise web application, to delegate these responsibilities and follow up with employees to achieve daily objectives.

Recruitment and training. Hiring and training personnel are key to developing team skills and driving a company’s success. These operational decisions typically fall to human resources (HR) managers, who identify staffing needs, recruit candidates, and implement training programs to reduce the learning curve for new employees.

Essential characteristics of operational decisions

Precision, agility, consistency, and timeliness are characteristics of effective operational decisions. Combining these characteristics ensures your decision-making is swift and reliable:

• Precision ensures organizational decisions are specific, well-defined, and unambiguous. This is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and errors, especially when handling resources and human capital.
• Agility reflects your organizational ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances, like a vendor renegotiating a contract clause or an employee suddenly falling sick. In these situations, agile decision-making lets you promptly respond and adjust strategies to maintain optimal performance without sacrificing quality.
• Consistent decision-making practices — like setting clear and long-term decision-making roles and adhering to the same best practices organization-wide — showcase stability and reliability to team members, suppliers, and customers.
• Timely decisions respect the fact that operational environments are typically fast-paced and dynamic, with situations requiring immediate attention to prevent bottlenecks and leverage emerging opportunities. Managers must act promptly and use their experience and available data to assess situations and choose the best possible actions.

5 factors that influence operational decision-making

Before making important organizational decisions, it’s essential to consider some key elements to ensure success. These five factors will prepare you to meet objectives and mitigate potential risks.

1. Alignment with broader goals

To make sound operational decisions, you must first grasp your company’s overarching goals. Then align daily activities with broader objectives to ensure each task and project contributes to the long-term strategic plan.

This practice helps decision-making remain consistent and hyper-focused to keep the organization from straying from its mission. For example, if the organization’s goal is to improve customer satisfaction, your operational decisions should prioritize consumer-centric approaches like service delivery and customer support.

2. Data-driven analysis

Data-driven decision-making involves using relevant information — like market trends, customer behavior, and key performance indicators (KPIs) — to inform operational choices.

While sheer managerial experience and expertise are valuable, data visualization tools can complement operational directions. These solutions offer quick access to comprehensive data and analytics so you can minimize guesswork and subjective bias in decision-making.

For example, an ecommerce store can use analytical data to determine its most viewed and best-selling products, which will then directly affect its supply chain and inventory management.

3. Stakeholder analysis

Operational decisions impact many parties, including employees, customers, and suppliers. Conducting a stakeholder analysis helps identify everyone’s interests and expectations so you can make inclusive and effective decisions to provide universal value.

For example, if an enterprise introduces a new marketing automation system, a stakeholder analysis would examine how it affects employee responsibilities and job satisfaction. With that knowledge, managers can make informed choices about how to rework relevant daily operations.

4. Cost-benefit analysis

A cost-benefit analysis weighs a decision’s potential benefits by measuring the choice’s value against the necessary spending for resources and capital. This analysis quantifies the financial implications and potential returns of investments (ROI), telling you what you might gain or lose from the decision.

You might conduct a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether a new website hosting service is worth the initial expense. The upfront costs may seem significant, but reduced maintenance over time makes it a worthwhile investment.

5. Risk analysis

Even with extensive research data and experienced personnel, operational decision-making always involves inherent risks. By conducting a thorough risk analysis, you can identify potential challenges and mitigate adverse outcomes early on.

Say a sports apparel company uses different transportation modes for faster home deliveries. A risk analysis would assess potential obstacles, like higher fuel costs or logistical issues, to ensure the decision is well-informed. Additionally, the insights from the analysis help managers create a contingency plan in case of complications.

Efficient and innovative decision-making with Webflow

Data-driven insights help you maximize each decision you make, big or small, to optimize your biggest marketing asset – your website. With Webflow, you can integrate analytics tools with your site and leverage data to make informed design choices that resonate with your audience.

For the best results, use effective A/B testing tools to make data-driven optimizations. Webflow offers a robust range of design and development possibilities for your site, providing opportunities to test various versions and make data-based decisions for maximum engagement. 

Learn how Webflow’s visual-first approach helps you create functional, aesthetic websites and drive your business forward.

Expanding your business into new geographical areas presents an opportunity to connect with diverse audiences. Each of these markets comes with its own set of cultural nuances, and grasping these subtleties is crucial for global expansion. A localization strategy helps you achieve this, enabling you to navigate these cultural landscapes effectively.

Localization goes beyond mere translation — it’s about adapting your digital presence to align with the cultural nuances, preferences, and expectations of different markets, ensuring your global brand resonates on a personal level. This approach transforms your website into a globally welcoming space, inviting and engaging new audiences around the world while retaining your brand’s essence.

Differences between localization, internationalization, and translation

Before we dive into what defines localization, we’ll have to look at the closely related processes of internationalization and translation. All three of these processes, taken together, contribute to a successful globalization strategy that empowers your business to transcend geographical and cultural boundaries.

Let’s delve into these strategies, examining their differences and synergies in delivering content effectively to users — no matter where they are.

Internationalization (i18n)

Internationalization is a crucial preparatory step in making your website adaptable for various global markets. It involves creating a “primary” version of your site to simplify translating for different languages, serving up different content depending on location, and displaying text in different directions depending on the language.

At its core, internationalization is about creating a flexible website architecture that can accommodate multiple languages, setting up distinct URL structures for each regional site version, and translating legal texts as required by different regions. It also involves incorporating multilingual search engine optimization (SEO) practices to ensure your site ranks well in different countries and selecting a content management system (CMS) capable of handling various regional requirements.

Internationalization aims to create a versatile blueprint for your website that seamlessly adapts different languages, date formats, currencies, and region-specific content. For example, if you’re planning different greetings for each regional site, internationalization means using a placeholder such as {{greeting}} in your site template, which you can dynamically replace with region-specific greetings like “Welcome!” for English-speaking audiences or “Selamat datang” for Indonesian visitors.

Localization (l10n)

Localization involves adapting your website or digital content to meet the specific cultural and regional preferences of different markets. While translation is a key component, localization goes much deeper than simply converting text from one language to another — it includes aligning visuals, product information, and overall brand messaging to reflect the unique cultural nuances of each locale. For example, you might adjust your website’s images and color schemes to align with local aesthetics or modify the layout to accommodate languages that have higher character counts.

A practical example of localization in action is a consulting firm that offers financial advisory services. In countries with differing fiscal year-end dates, the firm can tailor its homepage to highlight tax preparation services ahead of the local tax season. In the United States, emphasizing such services would be most relevant from January–April, aligning with the U.S. tax filing period. If your website targets customers in Australia, where the fiscal year ends on June 30th, promoting services would be more effective around May–July.

Translation

Translation is pivotal in the broader scope of internationalization and localization, making content linguistically and culturally appropriate for diverse audiences. Here’s how it integrates with these processes:

• Internationalization. In this context, translation involves converting basic elements like legal text, disclaimers, and product descriptions into different languages, ensuring it complies with regional linguistic standards and legal regulations.
• Localization. Within localization, translation extends beyond word-for-word conversion — it dives into cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, and local contexts to create content that resonates with regional audiences. For example, a marketing slogan may be clever and catchy in English but might lose its impact or even become offensive when directly translated into another language. 

Why localization matters for global businesses

Localization in business adapts digital content, brand visuals, and product offerings to suit diverse audiences, making brands globally and locally appealing. Key benefits of localization include: 

• Facilitating market entry. A localization business strategy tailors the user experience to align with local customs, helping businesses enter and thrive in new markets. For example, a software company might offer special discounts during local festivals or holidays, directly appealing to the regional audience. 
• Improving user engagement. Localization increases user engagement by providing high-quality, relevant content tailored to regional customers’ needs and pain points. Research indicates that localized content receives 12 times more engagement, demonstrating the impact of using local currencies, date formats, and cultural references. This approach reduces friction for users, encouraging them to explore your website more thoroughly and engage more deeply with your brand.
• Boosting conversion rates and return on investment (ROI). By aligning product promotions with local events, weather patterns, and cultural preferences, localization strategies help businesses achieve a stronger connection with potential customers, leading to increased sales and a higher ROI.
• Ensuring legal compliance. A robust localization strategy ensures local data privacy, consumer rights, and compliance with marketing standards. Doing so mitigates legal risks and builds trust with the local audience, demonstrating respect and adherence to their regulatory environments.

When should you create a global localization strategy?

Creating a global localization strategy is a big decision, requiring a comprehensive assessment of your business’s readiness and objectives. Here’s what you need to consider.

Where and why are you expanding?

Clearly define the regions or markets you intend to target and articulate the purpose behind your expansion. This might be tapping into emerging markets or consolidating your presence in existing ones. Either way, a clear understanding of your expansion goals sets the foundation for an effective localization strategy because it directs subsequent decisions and resource allocations.

For instance, if you’re expanding into Southeast Asia (SEA) to penetrate a burgeoning market, keep this purpose in mind to align localization efforts to your larger business goals as you allocate resources, decide on translation tactics, and set the stage for marketing campaigns.

Who is your target market?

You’ll need to identify your target audience to figure out how to tailor your content to resonate with them authentically. You’ll want to consider demographics, cultural nuances, and linguistic preferences.

Returning to the previous example, let’s say your website promotes health and wellness services that resonate with SEA customers for varied reasons. For instance, your market research shows that Indonesian customers appreciate wellness practices that align with religious beliefs, such as yoga and meditation sessions designed to fit cultural norms. On the other hand, the emphasis in Vietnam might be on outdoor fitness activities that offer increased sun protection.

Understanding where you’re expanding and what appeals to each market guides further decisions, like which languages to prioritize, how to allocate your image resources, and how to direct further market research.

What’s the scope of your work?

Clearly define the scope of your localization efforts so you can figure out what resources to allocate and align all team members to a focused, strategic approach. This includes determining what elements of your business need localization — whether it’s your website, marketing materials, product information, legal terms, or FAQs. 

If you’re bringing your North American website into the Australian and Middle Eastern markets, for example, you likely won’t need to do much cultural translation for the Australian site, though you may need to consider local climate patterns. At the same time, you may need to allocate cultural translation and sensitivity resources for your Middle Eastern site. Understanding your scope helps you allocate your resources where they’re most needed.

Five steps to kickstart localizing your website

Implementing localization isn’t just a technical process for your software engineers. You’ll need a thorough understanding of the market and build a specific project plan before you translate a single word.

Check out these five crucial steps for effective website localization.

1. Conduct market research

Begin by gaining deep insights into your target market and understanding the cultural, linguistic, and consumer behavior characteristics of each region you’re expanding into. Employ methods like customer surveys, SEO keyword research, and competitor analysis to determine the relevance and potential of your website or products in these markets.

2. Create an execution plan

Leveraging the insights from your market research, craft a detailed project plan that outlines how you’ll allocate resources and prioritize different aspects of the localization process. 

To kick off your localization efforts, you might start by working on low-hanging fruit like translating text. Then, for the second phase of your project, you may implement cultural-specific “translations” like idioms, metaphors, and images. This process helps you decide when and how to focus your efforts, optimizing your resource spending.

3. Prepare your site with internationalization

Internationalization lays the groundwork for localization since it creates a flexible site architecture with language or content-specific placeholders that empower you to implement localization. This step is crucial for enabling smooth and efficient localization, ensuring your site can adapt to different cultural contexts without extensive redesigns.

4. Leverage automation 

Use software for localization, like Webflow, a visual development tool, to streamline your efforts. Automating tasks like translation and content adaptation reduces manual labor and minimizes errors. This approach frees your team to focus on creating higher-impact content, like providing culturally sensitive “translations” for specific regions. But it’s crucial to recognize that automation alone can’t capture the nuanced cultural and linguistic subtleties necessary for truly effective localization. 

To ensure the highest quality and culturally appropriate content, incorporate native speaker reviews into your automation process. Native speakers bring an invaluable perspective, identifying and correcting potential inaccuracies that automated systems might miss. This step is critical in avoiding common automated translation pitfalls, such as cultural insensitivities and linguistic errors, which risk undermining your brand’s professionalism and disconnecting you from your audience.

5. Test before launching

Before going live with your localized website, conduct exhausting testing. This step ensures that each localized website functions seamlessly to offer a positive user experience and doesn’t make any culturally insensitive gaffs. For instance, before launching a Spanish version of your website, conduct thorough user testing to verify that translated content, links, and functionalities work as intended.

Measuring the success of your localization efforts

After executing your localization strategy, you must monitor it to ensure it meets your business goals, resonates with your target audiences, and effectively informs future decisions. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for this assessment, providing valuable insights into your localization efforts. Some tools, like Webflow, enable you to visualize your website’s performance. 

Here are some KPIs worth measuring to better track your localization efforts.

Translation and localization speed

In the era of immediate gratification, quick adaptation is key. Your audience’s attention span is finite, so once you announce you’re ready to break into a new market, you’ll need to have your localized site ready to go.

One way to measure this KPI is to monitor how long it takes to translate and adapt content for new markets, aiming for efficiency without sacrificing quality. Timely localization captures audience attention when interest is high, reducing user frustration and boosting engagement. 

Cost of translation and localization

Careful monitoring of translation and localization costs helps maintain a sustainable strategy, and this KPI tracks expenses to optimize your resource allocation. To measure this, you might evaluate the cost-effectiveness of translation services, considering factors like the number of languages and the complexity of content.

Content accuracy

Accurate translations are crucial for brand consistency and avoiding cultural missteps. To measure this KPI, implement a feedback mechanism for linguistic validation and user testing to evaluate the accuracy and appropriateness of localized content. Regular quality checks help you maintain a high standard and avoid potential linguistic pitfalls.

Post-project ROI

Assessing ROI after localization provides insights into its impact on your business goals. To gauge your success, you might evaluate how localization efforts contribute to increased market penetration, customer engagement, or revenue generation in the targeted regions. Understanding this impact helps you decide whether to expand localization efforts to other areas or focus more intensively on existing regions.

Unlock global success with a localization strategy

Localization is the key to growing your business globally. With Webflow, a visual development platform, you can create carefully tailored online experiences based on user language or region. Imagine delivering a personalized website experience to a user in Tokyo while also catering to a user in Mexico. Through our native localization solution, Webflow Enterprise goes beyond traditional website builders to help you navigate the complexities of a global audience and transcend geographical boundaries with a multilingual website.

Explore our comprehensive resources to learn more about internationalization and localization, and take your first step toward crafting a truly global brand presence with Webflow Enterprise.

The idea is simple: Create an experience that prioritizes customer satisfaction, and you’ll boost audience engagement. But actually implementing customer-centric design is much more complex.

A customer-centric model requires an intimate understanding of your target audience, which requires extensive user research to invite customers into the design and decision-making processes. The goal is to create a culture of collaboration with your customers, which empowers you to deliver an experience that’s tailor-made to their needs.

Why is customer-centric design important?

Customer-centric design isn’t the future — it’s the now. Companies like Hilton, IKEA, and Amazon all have one thing in common: They place their customers at the center of their business strategy, and it’s paying off. Here’s how:

• Their customers are invested. Customer-oriented companies aim to create intuitive, convenient products that delight their users. As a result, they have a high net promoter score (NPS), and their customers are more likely to promote their brand.
• Their audience trusts them. A customer-centric product engenders trust by helping users feel heard and prioritized. That trust enables companies to take risks and try novel ideas that less customer-focused brands wouldn’t.
• Their employees have a clear direction. Customer feedback provides a steady drumbeat for everyone in these organizations to march to. Subsequently, their teams spend less time hashing out design decisions and more time delivering on actionable goals.

Essential elements of customer-centric design

Customer-centric or user-centric design offers a paradigm shift in how teams think about creating products. To become a truly customer-centric company, you need to tailor every facet of your business to put your consumers first.

Here are a few essential elements to explain what customer-centric design is and how to implement it.

Understand your customers

A customer-centric model requires a fundamental understanding of your target audience. You need to know their demographics, but you also need to consider questions like:

• Where do they shop?
• Which brands do they trust?
• Where do they share their opinions?

Answering these questions helps you meet your customers where they are, which is vital to understanding their expectations. If your customers shop mostly online, find out where and target some ads in that direction. And if they share opinions on social media, create a community management team to participate in that discussion.

Prioritize the customer experience

An excellent customer experience (CX) is the primary focus of customer-centric design. CX encompasses all the customer-facing aspects of your business model, such as support, advertisement, and physical packaging or storefronts. You need to fine-tune every experience a customer has with your brand to exceed their expectations.

Communicate often

The communication channels between your brand and target audience play a crucial role in customer-centric design. These channels must be robust and constantly flowing. Throughout product development, consult customers early and often for their feedback. You might interview early adopters who are passionate about your product, offer incentives to attract people to demos, and test your prototypes on sites like UserTesting.com.

How to implement customer-centric design: 5 steps

The most traditional approach to product design is to fill a need in a novel way. Teams brainstorm novel ideas and then try out the most promising concepts based on meticulous action strategies.

While this is a well-trodden approach, a customer-centric product strategy focuses on boosting engagement and serving your bottom line. Actively engaging your customers before, during, and after product development helps avoid missing the mark on pinpointing and solving their unique problems.

Here are five steps for putting this model into practice.

1. Determine customer pain points

The best way to start product design is to define the problem you’re solving. Try to discover a widely shared pain point that frustrates a whole audience of consumers. These consumers define your target audience, and solving this problem for them is your primary goal.

2. Understand customer expectations

Now that you know what you’re solving, ask customers about their experiences with that problem. Conduct interviews with real consumers and scour social media to find answers to these questions:

• How do customers currently approach this problem?
• Why is it frustrating?
• What would a better solution look like?

After gathering feedback, distill your findings into tangible ideas and extract all the qualities people seek in a product that solves this problem. This sets you up for a focused start to the design process.

3. Define the solution

Gather your team to analyze every aspect of your user research and discuss various customer perspectives. Then, conduct collaborative brainstorming sessions for products that will improve and add value to your consumers’ lives. Remember, the best ideas are unique but attainable, disruptive but appealing.

Next, make prototypes of these potential products and test them with real customers. Then, use their feedback to make improvements and test again. Repeat this process until your team lands on a prototype that performs well.

When it’s ready, develop that prototype into a fully realized product and test it again. Keep refining it until you reach a level of satisfaction that your team — and your customers — are happy with.

4. Determine a sales plan

With your product realized, it’s time to learn how much value customers see in it. Present your product to potential consumers and ask them how much they would pay for it and where they’d expect to purchase it. Then use their answers to determine how and where to sell your product. If necessary, refine your product further to suit that particular market niche.

5. Continuously improve

After launching your product, track its reception and ongoing feedback. Find ways to lean into well-received aspects and refine those that aren’t performing well. Continuously test iterations with real customers before fully committing to modifications to ensure you make the right changes and avoid investing in the wrong ones.

If you get to a point where your product only receives glowing customer feedback, you can maintain it and update it only as needed. But don’t overcapitalize on your team’s success. Instead, carry that momentum into your next product, and your loyal customers will follow you.

Challenges in customer-centric design

Customer-focused thinking addresses challenges of more traditional design styles, like misdirected solutions, but it isn’t without its own issues. Here are a few obstacles you can expect to encounter.

Conflicting data

Everyone has their own opinion about how your product should look or feel. When you receive conflicting views, see which has more support in your research. Don’t discount the minority opinion, though. If possible, do another round of research in which you A/B test the options.

High costs

Constant iteration requires time and money, and your team ultimately spends resources on prototypes that don’t make it into the finished product. That might seem wasteful, but remember that your team learns something valuable from every attempt.

Difficulty quantifying success

Data you receive from customers can be qualitative and subjective. Translating that feedback into specific changes with measurable results is challenging, but it’s possible. Shape straightforward questions and pose them in ways that give you quantifiable data points.

For example, if you’re testing a prototype with a group of users, ask them for specifics such as, “Did this product solve the problem?” or “How satisfied were you with your experience?” When you pose these questions, ask for a yes or no answer or a rating on a scale of 1–10.

Improve your B2C relationship with Webflow

Customers engage with products designed for real people, not abstract user personas. If you want to improve your user relationships, customer-centric thinking is an excellent way to go.

Webflow Enterprise is here to help. Offering resources to streamline iteration and collaboration, Webflow lets you create stunning websites that your customers will remember. Features like Quick Stack elements, reusable components, and global color swatches make it easier than ever to update your website according to user feedback. Check it out yourself, or contact our sales team to schedule a demo.

With the right approach, you can host an engaging and memorable online event that encourages participants to return for future gatherings, buy products and services, or raise awareness and funds for a good cause.

Read on to learn how to host a virtual event and use best practices and tools to ensure success.

What are virtual events?

Virtual events are organized online gatherings, such as webinars, remote summits, and fundraisers. Virtual event planners use specialized technology to simulate an in-person event and create remote occasions for worldwide audiences to come together, participate, and exchange knowledge and information.

What are the benefits of hosting a virtual event?

Companies are increasingly choosing to organize virtual events over in-person gatherings. Virtual functions provide many benefits, including:

• Global reach. Hosting a virtual event opens doors to a global audience. You can connect with participants worldwide without the logistical challenges and costs of in-person events. This increases your exposure and facilitates networking and collaboration opportunities.
• Cost efficiency. Virtual events are often significantly less expensive than their in-person counterparts. Rental fees, travel and accommodation, lighting, sound, and catering add to the logistics bill — none of which are necessary for remote functions. Virtual event planners can reallocate funds and resources to enhance content quality and the event experience.
• Analytical insights. Many virtual event platforms provide analytics and statistics — like attendance and participant engagement — to help you gauge your event’s success. You can gather in-depth insights into your event’s results, analyze these numbers, and use a data-driven approach to improve future planning strategies.
• Flexibility. Whether participants are attending a live session, accessing recorded content retrospectively, or downloading additional post-session resources, virtual events allow participants to engage at their convenience by accommodating different time zones and schedules. This improves accessibility, making the event more inclusive for a broader audience.

What are different types of virtual events?

Every online event caters to specific goals and audiences. Here are some standard types of virtual functions to help you identify the kind of event (or events) your company should organize.

Webinars

Webinars are content-driven discussions that allow panelists and subject matter experts to share insights, interact with participants through question and answer (Q&A) sessions, and share downloadable content or links to their brands.

Webinars are ideal for companies striving to launch products or share industry knowledge. Marketing teams typically spearhead these events to gather participant data like emails, ages, and geographic locations. This data helps identify attendees’ primary demographics, which lets teams personalize future communication and engagement to generate leads and nurture customer relationships.

Virtual seminars 

While webinars focus on experts sharing insights, virtual seminars tend to be more interactive and encourage attendees to have in-depth discussions.

These events suit educational institutions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and industry thought leaders. Seminars help organizations build communities and facilitate knowledge-sharing in a welcoming online environment.

Virtual conferences

Online conferences are comprehensive, multi-session events that include keynote speakers, breakout rooms, and networking opportunities. Breakout rooms allow participants to split larger sessions into smaller groups to continue internal discussions in more manageable settings.

Virtual conferences are ideal for enterprises, industry associations, and event management companies to host large-scale events with a global reach.

Internal hybrid events

Internal hybrid events merge in-person and virtual elements to accommodate on-site and remote attendees. They’re ideal for events where all employees can’t be physically present at the same venue. By facilitating in-person and online team communication, hybrid functions boost collaboration and allow teams to circulate internal information.

Human resource (HR) departments often lead these virtual corporate events, which help ensure that remote employees and vendors understand project-related or company-wide activities.

External hybrid events

While internal events focus on engaging remote employees within the same company, external hybrid events cater to individuals who typically work on-site and can’t physically attend gatherings in other locations.

Event management companies use technology and high-quality video and sound production to simulate on-site functions so they can provide similar content quality and networking opportunities for participants.

Virtual fundraising events

These are charitable events held online to raise money for a cause. Virtual fundraising events typically include donation drives, auctions, and remote galas to raise awareness of an issue and bring in resources.

Nonprofit organizations and fundraisers use virtual events to spread their message, interact with contributors, and reach a wider audience by encouraging discussion around their cause.

Virtual exhibitions

Virtual exhibitions are ideal for showcasing products, services, talents, and artistic creations online. Attendees can experience an exhibition firsthand from the comfort of their screens while enjoying networking and potential buying opportunities.

For example, businesses, artists, and creative agencies can curate and display their offerings to a global audience and market their brands to boost user engagement, website and social media traffic, and conversions.

What are the key elements of a virtual event?

Regardless of the event type, you must incorporate several vital components to make your virtual function a success. These include:

• Event website. A dedicated event website acts as a centralized, virtual hub to attract audiences and provide information to participants. It includes your event’s agenda and details, like the date and time, and sets the stage for marketing and announcements. You can also include links to your social media channels or a weekly newsletter to keep attendees updated on the latest happenings, like new speakers at a webinar or products at an expo.
• Event registration. Improving participation starts with a quick, seamless, and user-friendly registration process. Collecting information in an organized fashion lets you retarget attendees with personalized communication.
• Live presentation content. Whether keynote speeches, panel discussions, interactive content, or product launches, live presentations create an immediate and real-time connection with the audience. Use compelling stories, engaging visuals, and immersive soundtracks to deliver dynamic and impactful content that keeps participants interested and eager to explore your brand.
• Recorded content. Participants appreciate when you consider different time zones and busy schedules, especially if they can’t attend live. It’s important to provide recordings of events to accommodate their needs and allow them to watch or review content at their convenience.
• Interactive video conferencing. A successful virtual event engages participants, creates a lively and participatory environment, and encourages attendees to join future online or on-site gatherings. Interactive video conferencing tools allow for real-time communication, Q&A sessions, fireside chats, and networking opportunities.

Feedback surveys. If you want to keep improving events, you must collect participant feedback. Adding surveys to your event’s flow allows marketing and organizing teams to collect insightful reviews and identify improvement areas for future functions.

8 tips and tricks for effective event planning

Like in-person events, virtual functions require careful planning and execution. Here are eight virtual events best practices to implement for a memorable occasion.

1. Create a unique event agenda

Craft a well-structured agenda and event flow that balances informative sessions, interactive elements, and breaks. This provides a road map for organizers and creates a timeline that keeps participants engaged without becoming overwhelmed.

For example, a product launch agenda could feature keynote speeches, user-generated content, and hands-on demonstrations with lively visuals and upbeat music.

2. Use a virtual event platform

Invest in a reliable virtual event platform with essential features like branding customization, integration capabilities, analytics, engagement features, and content delivery. Hopin, vFairs, and Accelevents are popular tools, but you can research more virtual event platforms that suit your needs.

3. Consider the date and time

Choose a date and time that aligns with your target audience’s schedules and preferences, and consider time zones if you host a global event. The ideal time can attract more participants and increase attendance. Additionally, ensure your event doesn’t conflict with similar initiatives from competitors. This could result in potential attendees opting for events hosted by other organizations instead of yours.

4. Focus on audience engagement and networking

Include interactive elements, like fireside chats, breakout sessions, virtual lounges, and polls, to encourage real-time participation and networking. Getting people involved turns a one-way livestream into a two-way conversation and livens your event’s atmosphere. It also mirrors in-person events by allowing participants to discuss the event’s agenda and related themes with speakers and other attendees.

5. Create engaging visuals

Create an immersive and visually appealing atmosphere with live presentations, slides, graphics, and videos to capture attention and engage audiences. You can also create a dedicated visual identity for a specific event and align colors and themes on your event website and social media channels for a cohesive experience.

6. Prepare speakers thoroughly

Confirm your panel well in advance and familiarize your speakers with the virtual event platform so they’re comfortable and well-prepared.

Speakers are more impactful when they’re articulate, well-rehearsed, and in sync with their presentations and other panelists. Setting them up for success ensures a smooth process during sessions and creates a polished and professional atmosphere.

7. Provide technical support

Dedicate a technical support team to help participants and organizers with platform-related issues. Technical glitches can disrupt your event’s flow and frustrate participants, causing them to leave or write negative reviews.

8. Promote your event

Use your event website, social media, email campaigns, and sponsorships to generate awareness and drive registrations. You can achieve this by creating teaser videos, sharing speaker profiles and achievements, and offering early-bird discounts to increase sign-ups and buzz before your event. Effective promotion helps boost attendance and encourages participants to spread the word.

Host a memorable online event with Webflow

With an event strategy, you’re ready to organize a successful event — and a well-planned event needs an equally impressive website. To create one, you need the right tools to direct attendees to your brand and encourage future participation.

Webflow offers everything you need to create an effective event site with all the necessities like registration and information pages, agendas, and visually appealing promotional content. A robust suite of enterprise-level resources and collaborative functionality lets you create impactful digital channels that drive traffic for your event. Not only can you design stunning websites using Webflow’s solutions, but you can also streamline processes behind the scenes to ensure your team efficiently organizes any event. 

Whether it’s a lucky encounter at an industry conference, a meaningful conversation at a local meetup, or a strategic partnership with a complementary agency, these connections provide the foundation behind many agencies’ success stories.

While the immediate benefits of networking are evident — new clients, projects, and opportunities — it’s the long-term gains that underline its value. Each relationship (be it with a fellow agency or an in-house team member) lays the foundation for trust, mutual growth, and shared success. These bridges facilitate the exchange of ideas and resources as well as create avenues for mentorship, innovation, and expansion.

Technology and trends will inevitably change, but the power of human connections remains timeless — that’s why it’s your agency’s most valuable asset.

1. Master the art of networking

Networking is more than just exchanging business cards or attending local events. It’s about building genuine relationships with industry experts, trading insights, and positioning your agency in the broader ecosystem.

That’s all easier said than done, but here are a few tips to master this art:

At industry conferences

These gatherings are a melting pot of industry leaders, innovators, and peers. But it’s not just about attendance. It’s about engagement.

• Prepare: Research attendees, plan your sessions, and set clear objectives.
• Engage: Participate in discussions, ask questions, and seek out potential collaborators or clients.
• Follow up: Post-conference, reach out to the connections you’ve made, strengthening the discussions and exploring potential collaborations.

At local meetups

Local meetups are often overlooked, but they offer a more intimate setting for networking.

• Be genuine: Local settings often mean repeated interactions, so focus on building genuine, long-term relationships.
• Offer value: Share insights, offer assistance, and be a resource to others. Don’t think, “What can this person do for me?” Think, “What can I do for this person?”
• Stay updated: Regularly attend these meetups to stay in the loop and nurture relationships.

Online and at virtual events 

Online platforms offer incredible networking potential, especially as more of our connections and conversations happen online.

• Leverage platforms: Sites like LinkedIn, industry-specific forums, and even X (formerly Twitter), can be networking goldmines.
• Engage authentically: Comment on posts, share valuable content, and initiate discussions. Remember, it’s not about likes and follows — it’s about creating authentic connections with connections around the world. 
• Virtual events: Attend webinars, online conferences, and virtual meetups to expand your network beyond geographical boundaries.

2. Collaborate with complementary agencies

No two agencies are exactly alike. Each brings its unique strengths, specialties, and perspectives to the table. Once you understand this, you’ll start looking at other agencies as more than just competitors and potentially as collaborators.

Joining forces with complementary agencies lets you tap into strategic partnerships that expand your service offerings and deliver exceptional value to clients. Here’s how to navigate these collaborations:

Identify potential partners

Every agency has its core strengths, and it also has areas of weaknesses. Recognizing these gaps is the first step.

Look for web design and development agencies that excel where you might fall short. It’s not just about filling a service void—it’s about finding a collaborating agency that aligns with your values, work ethic, and quality standards.

Research their past projects and client testimonials, and seek feedback from mutual connections, if possible.

Leverage combined strengths

When two agencies collaborate, the combined skill set is often broader and more diverse. Recognize and play to each agencies’ strengths.

For instance, if one agency excels in design while the other is a powerhouse in digital marketing, structure the project to leverage these strengths. This provides optimal results for clients and maximizes the collaborative potential.

Set clear terms

Collaborations can be complex, with multiple moving parts. Before you start a partnership, be specific about the groundwork. Clearly define roles and responsibilities to ensure both parties understand their scope of work.

Discuss financial arrangements and decide on revenue splits of payment structures. Establish project timelines, milestones, and deliverables. 

*Ideally, get your agreements reviewed by legal counsel. Partnerships can get confusing and messy without the right boundaries and expectations. 

Create open lines of communication

The secret behind any successful partnership is transparent, honest, and timely communication. Establish regular channels for dialogue, whether that’s weekly meetings, daily updates, or shared project management tools.

Keep your agencies aligned, and resist the urge to make assumptions. Over-communicate rather than under-communicate. Address concerns as they arise, and celebrate milestones together.

3. Build team connections

While networking outside your agency is important, it’s essential to create those opportunities within the walls (or virtual walls) of your own business. Leaders should get to know the employees, and employees should be encouraged to make connections with other teams to foster better collaboration.

Here’s how to promote and nurture these bonds:

• Maintain a collaborative environment: Design spaces that encourage interaction and brainstorming while promoting a culture that values teamwork and open dialogue.
• Regular team-building activities: Organize events outside the work routine (like team lunches or retreats) to strengthen bonds and encourage cross-departmental collaboration.
• Keep open communication channels: Create processes and implement tools to help employees chat, collaborate, and provide feedback easily.
• Have regular skill-sharing sessions: Organize internal workshops where team members can share expertise or learn about different departments.
• Maintain feedback loops: Establish regular feedback sessions where team members can discuss projects, share insights, and suggest improvements.
• Allow flexible work arrangements: Recognize the diverse needs of your team by offering flexible work schedules or remote working options, showing trust and valuing work-life balance.
• Volunteer together as a group: Put together team volunteer days where members can work together on community projects. Shared experiences outside the usual work environment can create powerful friendships and connections.
• Start peer recognition programs: Allow team members to recognize and reward their peers for outstanding work.
• Create regular team events: Organize team sports events, yoga sessions, or other recreational activities (like even a walk at the park). Physical activities can be a great way to break the ice and build camaraderie.

Connect and build with the Webflow Community 

With over 85,000 community members around the world, the Webflow Community is the perfect place to network and connect with designers, developers and other creatives who use Webflow virtually or in person at an event. To get involved, click here. 

Before launching your website or updating its features, it’s crucial to solicit constructive criticism from internal teams and external clients.

Beyond shedding light on overlooked aspects — such as confusing user interface (UI) design issues, navigation challenges, and content gaps where you don’t fully meet user needs — this process also uncovers technical glitches unnoticed by developers and presents opportunities to enhance the user experience. This comprehensive understanding helps address specific issues and recognize your website’s strengths, revealing which elements to maintain or improve.

In short, stakeholder feedback is the secret sauce for unlocking your website’s full potential. Here’s why.

What’s stakeholder feedback?

Stakeholder feedback comprises the input, opinions, thoughts, and comments from individuals who are invested in your project’s outcome. This includes internal and external stakeholders, which we’ll discuss in the section below. These individuals and entities bring diverse perspectives from their varied backgrounds, expertise, and interests in your project.

For instance, stakeholder feedback could involve customer feedback. Customers provide a unique perspective on your website since they’re the most attuned to usability issues, and they can aid in identifying problems and pain points before a wider launch.

Taking stakeholder feedback into account ensures that your website functions smoothly from a technical standpoint, resonates deeply with your target audience, and stays aligned with your overarching business goals.

What’s the difference between internal and external stakeholders?

There are two types of stakeholders: internal and external. Each offers distinct insights into your web project.

What’s an internal stakeholder?

Internal stakeholders are part of your organization, like team members, project managers, or executives. Their feedback — rooted in organizational roles and expertise — often addresses operational inefficiency and team dynamics.

For instance, internal stakeholder feedback might focus on project management feedback to help you determine how to enhance collaboration or eliminate blockers for more effective management. By leveraging the insights of internal project stakeholders, you gain a holistic understanding of your organization’s strengths and areas for improvement. This, in turn, empowers you to make informed decisions that lead to better project and product outcomes.

What’s an external stakeholder?

External stakeholders, such as users or business partners, are outside your organization. They provide perspectives based on their experience with your product and market expectations. As such, their feedback is invaluable for gaining insights into user experience, preferences, and market trends.

Why stakeholder feedback is so important

As mentioned above, stakeholder feedback helps you align your website with the expectations and requirements of those directly involved in or affected by your project. Both positive and negative feedback can provide valuable insight that contributes to the success of your project.

Here’s why stakeholder feedback is essential to your web project’s success:

• Enhances alignment. Incorporating insights from internal and external stakeholders ensures your project aligns seamlessly with internal operations and external market demands. This alignment is vital for meeting organizational goals and delivering a product that meets user expectations.
• Drives innovation. Stakeholders offer diverse perspectives that can lead to innovative solutions. For example, external stakeholders, like users, may offer fresh ideas or identify pain points that cause high bounce rates. Meanwhile, internal stakeholders who are intimately acquainted with the site development processes can determine the best way to meet this demand given the organizational constraints. This feedback-driven innovation creates a dynamic and forward-thinking project environment.
• Builds team engagement. Internal and external stakeholder feedback, whether positive or negative, can increase team morale and engagement. Positive feedback reveals how the broader organization perceives employees’ work. Even constructive criticism clearly outlines what isn’t working and identifies actionable targets for improvement. This gives teams a place to focus their attention instead of striking out mindlessly in the dark. A good feedback loop can help you align your coworkers and build a high-performing team. When implemented at an organizational level, this leads to a transparent and open company culture.
• Boosts user engagement. By focusing on user preferences and needs, stakeholder feedback hones organizational efforts to meet specific user needs. Doing so leads to improved user experience and engagement, which can drive higher conversion rates and better search engine optimization (SEO). More conversions also mean a better return on investment (ROI).

8 steps for collecting stakeholder feedback

If you’re ready to dive into collecting stakeholder feedback, check out our eight steps below. While every situation is different, these steps provide a general framework to seek out user feedback, implement critiques, and iterate to create a stellar website.

1. Define your feedback objectives

Clearly outline what you aim to achieve with your feedback collection process — whether this means improving user experience, refining your site functionality, or enhancing your brand’s visual appeal. Laying out your objectives helps you in the later steps of your feedback framework as you identify key stakeholders and assess their responses.

2. Identify key stakeholders

To maximize the usefulness of your stakeholder feedback, you’ll need to identify key stakeholders who can provide the most valuable or actionable feedback. Your feedback objectives are a great guide to help you identify the stakeholders crucial to your project’s success.

For instance, if you’re developing an ecommerce site, prioritize feedback from potential users and marketing team members. Their insights on user experience and market trends are likely more relevant than feedback from less directly involved departments like finance.

Focusing on the most relevant stakeholders ensures your collected feedback directly contributes to your site’s success and addresses the most essential aspects.

3. Gather feedback

Actively collect feedback using accessible and user-friendly methods, and align these with your project goals and your stakeholders’ preferences to encourage active participation. Consider leveraging feedback tools such as surveys, user testing, and direct communication platforms to gather diverse insights. These tools make open dialogue between you and your audience smoother and integrate the feedback process directly into your design workflow. 

For example, if your primary users are tech-savvy teens active on social media, avoid traditional methods like email campaigns. Instead, opt for social media-integrated surveys or polls on marketing channels where they interact most with your brand. Use appealing titles like “Help us help you!” to grab their attention and increase response rates. Doing so ensures the feedback you collect is relevant, useful, and reflective of your stakeholder’s experiences and preferences.

4. Structure responses

Once you’ve gathered feedback, organize it systematically to make trends and areas for improvement more visible.

For instance, you might categorize responses based on themes or topics. If multiple users highlight issues with your checkout process, categorize these responses under the checkout process theme for further analysis. This structured approach allows for focused analysis on specific website or project aspects to help you understand common issues and areas where users are experiencing difficulties, which in turn guides targeted improvements.

5. Assess and establish priorities

Evaluate the feedback and identify priorities by determining which critiques impact your project’s outcome the most. Refer to your feedback and project objectives to determine which aligns best with your end goals, and use this information to focus your resources on tackling the most important issues first.

For example, if users consistently express dissatisfaction with your site performance or loading speed, you may want to prioritize this issue as you improve your website. Systematically addressing these key areas ensures that your project improvements are impactful and aligned with your strategic objectives.

6. Create actionable steps and implement change

After prioritizing key feedback, convert it into actionable steps by creating a detailed project plan for improvement.

Let’s say your users find your product descriptions confusing. To start addressing their concerns, set a clear goal to revise them. Break this goal into specific tasks for your team, such as reviewing current descriptions, researching best practices in product communication, and rewriting descriptions for clarity and conciseness. Delineating these tasks turns feedback into tangible steps so you can systematically and effectively improve your website.

7. Demonstrate to stakeholders that you’ve incorporated their feedback

Showing stakeholders how you implement their feedback helps you maintain their engagement and trust. When stakeholders see their suggestions come to life, they feel a sense of ownership in your project.

For example, consider including a message on your website thanking external stakeholders for their feedback and highlighting the changes made based on their input. This acknowledgment strengthens stakeholder relationships and demonstrates your commitment to responsiveness and continuous improvement, which encourages ongoing participation in the feedback process.

8. Iterate

Feedback collection is an iterative process, so it’s important to regularly revisit and update your feedback objectives, reassess priorities, and collect new feedback as your website grows and changes.

When introducing a new feature on your website, for example, consider actively seeking stakeholder feedback about its performance and user satisfaction and use this information to further refine and enhance it. Then, after implementing those changes, evaluate stakeholders’ reactions and continue iterating. This cycle ensures your site stays adaptable and meets your stakeholders’ evolving needs and expectations.

Tips for getting great development and design feedback

The above framework is a great place to start building a stakeholder feedback loop. We’ve got a few more tips for ensuring you get the quality feedback you need. Check them out below.

Schedule milestones to get continual feedback

Scheduling feedback milestones throughout your web design process helps you manage stakeholder input effectively. Instead of overwhelming you with excessive feedback on your project at once, this approach breaks down the process into manageable stages.

For instance, you might need input on user interface preferences during the wireframing stage. At the development stage, you might prefer feedback on site functionality, page speeds, and responsiveness.

While all of this feedback is useful, it can be a bit overwhelming to receive it all at once. Obtaining feedback at different stages makes the feedback more manageable but also ensures each development phase benefits from relevant and timely insights. As a result, it streamlines your web development process by allowing for more focused implementation and better prioritization of improvements.

Use open-ended questions

Using open-ended questions lets you gather unbiased and comprehensive insights. By not leading stakeholders toward specific responses, this strategy encourages a more honest and detailed expression of stakeholder views.

Instead of asking, “Do you like the current design?” pose questions like, “How do you feel about the current design?” This open-ended approach prompts stakeholders to elaborate on their thoughts. They’ll offer richer and more constructive feedback that can better inform your website’s development and improvement strategies.

Scope your feedback expectations

Define clear expectations for the scope of feedback you seek to guide stakeholders to provide focused and relevant insights. A well-defined scope encourages stakeholders to focus their insights on relevant points that you can turn into actionable steps.

For example, if you’re seeking feedback on your landing page, specify that you’re interested in the user flow rather than general impressions. This specificity helps stakeholders concentrate their feedback on the aspects you aim to improve and prevents them from straying into less relevant areas like visual appeal or branding.

Transform conversations with top-notch design feedback tools

Stakeholder feedback is the key to transforming your web design and development process. It keeps you aligned with your business goals while meeting external user demands. 

Webflow empowers teams by integrating feedback into the design workflow, making it easier for teams and stakeholders to collaborate creatively. With content editor and commenter roles, stakeholders can leave feedback or make content changes directly in the Webflow Designer – eliminating the need for other tools and speeding up the creative process.

Embrace an enterprise solution that makes your web design and development processes more integrated, responsive, and aligned with your strategic goals. Get started with Webflow Enterprise today and unlock your full creative potential. 

The role for our engineering, product, and design teams?

Bring that boldness to life in our core product experiences, including the user interface for the foundation of our product — the Designer.

Webflow turned ten last year. Like a community quilt, different teams had added to the brand and product over the years. The result was a rich and complex experience, warm and familiar on the one hand, but with a mash-up of design aesthetics and diverging UX patterns. 

We wanted the product experience to feel both professional and delightful, and like a handcrafted experience. So, to build a more consistent and polished UI, our team put the work in and sweated the details because we know that’s what you — the freelancers, designers, visual developers, marketers, and entrepreneurs who use Webflow — do every day, too. 

Wondering how we created a revamped app that’s unmistakably pro? And how we planned and executed this huge redesign and launch to 100% of our customers at the same time? Here’s a peek at our process — and what we learned along the way.

Good things come from collaboration

We kicked things off at the beginning of 2023 by bringing together a team of folks from our creative, education, design systems, and product design teams to explore the future of Webflow’s new brand identity from every angle. This included everything from examining the logo, to advertising concepts, to illustrations — all the way down to the button designs. Such a wide range of exploration proved challenging at first, but the contributors’ varied viewpoints sparked new ideas. 

By starting with open-ended inquiry, we opened up space to find unexpected solutions. Instead of only tackling a redesign, we considered entirely new products and features. Rather than just creating a new logo, we explored all the ways the brand might be better expressed. 

For a project like this — one with many moving parts, tons of collaboration, and an unmissable deadline  —we made sure we had buy-in from our leadership team from day one. During the early stages, our cross-functional team shared a video walkthrough of the latest work with all key stakeholders every Friday. After the initial exploration phase, we kicked off a focused sprint to implement the first phase of the project. During this sprint, we decided exactly what was achievable by the deadline, and which ideas had the most impact for customers. 

Clearly define brand values to guide exploration 

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We developed four brand values at the outset to guide our brand exploration and  product design direction. The principles we landed on are “cinematic,” “sophisticated,”  “aspirational,” and “pro.” The cinematic came through most strongly in the updated product designs, with dramatic lighting, engaging camera angles, and thoughtful compositions.

Taking cues from the aesthetics of neomorphism, we steered clear of purely flat visuals and added a sense of depth, materiality, and substance. The Webflow Designer app, loaded with dense interface controls, needed a simple design, but with very clear guidelines to help users intuitively and efficiently understand how to navigate. 

We also looked outside of traditional SaaS software for inspiration. Products such as Cinema 4D and Unity, for example, are ultra-powerful professional tools that offer enormous amounts of control with dense yet legible designs. 

To improve user experience, tap into valuable customer feedback 

Our customers played an essential part in the process. We tested early concepts and significant user-experience changes with new and experienced Webflow community members. Customers in this early testing group even used Chrome Dev Tools to adjust the design and provide direct suggestions for improvement. 

As a result, we learned that some of our new ideas needed tweaks, and we iterated to get them right. For example, in response to feedback from early testers, we adjusted type sizes to improve legibility and hierarchy in the Designer and Dashboard. When customers working in very bright environments told us that the almost-black background was too high-contrast, we made adjustments to improve the experience.

Later in the project, we formed a panel of customer experts who previewed our refreshed design. Their feedback? Pure gold. It helped us further refine our designs and squash bugs that only popped up in real-world scenarios. 

We have continued to make changes based on customer feedback post-launch, too. Recently, we launched a new Appearance Settings option for better accessibility controls to help pros work comfortably under any environment. . 

When engineering and design teams partner, the product wins

From the get-go, engineers played an integral part in the process. We made crucial structural decisions early on and gave engineers the green light to tidy up the existing code and implement styling variables throughout. This paved the way for a smooth integration of the new design token values later in the process. Our designers used Figma to build full designs for key screens, while working closely with engineers to ensure consistency and swiftly resolve edge cases. 

If you’re interested in how Webflow engineers implemented some of the most complex elements of the new interface, check out lead engineer Jon Quach’s tweets, including a deep dive into how we developed the new margin and padding control as well as other lessons we learned throughout the project. 

What we learned while redesigning one of Webflow’s core products

‍Redesigning the user interface for our Designer was a complex process. Each lesson we learned along the way will help us continue to hone our approach to innovation and collaboration:

Go big or go home.

When it’s time to revamp, don’t just tweak around the edges; be brave and aim high. We learned that bold moves can lead to exciting and meaningful improvements. 

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Keeping a tight loop with our team members and decision-makers meant everyone stayed on the same page — and bright ideas didn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Embrace the new and tweak as you go.

Stepping into something new can feel a bit awkward at first. Think of it as a fresh opportunity and a journey of learning and adapting. Stay open, embrace  change, and adjust based on perceptive feedback. 

Spread the excitement.

From showing off our cool design drafts to celebrating every new feature, we kept the excitement brewing and energy levels high. This helped us stay motivated and connected to our mission. We also shared community feedback along the way to connect our contributions back to the people we were designing for.

The lessons we learned will continue to shape Webflow’s future moves. The boldness of our new brand is now woven into every pixel, signifying more than just a design upgrade — it’s our commitment to being unmistakably pro.

However, when prioritized, cornerstone content can be a game-changer for everything from your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to your demand generation approach.

Your cornerstone content consists of your website’s most valuable, authoritative pages or articles. And given their role, these specific pages and articles are critical in pushing prospects to become customers.

Sounds like an easy win, right? 

Not so fast. Your competitors will also want to rank for the same keywords—and the winner is often the one who has the best strategy when it comes to their cornerstone content.

Let’s take a closer look at everything you need to know about cornerstone content to create valuable pages that consistently rank well and deliver results for your marketing goals and beyond. 

What is cornerstone content?

In short, cornerstone content is made up of the essential, defining pieces of your website. It’s the pages or articles that are the pillars of your entire content strategy and contain your site’s  most comprehensive, informative, and valuable information. 

Think of your content marketing strategy like a pyramid:

• Capstone: The tip-top of your pyramid is likely your home page, pricing page, and product pages. These are the end-goal destinations for your audience where they ultimately make a purchase.
• Top (cornerstone content): Right below your capstone is your cornerstone content. These are informative, compelling, and highly competitive pages that drive traffic to the decision-making pages above.
• Middle: Your mid-level content comprises supporting long-form guides and articles that drive SEO juice to your cornerstone content. They’re made up of related topics that drive traffic to the cornerstone content for a more comprehensive deep dive.
• Bottom: General blog posts and articles targeted long-tail keywords make up the bottom of your pyramid. These are foundational to your website and marketing strategy but don’t do much long-term good if there’s no cornerstone content to point to.

Unlike other pieces of marketing content, your cornerstone content is typically longer, richly detailed, and impeccably researched. It offers insight and expertise that establishes your brand as a thought leader in your field. It aligns with your audience’s needs, answers their biggest questions, and solves their most pressing problems.

How cornerstone content impacts SEO

Cornerstone content provides plenty of benefits for your website and marketing strategy, but its most valuable contribution comes from SEO results. Here’s how:

• Serves as a hub for keyword strategy: Cornerstone content targets your most important (and likely competitive) keywords, and it’s often comprehensive enough to win various related secondary and tertiary terms and phrases.
• Boosts website’s authority: Search engines favor websites that provide thorough, authoritative information on a topic. Cornerstone content (with its depth and quality) signals to search engines that your site is a credible source.
• Improves internal linking: Your cornerstone content sits at the center of your internal linking web and links all of your content pages to the top of the pyramid. By linking back to your cornerstone content from other pages and posts — search engines are able to understand and prioritize these key pages.
• Enhances user experience: High-quality cornerstone content tends to engage readers longer, reducing bounce rates and increasing time spent on your site. This shows search engines your content is valuable and relevant.
• Increases backlink potential: Top-notch cornerstone content is likelier to earn backlinks from other websites, boosting your site’s authority and rankings in search.
• Wins rich and featured snippets: The detailed and structured nature of cornerstone content increases the likelihood your content will be selected for rich snippets or featured snippets in search results.
• Drives consistent traffic: Cornerstone content is often evergreen, driving consistent, high-quality traffic you can count on month after month.

How to create cornerstone content

Creating cornerstone content is easier said than done. It’s not something you’ll want to whip together on a Friday afternoon. You’ll need to collaborate across teams and departments to understand your audience (and their intent) and identify core topics relevant to them.

Many marketing teams throw darts at the board and see what sticks. However, this often results in a loss of valuable time, money, and resources. The best way to get started is to kick off with a comprehensive strategy and a content pyramid (as illustrated above) — with the caveat being that  it’ll involve more upfront research and planning.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to making it happen:

1. Find cornerstone topics

Pinpoint the core topics central to your brand that resonate with your audience. These should be broad enough to cover a range of subtopics but specific to your expertise and industry.Use keyword research and audience surveys to understand what your audience is searching for and what they value most.

For example, a bank might find cornerstone topics around financial literacy, investment strategies for different life stages, or insights into saving for major life events. Then, they could create an extensive guide on personal financial planning featuring expert advice on budgeting, saving, and investing.

2. Research keywords

Once you’ve identified your core topics, it’s time to dig up all the relevant keywords. Don’t be shy. Here’s where you can compete with the high-traffic, high-competition keywords, so don’t cross any off your list yet.

Start building clusters around these keywords. Bundle together keywords relevant to each other. Your largest bundles (and the ones with the highest monthly search volume) will likely be the foundation for your cornerstone content pieces, while the rest will be supporting content in the middle and bottom of your content pyramid.

3. Plan content pyramid

Use your keyword bundles to develop comprehensive topic ideas and insert where each piece of content fits in your pyramid. There’s no specific number of pages you should have for cornerstone content nor a number for supporting content—it’ll all depend on what you found while conducting your topic and keyword research.

4. Outline cornerstone content

Outline your content to ensure it covers every aspect of your topic and touches on all the keywords you’ve targeted. Determine your layout, heading, subheadings, and bullet points to increase readability and navigation.

Think about the journey you want your readers to take and the actions you want them to complete after reading your content. This will be a heavy-duty piece, so you’ll probably want a table of contents and jump links to help your audience find what they want.

5. Write a world-class piece

Now, it’s time to bring your outlines to life. Write engaging, informative content that resonates with your audience. Remember, the goal of cornerstone content isn’t just to inform but also to engage. You want your audience to do something after reading your content.

6. Promote cornerstone content

Creating your cornerstone content is only a tiny portion of the battle. Now, it’s time to focus on promotion, and that’ll include supporting blog posts, infographics, social media posts, newsletters, and paid advertisements.

Approach your cornerstone content with the 80/20 rule. 20% of your time and resources should be spent creating the content, while 80% should be spent promoting the content.

7. Update and maintain regularly

Your cornerstone content isn’t a one-and-done project. You’ll need to monitor its progress and regularly make updates to keep it fresh, relevant, and up-to-date. Monitor industry changes, update statistics, and refresh examples to guarantee your content continues to be a valuable evergreen resource over time.

Tips and best practices to follow

Here are a few additional tips and best practices to help you get the most out of your cornerstone content:

• Use data and research: Incorporate relevant data, statistics, and research into your content. This adds credibility to your information and gives readers a reason to link back to your post in their own content.
• Include quotes: Partner with industry experts or influencers to add credibility and a fresh perspective to your content. Partnerships help expand your reach and depth, and they also provide another backlink-building opportunity.
• Leverage storytelling: Weave storytelling into your content to make complex topics more relatable and engaging. Share customer stories, case studies, or your brand’s journey to illustrate key points.
• Keep it evergreen: Create content with a long shelf-life. Focus on timeless topics that will remain relevant and useful for your audience over time, requiring only minor updates. Evergreen content continues to attract traffic and provide value long after it’s published.
• Focus on quality over quantity: Invest time and resources to create informative, engaging, and thought-provoking content. It should offer something unique that can’t be found elsewhere.
• Prioritize the user experience: Make your content easy to read and navigate. Use clear headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points.
• Add multimedia elements: Add images, videos, infographics, and interactive content to make your cornerstone pieces more engaging. These elements can break up text, illustrate complex ideas, and cater to different learning styles—plus, they’ll keep readers on your page longer, contributing to better SEO rankings.
• Measure and adapt: Check your content regularly to see how it performs. You might find that it’s ranking for some high-value keywords on page 2, and adding a new section to your cornerstone content might give it the relevance it needs to win those keywords.

Build out your content strategy 

Cornerstone content is just the beginning to an effective marketing strategy. To learn more about the ins and outs of marketing strategy, collaboration, insights, and more — check out our marketing strategy blogposts.