Latest / Values-First Marketing / Case Study: From Outdated Website to Elevated Brand In 1 Hour

Transcript

Case Study: From Outdated Website to Elevated Brand In 1 Hour · Values-First Marketing

• 0:00
  Unknown: Welcome to the copywriting for coaches podcast.
• 0:02
  Unknown: My name is Megan catchin, and I am obsessed with having your brand actually sound like you on the internet. We help you write all the things that you've been trying to articulate about your business but have never been able to put into copy. We're going to go deep to uplevel your business without adding more to your already full plate. We'll keep it simple and sustainable.
• 0:22
  Unknown: Sound like a breath of relief.
• 0:22
  Unknown: Let's dive in. If you have ever felt like your online presence just doesn't reflect the true essence of your brand anymore, and how do you even have the time or capacity to update it?
• 0:35
  Unknown: You are not alone. Many business owners find themselves in the same boat, especially when their brand evolves faster than their website can keep up. This is a very normal and common experience, so that is why today I am sharing a case study that highlights how a luxury wedding photographer Vanessa Joy transformed her outdated website into an elevated brand that perfectly mirrors her unique blend of sophistication, authority and down to earth charm with only one hour of her time as the client. So if you are ready to see what a strategic copy overhaul can do without needing a rebrand, you are in the right place. This case study demonstrates how a luxury wedding photographer transformed her online presence to reflect the elegance and sophistication her luxury clients desire, while demonstrating her authority and expertise in the industry and incorporating her down to earth and fun personality along with it. If it seems like an impossible task, let me show you just how we did it first. Let's talk about what does an elevated brand even mean? Can we define what we mean? So we're on the same page here. An elevated brand means presenting a refined, polished and cohesive identity that exudes sophistication, quality and authority. It is about creating a strong and consistent visual and verbal presence not only reflecting the brand's core values, but it also resonates deeply with its target audience.
• 2:05
  Unknown: An elevated brand often emphasizes attention to detail, exceptional client experiences and a sense of exclusivity or luxury, setting itself apart in the market by embodying a higher standard of excellence in every interaction and touch point.
• 2:21
  Unknown: That is exactly the experience that Vanessa Joy offers with her photography. She is renowned for her vast photography expertise, personalized client experiences and fast turnaround times without compromising quality.
• 2:38
  Unknown: Vanessa Joy is a master of her craft with over 20 years of award winning experience in wedding photography, she's also a mentor and educator in the photography community. Through her books, workshops, courses and speaking engagements, she shares her wealth of knowledge and experience internationally inspiring aspiring photographers to pursue their passion and hone their craft. She has also been commissioned by Fortune 500 companies like Hilton and esteemed photography bands like Profoto, and she's been named one of the top five wedding photographers in the country by Canon USA and given the highly esteemed title explorer of light. Now it was time for her website to reflect that her goal was to showcase her elevated brand presence and set a standard of excellence in the luxury wedding photography industry. Look at her Instagram and YouTube, and you'll see over 100,000 subscribers on each platform experience her as fun, engaging, humorous and full of personality, but her website, it didn't quite hit the same notes.
• 3:46
  Unknown: Despite her luxury brand's focus on elegance and sophistication, her outdated website wasn't capturing the vibrant energy or the high end experience that she offers her clients, and her website was not on par with other luxury wedding photographers that charge in her price range. So it was time for her online presence to reflect the quality of care and service that she offers. We set out to create an elevated brand presence that would not only reflect Vanessa's experience and authority as a top tier photographer, but also seamlessly integrate her warm, approachable personality. We knew that the key to aligning her brand was in the messaging.
• 4:29
  Unknown: Starting with a full overhaul of her website copy, here's how we took it from outdated to outstanding. We started with Vanessa's vision, which was clear she wanted a sophisticated, luxury feel that was classic and elegant but not overly traditional. Her goal was to highlight her vast expertise without appearing old, quote, unquote, and to establish her authority as a leader in the photography lighting and business education. And let's not forget, she wanted her client. Experience to shine through with custom everything thoughtful gifting and quick turnaround times that never compromise on quality. With that in mind, we got to work transforming her website copy to not only showcase her skills and services, but also to create a deeper emotional connection with her audience, by blending her fun down to earth, voice with the luxury esthetic she desired, we helped Vanessa bridge the gap between professionalism and heartfelt storytelling, ultimately aligning her online presence with her elevated brand and attracting the high end clients she was meant to serve.
• 5:36
  Unknown: The result a website that demonstrates her expertise as a photographer, authority in the industry, and aligns with the price point that she charges next. We had to match her authentic voice with the elevated brand presence, because offering luxury isn't enough.
• 5:51
  Unknown: Your brand needs personality to stand out and differentiate yourself once. That's one of the ways we can do it, and a strong brand identity doesn't need to be loud or flashy, it just needs to reflect you. One of the challenges we encountered was that the over 120,000 followers on Instagram and subscribers on YouTube know Vanessa's friendly tone and fun personality, while still being professional and authoritative, her authentic voice felt like a sharp contrast to the understated elegance that she envisioned for her luxury website and the serious and moody high end websites that she sent over as examples. So how did we elevate her brand messaging? We understood that to truly elevate Vanessa's brand, we needed to marry her authentic voice with the sophisticated, luxurious feel that she desired.
• 6:43
  Unknown: So we took inspiration from other prominent photographers whose websites she admired, and then we crafted a unique solution. We seamlessly blended the luxurious website esthetic with elements that highlighted Vanessa's playful and approachable personality some of this looked like carefully selecting pull out quotes that reflected her fun side into the luxury framework and other, integrating other subtle yet impactful touches to create a cohesive and elevated brand presence. This approach ensured that her website wasn't just a reflection of high end elegance, though it is that, but it also was a true, authentic representation of her personal brand. So the result was that an online she got an online presence through her website that not only exuded sophistication, but also feels genuinely and uniquely her, the key to an elevated brand is often a matter of perspective.
• 7:43
  Unknown: It is crucial to step into the shoes of your ideal client.
• 7:47
  Unknown: Vanessa was seeing things as the photographer that she is, and one of the ways we were really able to help is to provide the perspective of her ideal client, which is a bride. For example, Vanessa initially considered categorizing her portfolio with creative labels that you would expect from a photographer like Brighton whimsical or dark and romantic. And while these categories showcased her versatility as a photographer, they might have added complexity for visitors who weren't as familiar with photography jargon or even know what they wanted.
• 8:20
  Unknown: So we shifted the perspective to that of a bride who might not know exactly what style she is looking for, or might feel overwhelmed by too many choices.
• 8:32
  Unknown: We wanted to keep it simple. So by keeping traditional categories like, is this for your wedding or is this for your engagement shoot, and then we highlighted the diverse styles within those sections, so that I would reduce the amount of clicking and decision making and decision fatigue, so that it's more user friendly as well. So this is one way that it's not just about executing the copywriting, but it's also messaging, and it's also strategy built into the implementation of the actual copy as well for the done for you client service. And taking this approach not only showcased Vanessa's versatility, but it also made easier for potential clients to navigate her portfolio and connect with her brand. So in essence, aligning the website with the bride's perspective helped bridge the gap between Vanessa's professional expertise and the client's journey, making her brand both sophisticated and approachable.
• 9:31
  Unknown: So let me give you a little bit of the behind the scenes here of how we work together. What does it look like to work with a copywriter to create an elevated brand? So after hearing Vanessa's story, you might be wondering what like I need that I have either up to my prices or I want to up my prices, and you know that your brand and your presence needs to be elevated as well in order to attract the clients that want to pay. Those increased prices. So working with a copywriter can be a smooth and streamlined process if approached the right way. And this is one of the number one things what I hear, when I hear about people being burned by a copywriter before, or other stories like that, which are just awful, often it comes down to the process and the alignment of the copywriter. So let me share with you a little bit of what it looks like for Vanessa's project. We embraced async communication through using tools like Google Docs and loom video so that this project could be taken care of while she was traveling to photograph for Hilton and other corporate clients. She also spoke at photography conferences throughout the USA. This girl was always on an airplane, traveling to someone else, shooting a destination wedding, shooting something else, speaking, teaching other photographers. So needless to it, to say, she is super busy.
• 10:53
  Unknown: She is always on the go, and for her adding another call to her calendar where she had to sit down at her computer just didn't make sense. So using these tools, they allowed for continuous feedback loops to ensure every aspect of the brand copywriting transformation aligned to Vanessa's vision of an elevated brand presence, and we worked in a way that allowed her to work in the margins of her very full days of photoshoots and speaking at conferences and between the travels for it all, as the copywriter on my side, I had as much as possible prepared in advance so that none of her time was wasted. The whole project required about one hour of input total from her, from initial vision to content questions to revisions, all of that together was just one hour on her part.
• 11:49
  Unknown: So it was like 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 20 minutes there. Boom. That was all she needed to do to rewrite her entire website. We did something like five pages. We talked about the splash page literally just an hour of her time. So here's how we executed the project.
• 12:10
  Unknown: One. I researched her voice by diving through into her social media, watching her Instagram stories and her YouTube videos.
• 12:19
  Unknown: So I binged all of the content that I mean, not all of it, because she has been producing content regularly for years, but an exceptional amount of content, I would say, as a copywriter, I would say like 80% of my work is doing the research, and then 20% maybe is The actual writing. The actual writing flows once this intense research is done, and then step two, part of my research process is that I also scoured competitor websites, other luxury wedding photographers at her price point to capture the sophisticated luxury feel she desired. And she also sent over.
• 12:56
  Unknown: I like the way they do this. I like the way this photographer does that to help express the essence that she was trying to achieve. Then I produced a rough, rough draft and was able to ask strategic questions, not just a generic questionnaire that I sent to everybody but strategic questions, just for her to get the content and clarifications that I needed to write the website copy so I was able to produce a first draft before even really sitting down to have a conversation with her, just based on the Research and the goals that she sent me over when we decided to work together for this project. So then she sent over a loom video looking at the Google doc of the draft and some of the questions I left in the comments of the Google Doc, and she sent over loom video responding to those questions, how she would say it giving me more content where I needed it, because obviously I don't know the whole process and writing that. So then after that, I could take what she said and write that copy onto the Google doc in the wireframe I had provided. I also include some notes for design as well.
• 14:19
  Unknown: And so taking what she said and turning it into copy writing for her website, that is going to make sense living there. So it's helpful to hear in her voice, obviously, to capture her voice authentically so no one knows that it's not her writing it.
• 14:37
  Unknown: And then also, while at the same time incorporating the luxury feel as well. Then once we had that draft completed, after her content on it, then the last step was revisions. They were completed and the copy was handed off to the designer. I remained available for any questions or clarifications.
• 14:58
  Unknown: From the designer as well. And I always do a once over, once the designer takes it from Google doc to actually on the website to make sure everything translated, if there's any pointers or audit type things quick changes to make, because once you see it on the actual website designed is obviously different from seeing it on the Google Doc. So we make sure that everything looks good to go and then that's it. It was all set.
• 15:27
  Unknown: The revisions were really minor, or it's like things I would not necessarily have known. Or once she heard the way it sounded, it was like, oh, maybe try this instead. And because of all the research I did again that 8020 it just made it so much more seamless to be able to write in her real, authentic voice, sound just like her without an issue.
• 15:53
  Unknown: And so actually, this is a similar process to how Michaela Quinn outsources her copywriting, and as a result, she tripled her teaching income as a work from home, mom of four littles. That was another episode, which I will link in the show notes and a blog as well. And I say that because this process works. One, because it gets results, but two, the other benefit is that you can retain a copywriter for years, instead of having to hire and retrain someone to learn your voice over and over again, growing together is so much easier. And Michaela has now been with her copywriter for over six years now. As of 2024 and I've been doing projects with Vanessa for about two years now, and it is a relief, I think, from your side, from the client side, to know that you have someone who can capture a voice, who already knows your brand, to go to them with this project. I need this done, and we can handle it, and as a relief for us as well, like, oh yeah, I already know. I've already done the intense research that's really the most time consuming part, and the really one of the major keys to being successful when you when someone else is writing your copy for you. So I also want to share another resource, because if you are hearing this and wondering if it is the right time to hire a pro copywriter for you, if you're like, Oh yeah, my website really needs updates. I don't have time to do it myself. I really love this async or, I mean, we can hop on a zoom call too. That's fine.
• 17:28
  Unknown: Whatever works best for your schedule. I have a blog and another podcast episode, one of my first ones actually about, is it the right time to hire a pro copywriter? It'll take you through a few questions. Of yes, it might be time or no, it might be time to, like, continue to DIY. So I will link that in the show notes as well. It will help you determine when it makes sense to outsource and when doing it yourself could be a better option. We also have copy critique club now, which if you want to DIY it, if you need to know that it is in your voice and written by you, but want the support of a copywriter in your back pocket. Copy critique club is the way to go, and again, that is linked in the show notes as well. Okay, so let's get back to the results that we achieved with Vanessa's website. They successfully captured the essence of her elevated brand presence and her personality that she shares on her social media profiles in her own words, she replied, I seriously love what you've done. I feel like you've pulled the words out of my head that I've always wanted to say but never knew how quote.
• 18:40
  Unknown: And so the elevated copywriting, sophisticated imagery and cohesive design resonated with her target audience, and they're attracting high end clients seeking a luxury wedding photography experience. And to conclude and wrap up here, Vanessa Joy's journey to an elevated brand presence serves as a testament to the power of strategic copywriting this website copy overhaul aligned her online presence by positioning herself as the leader in the luxury wedding photography industry that she is. So if you are seeking an elevated brand presence as well, and know that a copy overhaul would serve you, you can check out my services guide in the show notes for more information as well. Thank you for tuning in to the copywriting for coaches podcast.
• 19:26
  Unknown: If you've been enjoying these episodes, let me know that you're listening and what you love about it by clicking on the copywriting for coaches show in Apple podcasts and leaving me a review. Be sure to subscribe while you're there so it's easy to catch new episodes every week. If you want digital resources to finish that copy project you've been working on, the links are all waiting for you at copywriting for coaches podcast.com you.