Brand Focus: Going from good to great. Frazer James’ new brand and website

Sometimes it’s something more specific – a new market to enter or a new strategy to pursue. Over the years we’ve helped businesses with all of this, and more.

The point is that what the client needs is usually – to us – quite obvious. Ageing software, dated brand and an underperforming website. Then Frazer James came to us. They’re a young, dynamic and award-winning company. Frazer James isn’t old enough to have an ageing brand or website, and they have seen excellent business growth. This is thanks to a successful SEO campaign, which is bringing them well over 20,000 web hits a month.

Well, we took a look at their brand and website. At that stage it was only high-level stuff. But we’re experienced and talented creatives. There’s always something with room for improvement. My point is that with Frazer James – it wasn’t obvious.

The legendary PLOTT discovery workshop
No matter, we’d find out in our discovery workshop. We travelled to Bristol to meet James and Chris in a face-to-face setting. This is how we like it. The outcomes from a disco’ workshop depend on many things, but the goal is the same. What is needed to take your brand and website to the next level?

What Frazer James specifically wanted was focus. They had been brilliant in attracting website visitors, they were practically inundated with leads. But many were simply not suitable for the service offering. Financial advisers and planners, wealth and investment managers – all need clients they can really help, where they can really add value. With the introduction of Consumer Duty it also needs to be demonstrable. James and Chris were spending too much time on unsuitable leads. Time is precious – we’d all rather be focussing on what we’re best at.

To solve the issue James and Chris implemented an investment calculator. Inputting your details produced a graph showing 20 years of future projections. Input investable assets below a certain level and it gave Frazer James’ honest answer, “it’s unlikely that our fees will be great value for money”. Honesty is the best policy, but James and Chris thought this was too blunt an instrument. We agreed. Could PLOTT help them filter out unsuitable leads in a more subtle way?

Could their brand help attract clients of the right fit? Well yes.
A thorough examination of their website did highlight some issues. The website was performing for SEO but visually it needed some love and attention. Some individual elements were working well. However they felt disjointed and incoherent, like the website had been built in fits and starts. Many websites are constructed in this way, but it can result in a certain scruffiness – which erodes professionalism. Fortunately PLOTT can help with all of that. With a project such as this we’re able to design, write and develop the website as a single entity. When we’re done everything will come together and fit perfectly.

PLOTT gets to work.
This was to be a full brand update, we’d look at the identity, colour palette, fonts, copy and tone-of-voice, imagery and the website. The purpose of the update was this: define the message, and communicate it clearly. Creative Director Richard developed a logo and icon set that speak of professionalism, but suggest a freshness of approach. The icon would be used with the new punchy colour palette and the result is clean, modern and memorable. Taken as a whole the Frazer James brand is now perfectly balanced – highly professional and safe, but fresh and super stylish.

We selected a series of high-quality Getty lifestyle images for the brand. The purpose of lifestyle images is to send signals to the audience. It’s not subliminal, but it is subtle. These are the kind of things a client wants and cares about. Family and business; life, health and wealth. The pictures also say these are the kind of clients Frazer James wants to work with. Affluent, wealthy, professional and successful. It allows users to ‘self select’ – it’s an important yet subtle step in filtering leads.

But we wanted to show some personality and truth on the website. James, Chris and the team are all very photogenic after all, so we arranged a candid photoshoot with a local photographer. We’ve used the shots throughout the website and specifically on calls-to-action panels; client touch points need not be impersonal.

Proper planning & preparation protects performance
Their website was performing brilliantly in SEO terms, but the site structure was a drag on page speed performance (and likely a drag on SEO too). We’d fix that with our in-house WordPress software; optimised for speed, security, SEO and accessibility. We reimagined the user’s journey through the site and we wrote the page copy – always with client focus and clarity in mind.

Websites are also technical beasts however; what you don’t see is as important as what you do. We know our code is excellent, we know because we wrote it. But when you’re replacing a website with 20k+ monthly visits it’s important – no, vital – that those visits are preserved. It can be a nerve wracking time for a client, switching off the stream of leads on which the business relies. There must be a strategy in place if this is to be successful.

We’re delighted, but not surprised that this launch has been a success. Not only is the traffic preserved, Frazer James has seen an uptick. We’re really proud of the work we did here, it’s a great brand, a great website and Frazer James is a great business. Go take a look.