Our asset management clients and prospects often tell us about their frustrations when attempting to budget for enhancing or rebuilding their corporate websites. Sales, marketing, operations, and compliance typically have different priorities so identifying a uniform purpose for the site is challenging, if not impossible.

Ultimately, with no clear goal, owner, or defined audience, a website rebuild generally takes far longer to complete than planned, and cost overruns are the norm rather than the exception. So, how much does it cost to build a website? 

Budgeting for a Website Rebuild

If your asset management firm needs a new or upgraded website, know that you are not alone.  Never has it been more critical for distribution teams to reach and engage prospective clients online, and your corporate site is the cornerstone of that objective. 

Unfortunately, budgeting for a new website isn’t a simple task. Size, complexity, and functionality requirements all factor into the equation, and that’s why there is often such disparity in cost from one firm to another. According to WebFX:

• The average cost of building a site ranges from $12,000 to $150,000
• The average cost of maintaining a site ranges from $400 to $60,000 per year 

The Pitfalls of Traditional Website Design

The traditional or “waterfall” method of website design has been the industry standard for decades. The value of the waterfall method is that the project is fully scoped and agreed upon among constituents before any development begins, so in theory, there should be minimal scope creep, and costs should be easily contained. 

However, a theory is frequently different than what happens in practice. Our experience observing waterfall design projects is that they often end up with warring factions, severe delays, unanticipated development expenses, and ultimately, sites that are out-of-date when they launch and fail to deliver on their intended purpose.

The Emergence of Growth-Driven Design

Within the last decade, a new approach to website development called growth-driven design (GDD) has emerged as a better approach to website redesign. Whereas waterfall projects require every aspect of the site to be defined before development begins, the GDD method requires only the most essential site functions to be identified initially to start development.

This agile aspect of GDD can enable you to launch your site in as little as six weeks whereas websites developed using the waterfall approach can take 4-6 months or longer to launch. GDD development also allows you to analyze user data to make rapid incremental improvements, doing more of what is working well and less of what isn’t. Making frequent data-informed decisions helps keep your project on budget as you won’t spend time developing site elements you don’t need.

Driving Sales & Growing Revenue

Most importantly, the growth-driven design allows you to create a site engineered for conversions and sales. A conversion is simply an exchange of information where a prospect provides a few pieces of information like a name and email address in exchange for an informative and educational eBook or infographic on a topic they are interested in. 

As a conversion occurs, your site continues the conversation by delivering relevant and timely content that keeps your prospect coming back. A properly-built GDD site can become your #1 salesperson, working tirelessly for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nurturing prospective clients along their buyer’s journey.

So, if you’re thinking about rebuilding your current website and growing revenue is a goal and “purpose” of your new site, let us show you how quickly you can get started. Call us at 866-853-7949 or schedule a free consultation here.