We are thrilled to announce that the website we designed for our client, Acentech, has won first place in the 2022 SMPS National Marketing Communications Awards! SMPS’s annual competition is the longest-standing, most prestigious awards program that recognizes excellence in marketing and communications by professional services firms in the design and building industries.
The jurors said, “it was a great example of a site that understands its purpose and target audience.” Learn more about the website results and objectives below. You can also visit the site at Acentech.com.
Impressive Results
- Visits to the contact form are up 164% and contact form submissions are up 1,440%.
- All form submissions (contact, job applications, and subscribe) are up nearly 2,000%
- Visits to the careers page are up 29%, but more notably, visits to the future job opening page (with an application form) are up 761%.
- One recent new hire gave the site a glowing review:
“As soon as I opened Acentech’s site, I knew I wanted to work there. The breadth and quality of their work is impressive, and I loved reading staff bios. They express themselves with intelligence, humor and passion. And like me, many are musicians!”
- Visits to the about page are up 105%.
- Visits to the portfolio are up 86%.
- Visits to the markets pages are up 83%.
- Visits to the site from social media are up 240%.
- Visitors are able to navigate and find what they are looking for more quickly, which is reflected in the 10% drop in the average time on the site.
- Received the grade of A for web accessibly (ADA), best practices, and SEO (from Lighthouse, a Google Dev Tool)
Acentech’s Creative Brief
Delivering on our brand was the primary thrust of our website redesign. In an information-filled world, and practicing in a commodity-claimed industry, conveying our differentiation while improving our brand visibility was becoming a challenge for our six-year-old website.
The site’s usability and engagement – especially for mobile – were on a rapid decline, resulting in missed business opportunities and talent. We realized we needed help, and sent out an RFP to several web design consultants.
- Our site needed to be faster, more visually compelling, with multi-device usability and simple, intuitive navigation. With mobile platform use mainstream, the redesigned site needed to reflect this shift in users’ preferences.
- Our website is our primary recruiting tool for attracting talent and articulating our culture. Issues with the old site’s contact form for current job listings were not ideal, especially given the industry labor shortage. Making it difficult for candidates to upload a cover letter and resume is one way to ensure they start looking elsewhere –we needed to fix the problem quickly!
- Our multi-disciplinary acoustics, technology, and vibration consulting practice with a highly diverse portfolio delivers integrated services predominantly to architects across strategic US offices. It was critical that our website be visually compelling and appeal to designers. We needed to move away from a self-promotional, online brochure to a client-focused, multi-media hub of information and innovation as a resource tool.
Acentech engaged Clockwork Design Group to redesign our website, and our in-house marketing team, president, and key consultants planned and refined the content.
View all the 2022 MCA Winners on the SMPS site.
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