Today we are introducing our work with Katie Mullen Digital Marketing, who we first began working with in 2020. We have plenty of experience in developing websites for marketers and we love working with them as they usually have a good understanding of the type of content required to build a website.
Marketer Katie started out with both a website development and website maintenance contract, and as her business has grown, we have supported her with regular upgrades, improvements and most recently, a brand-new website for her sub brand – Ochil Fundraising.
A Marketer’s First Website
When you first venture into the world of business, you are faced with a number of big expenses. For many, spending a five-figure sum on high end branding and a fabulous new website, simply isn’t an option.
Does that mean you should wait to get a website until you have built up some capital? Absolutely not! It is imperative that you have a website if you want to be taken seriously by potential clients, particularly if you want to be seen as a credible marketer.
There are plenty of great budget options out there – our sister service Buttered Lite being one of them. Having a website is one of the best ways to generate sales. Within a few years, you may well find you are ready to upgrade to something a little more exciting.
Buttered Lite is the service we offered to Katie Mullen Digital Marketing when we started working together in 2020. It worked with the client’s budget and gave them a fast, functional, professional and if we do say so ourselves, handsome looking website! Here is the review Katie gave us back in 2021 after the website development was complete:
“After speaking with Gill Wilson of Buttered Host about her Buttered Lite Package, I realised this would be a great option for my first website. It provides fantastic value for money for small business owners and the website templates available are smart, modern and fun.
The end result is so much better than I ever expected for my first website. Gill and Isla were so helpful and accommodating. They also worked really quickly to get the website up and running just a couple of days after I’d sent them through the copy and photos.
Thank you so much to Gill Wilson and Isla Wilson from Buttered Host for creating this beautiful website that perfectly suits me and my business. I would 100% recommend them to anyone who is looking to build or redesign their website.”
A Marketer’s Second Website
Marketing isn’t the only service Katie offers; her background is in fundraising, so in 2022 Katie began promoting fundraising services to charities. Katie knows enough about SEO to figure out that she really needed two websites if she was going to branch out with a distinct new service.
Much to our delight, Katie had a little more budget to play with this time round! This was a project we could really get our teeth stuck into. Katie’s new website for sister brand Ochil Fundraising, was developed on a full Buttered Host package.
Every Buttered Host package is different – developed with the client’s unique needs in mind. Costs depend on a huge number of factors from the number of pages required, to assessing whether or not the client requires ecommerce functionality. Here is what Katie had to say about website number two…
“A couple of years ago I asked Gill from Buttered Host to build my first website for Katie Mullen Digital Marketing. It is fantastic! Gill managed to do a lot with my modest budget.
I then asked Gill to build the second website for Ochil Fundraising. I had secured funding for this one so Gill was able to work her magic. I am blown away by the results and I regularly get told how great the site is. Gill continues to provide hosting and maintenance services and I really enjoy working with her.
A few of my clients also have a Buttered Host website and every single one is of an extremely high standard.”
Developing the Marketing Websites
So how do our two services actually differ? If you compare the Ochil Fundraising website to the Katie Mullen Digital Marketing website, you will see that Ochil Fundraising is more bespoke, has more functionality and includes many more of Katie’s specific branding elements.
Ochil Fundraising also incorporates a lot more movement with icons fading in and out, and photographs bobbing as you scroll down the page. These movements aren’t random – they have been chosen to fit in with Ochil Fundraising’s lighthearted and fun brand personality.
And what about that brand eh? Pretty glorious! One of Buttered Host’s secret weapons is that we work with some amazing design specialists – the creative left brain to our practical right brain.
While both websites are easy to navigate, consistently branded and highly effective, Ochil Fundraising has a real wow factor. There is also scope for a great deal more functionality within our full Buttered Host packages – Katie is planning to expand the training page on her website so that customers can view free digital courses and access further paid for courses. We can’t wait to support Katie with this next stage of business growth.
Preparing for Your New Marketing Website
One of the things that made working with Katie Mullen Digital Marketing so easy, was that she had done a lot of work in the months prior to ensure that she had all the content ready in advance. Here are a few things we recommend marketers do before getting a website:
- Invest in brand photography – photos of you, your team, your products, case studies etc. Professional videos are great too as long as they are optimised for the web.
- Invest in a great brand – this is so much more than just a logo, if you take a closer look at the Ochil Fundraising website, you will notice icons, patterns and variations of the logo throughout the site. This ensures your website looks unique and improves brand recognition.
- Consider your copy – as a copywriter, Katie was very comfortable writing all the content for the website herself, but not everyone is so confident. Give yourself plenty of time to write the text for all the pages or speak to us and we can put you in touch with a great copywriter who can help you with this.
- Ask your clients if they can give you a testimonial to use on the website. This can improve trust in your brand and increase your conversion rate.
Website Maintenance for Marketers
It’s easy to talk about building new websites, that’s the exciting part. But we believe website maintenance is the most valuable service we offer. We have continued to host and maintain both of Katie’s websites, keeping her safe from viruses, hacking and malware, monitoring her plugins, performing regular updates and weekly website backups to secure locations.
With running two brands, Katie is a busy woman! She doesn’t have much time to pay attention to her website (too busy writing other people’s blogs to update her own it seems!) Thankfully, she doesn’t have to worry. We keep everything ticking over for her, so her website is one less thing to think about. Here’s what she had to say about our maintenance support:
“I am so glad that Buttered Host are looking after my websites… it’s embarrassing how little I even log into them! I promise I’ll get some more blogs up when I have some time… but these amazing websites are part of the reason I am so busy. Even though I completely ignore them, I still regularly get client enquiries from people who have landed on my website. Technical issues are inevitable with websites; all my clients have them from time to time, but Gill fixes mine so quickly, no one would ever know.”
Growing with your Business
We have known Katie since she first started her freelance marketing business, and it has been a joy to see her business flourish. It has been a pleasure to support her in this journey, doing our bit to ensure her digital presence truly reflects her skills as both a marketer and a fundraiser.