Call us now on: (01908) 239971
Call us now on: (01908) 239971
Your Safe Planet is a service for independent travellers, connecting them to trusted and vetted people around the world who provide advice, information and support. It’s run by Sally Broom, who is passionate about extending her network of friends around the world and allowing other travellers to have a valuable, yet safe, global adventure.
A website is key to this type of business. Since many of Sally’s clients are about to navigate their way around the world, it’s vital that navigating her website is a straightforward and rewarding experience, too. In a highly competitive travel industry, Your Safe Planet needs to not only look good, but also work extremely well to attract customers already receiving vast numbers of messages from travel companies.
Sally found a web design company and invested £15,000 in a website. The plan was for the site to attract customers and allow easy sales and delivery. Essentially, it would enable Sally to manage her business. No matter how good her business idea, without the website it couldn’t work.
The original site did not come up to scratch and it didn’t work as it should. The web company wanted payment for each individual tweak and, ultimately, this was a major obstacle in running the whole business. Sally didn’t feel confident directing people to her site, she was embarrassed about how difficult it was to navigate and she had to provide personal guidance to potential customers about how to pay and join Your Safe Planet. It was crazy.
Not only that, she had a big feature coming up in the Guardian newspaper, but without a good website, it was going to be a wasted opportunity.
“The site was a disaster area,” says Sally. “It cost a lot of money and didn’t do the job. It was an unfriendly customer experience, it didn’t capitalise on any of the interest we were getting, it didn’t lend itself to search engine optimisation, it was full of clunky errors and faults – and it just didn’t work!”
Sally heard about Prominent Media through a friend, and she made enquiries about what could be done to salvage her site – and her business. She was concerned that moving the management of her site to another web design company could be complicated. She didn’t want to lose any of the work she’d already done and was worried that emails might go astray during the transfer. She also felt frustrated about the time it would take to explain her plans and objectives all over again.
Iain Row (managing director and senior web developer at Prominent Media) already understood the travel industry and easily grasped what Sally was trying to achieve. Iain quickly resolved many of the usability issues, eliminated the error messages and tackled the temperamental nature of the site. Within about 90 minutes, Iain had made changes that had an immediate, positive impact. There was much work that needed to be done on the website, but Iain’s knowledge allowed him to make the most effective changes for the greatest benefit.
After moving the website over to Prominent Media, it became much more user-friendly. The Guardian press deadline was rapidly approaching, but the site was already running more smoothly by this time.
“Prominent Media showed me how I could get more from my time and money. It was not only the website that improved. It takes someone who really understands e-commerce to be able to advise on what changes will make the biggest impact on the business. And that’s exactly what Prominent Media did. My customers could sign up to the site for free, but it was difficult to convert them into paying members. By adding a simple ‘Upgrade now’ button, the whole transition became much easier – and profitable.”
Iain’s particular talent is in knowing what small steps will lead to the quickest, easiest and least stressful route to initial reward. The day after adding the ‘Upgrade now’ button, Your Safe Planet made its first organic sale – because the overall usability of the site was so much easier.
Sally had tried three different companies before finding Prominent Media. Your Safe Planet and Prominent Media continue to work together now, developing the site as the business grows. Sally is now proud to direct potential customers to her site, and she has much more control.
“When things go wrong, Prominent Media is there to help,” she says. “Finding Prominent Media was a real blessing. It’s been easy – and life saving – and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way. How would I sum up Prominent Media? Friendly, reliable, trustworthy and talented! It’s great to work with a company that really knows what they’re doing.”
Sally Broom, Your Safe Planet“Prominent Media showed me how I could get more from my time and money. It was not only the website that improved. It takes someone who really understands e-commerce to be able to advise on what changes will make the biggest impact on the business. And that’s exactly what Prominent Media did. My customers could sign up to the site for free, but it was difficult to convert them into paying members. By adding a simple ‘Upgrade now’ button, the whole transition became much easier – and profitable.”