How to have a successful website kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting sets the tone for any project. At TBH Creative, website project kick-off meetings are a chance to set our partnerships up for success. Our primary goal in a kick-off meeting is to ensure all team members are on the same page. By setting clear expectations about deliverables and team roles, we establish a strong foundation for the work ahead.  

With hundreds of website projects and over two decades of website kick-off meetings, we’ve learned a few things. Here are our top five tips for a successful website kick-off. 

But first, what is a website kick-off meeting? 

There are many approaches to kick-off meetings, and each agency manages its projects differently. At TBH Creative, this 2 hour session is often the first time all stakeholders for the project are together to discuss your website project. We will bring key TBH’ers to the meeting including team leads for strategy, project management, design, development, content and project support. 

We often get asked, who should attend the website kickoff from our team? This is a great question and varies by organization. However, when determining the right team to bring along, consider these questions:

• Will they be involved throughout the project’s duration?
• Do they have key information about your organization, your target audience, and the problem you’re trying to solve?
• Do they set business (and/or marketing) goals and initiatives?
• Will they provide feedback and/or approvals on project deliverables?
• Is it critical that their voice is heard and accounted for? 
• Could they serve as an internal champion for your project? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, invite them. They will not only provide valuable insight into your organization and project, but will have a firm understanding of what to expect throughout our partnership. 

5 tips for a successful website kick-off 

A strong, productive kick-off set the tone for the next several weeks of a project. Here are our team’s top 5 tips for a successful website kick-off.

1. Prepare ahead of time. 
2. Know your project goals. 
3. Be prepared to share. 
4. Stay focused. 
5. Know what’s next. 

Before our scheduled kick-off meeting, we’ll send a bit of homework to get your team thinking and gathering information. These requests vary by project but often include gaining access to current systems and analytics, questions about other marketing initiatives in motion or planned, and identifying what’s working and not working with your current website. These questions help your internal team start brainstorming ideas, and questions and begin our research. 

Pro-tip: Share the approved project scope with your team. Alignment ahead of time leads to effective meetings.  

A website is more than a beautiful digital design. It’s a sales person, your marketing hub, and many times it’s the first impression customers see of your business. It tells your story before you even speak to a customer.  

We will help you articulate what you want users to do once they’ve landed on your site, which will guide our website project. 

Goals come in all shapes and sizes, from lead generation to brand awareness, storytelling to sales enablement. During a website kick-off meeting, we will align our expectations for the project and confirm that your stakeholders agree. 

Pro-tip: Set goals that are measurable and ask questions if you aren’t sure what is realistic. 

At TBH Creative, we ask many questions and try to learn as much as we can about your business. While a portion of our website kick-off meetings will be focused on the expected process, most of the meeting (75%+) will be focused on learning everything we can about your business, your clients, and your goals. Grab your water and Halls, we’re diving in. 

New websites are exciting and sometimes you’ve been planning, scoping, and selecting your website partner for months. It’s hard to not want to dive right into design elements you like, colors, and fonts. We promise we love this part too, but before we get to the aesthetics we have some leg work to do. We keep our website kick-offs focused on 4 key components: 

• Process: how we’ll work together, key milestones, and project expectations. 
• Identifying goals: where is your business headed, and how can your website get you there. 
• Target audience: who are you trying to reach.
• Information gathering: tell us all about you, your services, your competition, and where do you want to be in 5 years.

Before closing a website kick-off meeting, your project manager wraps us up. They will walk you through key management details and outline what to expect in the coming days.

• Confirm you have access to our shared files.
• Recap high-level project timelines. 
• Identify important milestones for feedback, approval, and key contact points. 
• Understand what deliverables we need from you right away. 
• Share our ongoing project management process and communication cadence.

This step seems minor, but it is vitally important to ensure we are able to meet your project goals.  

What can you do to make a website kick-off more successful? 

At TBH Creative, a website kick-off  meeting is all about you and your organization. This is your opportunity to share what’s important to your business, where you want to go, and what results you’d like to see.  Here are a couple tips to keep in mind, when you come to the meeting 

• Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know” 
• Be transparent 
• Trust your website partner and the process

Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.” 

Sometimes in marketing you can get bogged down by all of the lingo. Each agency is different and likely refers to its project phases and deliverables in a variety of ways. Don’t be afraid to ask us to pause and say “TBH, I don’t know what that is. Can you explain?” We want you to feel comfortable and knowledgeable through each step of our work together. 

As your partner, it’s important that you feel confident in what you’re asking for and what we deliver. 

Be transparent. 

The more we learn about your organization, the stronger and more confident recommendations we can make. This can also include success or frustration with past projects. We pride ourselves on the strength of our partnerships; the more we know, the better we can serve. 

Trust your website partner. 

With over 20 years of website experience, there’s not much we haven’t done or encountered. However, we understand the foundation of any partnership lies in trust. We are here on the battlefield with you. Our goal is to serve you well, ensure you know where the project is at at all times, and that we deliver on the goals we set out

What happens after a project kick-off? 

Within the next week, you’ll receive a project status report and project timeline. And then – the fun starts. We waste no time getting started on your personas, and we’ll layer it with your foundation goals to build out site architecture, content strategy, website features, and template structure.  Let’s get to work! 

Ready to start your website project? 

Since 2004, the marketing experts at TBH Creative have solved complex problems powered by inventive solutions and project alignment. We typically let our award-winning marketing agency‘s results speak for themselves. 

We can’t wait to help you reach your website goals.