Project overview
Alongside implementing BTI’s new brand language across its global online communications, we embarked on building the BTI Global website (https://www.bakertilly.global/). With it completed, we moved on to developing a flexible, powerful platform for BTI member organisations’ websites.
The CMS (content management system) was designed to support small and large member organisations, offering them a modern, forward-looking website with a look and feel tightly aligned with BTI’s branding, as well as marketing automation and integration with third-party systems.
Project objectives
BTI
- Position BTI as a forward-looking alternative in the global accountancy and legal market through its own and its members’ new websites
- Align all websites with the BTI global brand
- Build a powerful, flexible content management system for BTI and its members
- Keep the platform easy to use for non-English speaking firms
- Provide extensive SEO capability.
Members
- Offer local and cross-border solutions for small and large firms
- Enable each member firm to build their website site using their own in-house resources
- Support members with a comprehensive guide to the platform
- Provide help and consultancy if required
- Ensure member websites can be launched with no outside support.
Design and UX
The challenge/goal identification
Our design challenge was to provide a way to implement the new BTI brand on its new Global website and cohesively throughout its network so that both BTI and its members benefit from the new identity.
The solution should give BTI ongoing global control of its new brand language after implementation. Large and small BTI members should benefit from the flexible, robust platform. In addition to catering for localised languages (essential for members in countries such as China, Denmark, Spain and Italy), some of BTI’s members operate cross-border and require multi-language support.
Discovery and persona-building
It was essential to build personas representing BTI’s worldwide network. Therefore, we interviewed member firms from 18 countries across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
We pinpointed their current and anticipated problems and investigated geographical requirements such as local rules for cookies, GDPR and specific tracking needs. These, in addition to collecting their unique logos with specific aspect ratios.
The findings were collated, and an in-depth report was presented to BTI for approval before wireframes were developed.
Brand interpretation and design
LuckyTurn Media worked closely with BTI’s Brand Ownership team to develop designs that enable members to build their own site that appears unique and standalone, yet follows the BTI look and feel.
The BTI Website Global Working Group
Moving forward from developing the initial designs, we formed the Website Global Working Group. We showed group members an early preview of our work and encouraged them to feed back what worked and didn’t work for their proposed websites. Building on their input, we fleshed out their needs and further developed the designs.
Development phase
Challenges
We worked with several of BTI’s internal IT teams throughout the project. We needed to guarantee interoperability between the main BTI Global site and the network sites. For example, content blocks, including group statistics and About Us facts, can be shared from the global site onto network sites. Similarly, we have enabled content sharing between network websites so that news and insight articles can be published without time-consuming and resource-consuming writing and re-writing.
Working with IT teams throughout the BTI network, we developed an API to pull down websites from across the globe onto our new platform. BTI offers Gold and Silver Membership Tiers, with more comprehensive website feature sets for those who require them.
Our chosen CMS enabled us to develop and implement a fully scalable platform that is as easy to use for those with more straightforward needs as it is capable and flexible for those with more complex needs. We have ensured that cookies can be managed and translations can be enabled on a per-site basis for those who need them.
SEO and Content Migration
Our journey began with a comprehensive analysis of BTI and BTI-member websites. We delved deep into the existing SEO strategies and implementations, meticulously mapped the routes through the sites, and studied their architecture. This thorough analysis provided us with a solid foundation for our next steps.
With our research in hand, we were equipped to deliver SEO migration from the old Global website to the new one, and from member sites to the new BTI platform. We migrated old URLs seamlessly to new ones, and the Insights blog section was imported for both the Global website and the member firms who use it.
Content migration so that SEO is fully supported can be a real challenge. For that reason, content guidance and consultation are available for members
Marketing Automation
Email marketing is integral to the new platform for BTI and Gold Tier Firms. Without leaving their sites, BTI and members can send campaigns with similar functionality to third-party services.
Email marketing functions:
- Easy campaign creation
- Firm-level branding
- Multi-lingual support
- Lead capture
- Standard and dip campaigns
- Scheduled emails
- Segmentation
Outcome
At the time of writing, the BTI Global website has been launched, and six member sites, including Spain, Latvia, and the Cayman Islands have already been completed. More than 40 websites are already being built, with an expected hundred more to follow.
The Spanish website was the first member site. The team in Spain built it in just six weeks after first touching the platform and including testing time. Moving forward, smaller sites have been completed in under two weeks.
What’s next?
LuckyTurn Media will continue to refine the platform to cater to members’ needs as more use it and edge cases are identified and solved. We are available to onboard more of the network onto the system, with flexible support and consultancy available.
Further, we are implementing integrations with members’ third-party systems, including CRM and HR. We expect to continue evolving the CMS's capabilities to ensure it always remains market-leading and future-ready.
