Agency Spotlight Series: LaneTerralever

A key part of our business at WP Engine is the partnerships we’ve built with digital agencies. With emerging technologies and trends, increasing competitiveness, and the pressure to deliver memorable digital experiences, agencies have enough to worry about. WP Engine allows agencies to focus on creation and execution instead of worrying about performance and security. We do this via innovative solutions that keep teams agile, a digital experience platform that uses industry-leading architecture to consistently deliver high performance, and an open-source platform that easily integrates with your preferred technology stack.

At the forefront of innovation and digital creativity, agencies have invaluable insight into digital trends, technical efficiency, and creativity that leads to conversions. In this series, called “Agency Spotlight,” we sit down with agency leaders from around the world to explore their thoughts on all things digital. 

In this segment, we chat with the team at LaneTerralever. Based out of Phoenix, Arizona, LaneTerralever is an independent marketing agency. They derive insight from understanding your customer’s unique journey, build brand experiences that drive action, and develop marketing strategies for transformative growth. With a Net Promoter Score of 81, compared to the industry average of 15, their approach is a hit with those who matter most (their clients). 

What are some ways you help your clients adopt a digital mindset?

There’s nobody out there who believes they can hide from digital. Everyone believes they need a digital mindset to some degree; awareness isn’t the hardest thing. The more interesting challenge is getting clients to carve out pieces of their budget for specific digital tactics when they don’t have experience there. Clients have to understand that digital isn’t just one thing and money has to be allocated strategically. 

When we talk to clients, we always look for ways to tie specific strategies back to business impact. Whether you are talking to the Director of Technology or the CMO, if you can help them make that business case, they are able to take it back to whoever is providing the budget and provide a strong argument. 

In cases where we work with clients that have done very little digital, case studies are essential. When a client can see a similar company’s success quantified, it helps give them some end-to-end perspective and reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed. 

How important is quality content?

Marketing departments continue to have more of a dominant role in organizations. Marketing is driving conversions, sales, and revenue. In turn, the budget for marketing efforts continues to increase; CEOs and CMOs are aligning together to deliver on ROI. This shift is due to a variety of things but the younger generation, Gen Z, is a clear contributing factor. Today, a successful social media strategy can change the success of your business. 

Younger generations want to support brands they can align with and the best way to distribute your message is through thoughtfully created and distributed content. For that reason, the production of relevant, authentic content that resonates on social can do wonders for your business. It’s not always straightforward, though. In addition to writing for the consumer, you’re writing for search engines. Quality content will fulfill the needs of both audiences. 

In your experience, how has AI reshaped creative development? 

We have done some work on Voice Interfaces and AI frameworks. From what we’re seeing, consumer-facing AI-driven experiences are immature, focusing on novelty and likely to only appeal to early tech adopters. With that said, we expect this to change rapidly and the broad access to voice interfaces and chatbots means that opportunities will emerge quickly and go to forward thinkers.   

There are many predictions for the future of AI: autonomous cars, robotic manufacturing, voice-controlled interfaces, and so many more. All of that stuff will become a reality. Right now, we are still getting there. As a creative technologist, it’s important to be aware of and experiment with emerging trends. Only then will you be ready for the AI revolution. 

How do you measure success and surface milestones to the end client throughout your development cycle?

The agile-based development lifecycle at LaneTerralever is designed for speed and efficiency. Our milestones for digitally transforming a website starts all the way from brand and content strategy, followed by core content models and sketch, and then through a rigorous user-tested UX/UI design even before we begin development work. This way of approaching a website rebuild ensures that the end result is aligned not only with our client’s expectations but more importantly aligned with their end-users needs. Proper use of videos, imagery, content, and user flow allows us to increase conversions and leads for the businesses.

We tend to work with clients on a fixed-price basis, hence we set specific objectives for what the website will accomplish from a business point of view right from project kickoff. The development milestones are focused on content, accessibility, speed optimization, and build speed.  The only roadblock we face sometimes revolves around content creation, imagery selection, and video creation for the website. What you get at the end is a website that is aligned with the needs of the end-user, fast and functional. Moreover, we have built compliance (CCPA, GDPR) and website accessibility (WCAG 2.1) as core to our development coding practices and design deliverables to ensure our clients are way ahead on their path of accessibility and compliance. Last but not least, our quality assurance process, which tests our website across multiple viewports, devices, and browsers, ensures we stay true to our mobile-first approach of website development. 

For more information on LaneTerralever, check out their website. To learn more about how WP Engine works with agencies, check out our Agency Partner Program.