customer project HortiHeroes
Brief, concise and user-friendly explanation of what a large organization does
A website that feels like a Christmas tree? You can read what Jaimy means by that and why she wanted to get rid of it in HortiHeroes' customer story.
Jaimy van Berkel has been working at HortiHeroes since 2020. She is responsible for marketing & communications. With a relatively small team of currently 8 women and 1 man, they do a lot. A lot. And that's sometimes where the challenge lies.
The assignment
"Everyone on the team felt it was time for a new website. With our 5th anniversary coming up, it felt like a good time for an upgrade of the corporate identity and - finally - a new website."
During the initial conversation about a new site, we discussed all the different things HortHeroes does and how we thought they could organize it better.
"We do a lot for a lot of different audiences. What we liked is that Rosanne is very pragmatic, very action-oriented. She really held up a mirror to us. She told us exactly what the process looked like in her head and what we could expect. Her working method, combined with a good and comprehensive offer, made us choose Buro Staal."
"Buro Staal had quite a challenge turning our extensive story into a clear site. They helped us with that very well!"
Jaimy van Berkel
The situation
"It is difficult to explain briefly and concisely all that we do with HortiHeroes," says Jaimy. "That was also quite a challenge for Buro Staal, to turn our extensive story into a clear website. But Rosanne and Annemieke helped us a lot and gave us clear advice. Now it all fits much better with what we want to convey."
HortiHeroes already had their website management running with us. Their website was about 5 years old at the time and new pieces were constantly being added. Something many organizations do. We had already tried to organize things more logically with a mini-improvement but that didn't solve the problem.
"Since I've been working here I've been hearing the desire to do something about the website. If we wanted to change something we had to do it in different places. More and more was added, our story got more and more elaborate. The site looked like a Christmas tree!"
the purpose
The new site needed to more clearly represent exactly what HortiHeroes does and what they stand for. The story, and the layout of the site, could indeed be a lot clearer. During the first session, we proposed a new menu layout and new, clear headings.
In as few clicks as possible, readers need to find answers to their questions or know who to turn to. With an organization that does as many different things as HortiHeroes, this is quite a challenge.
THE approach
"We sometimes have a tendency to want to explain everything, for everyone, in one page. The result? Long pages with a lot of text. With the new format we started working on with the help of Buro Staal, I was able to write the texts in a much more focused way."
We summarized the story of HortiHeroes in three pillars. And coined new terms for them. HortiHeroes attracts talent in the Food & Flower Industry, connects them with each other and the sector and helps them develop. They do this through training programs, traineeships (in which young professionals work at a different company every eight months, among other things), events and their start-up platform. So we came up with the components Education - Career - Community. With a nice international touch!
"There is now an event calendar. The English side is good and complete again. A customer stories page has been added. And I no longer have to manually adjust everything in different places. All parts of the site now talk to each other much better."
"Rosanne is pragmatic and action-oriented. Her approach and clear vision made us choose Buro Staal."
HortiHeroes
"In between, we had already solicited feedback from some of our target audiences. They thought it looked a lot fresher, clearer and more dynamic. So did we!" says Jaimy. "It really makes a difference that we rebuilt it from scratch. No more Christmas tree!"
How is it going now?
It has now been 1.5 years since we spoke to Jaimy for the above story.
We are curious: how are things going now?
"We have heard several times that our site now better shows what we do and why. It's a good representation of our brand: rebellious, entrepreneurial and fun. For example, a professional from the Food & Flower industry told my colleague that she had gotten tremendously excited about one of our programs after looking at the web page. That was nice to hear!"
"Our offering is still very broad, so that remains a challenge. But our current website is a much better showcase for HortiHeroes than the old one. I maintain the website myself, which gives overview. But if a colleague adds an event, for example, that's fine too! It still works nicely. Sometimes we want to adjust something bigger and that works well with Buro Staal."
"I do notice that we need to keep working on leveraging our site and making it work for us. There is still more potential there. Online visibility and visitor numbers could also be better. It won't be the site itself, although there are still areas for improvement. In itself it runs smoothly and I don't have to think much about it."
