About FasTest
FasTest is a dedicated manufacturer of advanced connection tools for production testing, fluid transfer and other processing applications, providing custom or off-the-shelf solutions to industries including automotive, appliance, aerospace, HVAC-R, compressed gas and medical/life sciences.
Situation: A High Bounce Rate and the Need to Catch Up to Rebranding and New Tools
A 57% bounce rate was just one factor in FasTest’s decision to redesign its website. In addition to drastically increasing site speed, the company wanted a robust e-commerce website to act as their number-one salesperson, pass leads along efficiently to their distributor network, and reduce the number of calls and emails directed to their salespeople and customer service reps. This would require building a website that gave the primary audience, engineers, quick and easy access to product specs.
FasTest also wanted recent rebranding work to inform the new website, and to incorporate new video overviews of their tools, which had already seen huge engagement and use by the sales team and distributors.
Several challenges were evident from the beginning, and new challenges emerged. Many technical requirements had to be met, including direct integration with their ERP system (Infor Visual), integration with Salesforce/Pardot, a separate WordPress blog site that would need to be exported to the new website so they would no longer be separate entities, multiple language translation (including non-Latin alphabet based languages), an interactive distributor locator and interactive product comparison features. The need for several additional pieces of functionality emerged late in the development phase and required additional strategy. A major undertaking, the new FasTest website had a hard and fast launch deadline of July 13, 2021.
Solution: Continuous Reprioritization and Collaboration Resulted in a New Website Successfully Incorporating Advanced Features and Functionality
Windmill maintained a collaborative environment to ensure that all of the client’s needs were met while adhering to the strict timeline. When it came to a hard decision between functionality and timeline, we were able to suggest creative solutions to create a feature that could be deployed for the target launch date. We documented new functionality/feature requests weekly and fit them into the existing scope when possible. If anything risked the project launch deadline, we documented potential phase 2 items in a Kanban board for later review.
When functionality needs were discovered later in the process, such as special treatment of accessories and add-on parts, working these elements into the project was accomplished by consistent revisions to the minimum viable product requirements.
We created a flexible attribute system to drive complex product configurations. Because new requirements came up frequently for how product filtering would work, our solution gave us the flexibility to accommodate those changes without having to risk the deadline or create a situation where product information would not work within the design.
All the technical requirements were achieved. In order to integrate with the ERP Infor Visual system, Windmill worked closely with a third-party vendor (Petros724) to build the APIs that would allow the website to communicate with FasTest’s ERP system.
Additional features successfully deployed included high-resolution home page video content, complex search functionality and extensive Shopify configuration (minimum order size, custom handling fees, etc).
The project was ultimately successful through the prioritization of the myriad features and functionality that were planned, and that came up over the course of the project. The process of educating the client on, for example, the relative resources required for custom logic vs. content changes, resulted in a happy client with a thorough understanding of the process.
The new website showcases the different industries and applications in which FasTest excels, includes an impressive depth of information and specifications, and helps engineers see that FasTest products and services can help them improve their processes, safety and throughput.
Are you looking for a digital marketing partner that understands the complexities of your industry? Let’s talk today
Windmill Strategy is a web design company & digital marketing agency helping B2B industrial manufacturing companies achieve increased visibility, higher quality leads, and greater marketing ROI through smarter web design. Our website design and B2B digital marketing approach goes beyond “more traffic,” seeking out better traffic, by gaining the attention of the specific niche groups of buyers and influencers that represent your best customers. We help our clients communicate and sell their complex products and services to multiple audiences – be it through web design or digital marketing and SEO. Working collaboratively with your in-house marketing and sales team, we design websites that drive leads and sales that result in overall business growth. Schedule a call to learn more.