Upstream Works has made contact-centre software for 25 years. Their website had grown on WordPress for about a decade and wasn't bringing in enquiries. A new product was coming with a fixed launch date, and its name couldn't go public early. There was no in-house marketing team, so I worked with their Chief Revenue Officer, with their CRM lead looking after the sales systems. From first plan to launch day took about six weeks. Here's how it came together, and what you can borrow from each step.
1. Write down everything you've already got
Before designing anything, I went through every page on the old site: the menus, the blog, old campaign pages, the legal pages, and where every link and form led. It's slow, unglamorous work and it's the step people skip. It's also how you find the pages that still bring in visitors, the forms that still send enquiries somewhere, and the terms and conditions nobody has read in years.
For your business: list every page on your current site and what it's for before you talk about a new one. Even a ten-page site has something on it you'd miss.
2. Brand before words
Next came the brand, before any copy. I helped name the new platform and wrote down how it should be described: what to lead with, what comes second, what never to say. Then I produced a new Upstream Works brand pack with the colours, type and logo rules. Every page, caption and video afterwards was checked against those two documents, which settled a lot of arguments before they started.
For your business: agree the one or two sentences that describe what you do, and your colours and logo rules, before anyone writes a page. Writing first and "making it look nice" later is how websites end up saying three different things.
3. One plan that everyone builds from
The whole rebuild went into a single plan document: the new page structure, what would happen to every old link, the order of work and the risks. When a question came up, the answer went into that document, not into an email thread. With more than one person building, that's what kept everyone working from the same version.
For your business: one shared document beats a dozen emails. If a decision isn't written down where everyone can see it, assume it hasn't been made.
4. Don't break the old links
The old pages had been bookmarked, linked to and listed by Google for years. Every old address was pointed at its new home, more than 600 of them on launch day, so anyone following an old link landed somewhere useful instead of an error page. The legal pages were moved across word for word.
For your business: if you're replacing a website, ask whoever builds it what happens to your old addresses. "Nothing" is the wrong answer, because broken links can cost you the search rankings you've built up.
5. Rehearse the switch-over, and keep a way back
There was one launch, not two, so there was no second chance to absorb a slip. The new site was built and tested alongside the old one, which stayed live right up to the switch. The switch-over was rehearsed, with a one-click way back to the old site if anything went wrong. The new site went live at about 2 pm on 14 October with no downtime. The way back wasn't needed, but knowing it was there made the day a lot calmer.
For your business: never take your old site down before the new one is proven. And find out who holds the logins for your domain and hosting well before launch day. It's a dull job, and it can stall a launch at the last minute.
6. You don't need to hire a studio
The Totalix launch film was shot on 12 October in a home studio set-up: Upstream's CRO on camera, proper lighting, a wide shot and a side angle, and a script that went through several drafts until it sounded natural to say. I edited and captioned it in time for launch morning. In the run-up, a LinkedIn teaser series built interest without ever naming the product.
For your business: good light, clear sound and a script you've read aloud a few times matter more than expensive kit or a hired room.
7. Launch day is the start
Feedback from colleagues on launch day was fixed and live the next morning. Since then the site has gained a Trust Center showing Upstream's security controls, five product demo films with captions, and daily checks plus a weekly review. It's too early to report results like enquiry numbers, and I'm not going to guess at them.
For your business: put a date in the diary a week after launch to go through what people said and anything that's broken. A website that's looked after keeps getting better. One that's left alone slowly goes out of date.
The short version
Know what you've got before you change it. Decide how you sound before you write. Keep one plan, don't break what already works, and always have a way back. The full project, with the live site and the film, is in the Upstream Works case study. If it's the video side you're interested in, see video and studio prices.