Why a website is no longer enough: you need digital systems
A brochure site is just the entrance. Growing companies build digital systems that generate leads, manage customers and automate processes.
Gianmarco Pacetti
A website by itself is no longer enough. After working with dozens of SMEs, hotels and startups across Italy, I can say it plainly: the problem isn't the site — it's that the site has become the tip of an iceberg that used to be the whole iceberg.
Companies that are growing today don't just have a beautiful website. They run a digital system: website + CRM + automations + internal software that talk to each other. The rest — the ones still stuck with the 2018 brochure site — are losing ground without understanding why.
What "digital system" actually means
A digital system is a chain of connected tools that together capture, qualify and manage the customer relationship. In practice, when a visitor submits a form on your site:
The data lands in the CRM, not just in an inbox
The lead is classified automatically by industry, budget and urgency
A personalized email sequence kicks off based on that classification
When the lead becomes a customer, the internal software opens a project
Every document (quote, invoice, contract) is generated and tracked in one place
Nothing magic. Just existing tools, wired together properly.
The brochure site has stopped working — here's why
When a company asks me to "redo the website", my first question is: what happens to the data after the user clicks?. In 90% of cases the answer is "an email arrives". The problem:
Emails get buried in the founder's inbox
Nobody remembers to follow up after 3 days
Hot leads and cold leads get treated the same way
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Tell us what you want to build
Whether it’s a website, a management tool, an automation or a new platform, we help you find the right solution.
The site isn't a brochure. It's a funnel. That means forms differentiated by persona (B2B vs B2C, industry A vs B), micro-conversion tracking (downloads, video views, pricing viewed), and one single source of truth on where the leads come from.
2. Automatic qualification (CRM + lead scoring)
When the lead arrives, it has to be labelled immediately. With a modern CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, even a self-hosted instance) you can:
Auto-assign to the right sales rep by industry
Calculate a lead score based on company size, urgency, budget
Trigger different email flows for hot vs cold leads
See at a glance how many new leads came in this week
3. Operations (internal software + process automations)
When the lead becomes a customer, the system must take over operations: project opening, quote generation, milestones, invoicing. Tools like N8N, Zapier and Make let you automate the handoffs between different software without writing code — or with a small custom build where surgical precision matters.
What it costs to do this properly
A baseline digital system — site + CRM + 5-10 key automations — isn't a fortune. We're talking €8-15k for the initial version of a 5-30 employee SME. The real difference is the recurring ROI: a company that used to close 2 in 10 leads closes 4-5 after fixing its funnel, because it stops losing leads in operational chaos.
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A website is a cost only if you don't know where the data goes after the click. If you do, it's an asset that generates measurable revenue.
Three signs your site is "just a site"
You don't know how many leads you got last week
Your sales team complains that leads arrive late or duplicated
You have no single customer database — contacts live in inboxes, Excel, and individual phones
If two of these sound familiar, you don't need a new site. You need a system.
How we approach this at EraOne
When a client comes with this problem, step one is a process map: who does what today, where the chain breaks, where leads or time leak out. It's a 2-3 hour session that often delivers more value than any website redo.
From there we build the ecosystem in increments: first the site + CRM pair, then the most painful automations (e.g. automatic quoting), finally the operational software. Three typical months, scalable to your budget.
If you want to find the weak point in your current setup, reach out — the first call is free and you'll leave with at least three concrete actions, even if we don't end up working together.
