Group MFI

Distilling complexity and driving consensus

For the website’s content refresh, the goal was clear: create concise, compelling copy that reflects the company’s growing range of services and assures prospects that MFI is the right partner. However, Altaf found it extremely difficult to reach a consensus: “The drafts from a new ad agency went through months of back-and-forth revisions, stakeholder reviews, and more revisions. It became a never-ending cycle that went nowhere. At one point, I’d pretty much given up.” 

Finding the right partner

After a year and a half of struggling with an agency that wasn’t delivering, Altaf realized the solution was already within reach. While leading marketing for another brand, Ishara, a luxury tented camp in Kenya, he’d partnered with MarketSmiths—to great success. “Embarking on the ambitious journey to breathe new life into the MFI website, it was clear that MarketSmiths was the right partner for this venture,” he reflects. “Our prior collaboration had already laid a foundation of trust and admiration for their craftsmanship.” 

The journey of first discovering MarketSmiths all started with a Google search. ”It’s one of my favorite stories, actually,” Altaf says. “One afternoon, I googled ‘copywriting solutions’ and MarketSmiths popped up. I loved the company’s copy samples, so I sent an inquiry and connected with Jean [MarketSmiths’ founder and Chief Growth Officer]. After many emails back and forth and creating a friendship, I hired MarketSmiths to write a brand video script for Ishara. What started as a simple script project grew, eventually expanded into a full website copy revamp, blog posts, social media copy, even a bedside table book.”

The results versus our own internal efforts were “strikingly different,” Altaf says. 

“MarketSmiths’ work is punchier, more evocative. MarketSmiths just knows how to make web copy work effectively.” 

When Ishara’s website launched, it performed brilliantly, confirming Altaf’s growing trust in MarketSmiths’ ability to deliver. That success inspired him to think: Why not have them tackle the MFI website too? “Maybe they’re the help we need to finally get this done.”

Simplifying, sharpening, and storytelling

To get MarketSmiths up to speed, Altaf handed over everything from the previous MFI website, plus updates on all the new services. 

Whether B2C or B2B, MarketSmiths proves a valuable and versatile partner. Altaf says:

“MarketSmiths possesses a rare alchemy of skill, capable of weaving through the labyrinth of technical information, harmonizing the diverse chorus of stakeholder inputs, and elegantly encapsulating the essence of our complex business operations spanning across 18 countries.” 

“Your team gave us a clear structure, guiding us on things like page headlines, subheads, and where each piece of text should go,” says Altaf. “They helped us create a detailed sitemap that was quite different from the previous versions we’d been working on.” 

“The information organization was probably the most effective part of the process,” he notes. “We had a lot of content, but I reminded our team that the website wasn’t going to contain everything they wanted—it was going to showcase the most effective web copy. If we needed more detail, that was for presentations and one-on-one meetings.”

For internal alignment, MarketSmiths’ New York reputation added weight. “I’d tell the team, ‘This is a New York agency—they know what they’re doing, and we’re going to follow their lead’—and that limits the arguments.” With internal consensus, results came quickly, driving MFI’s vision forward. 

“This website had been in development for over a year and a half, with multiple sitemaps and approaches. But MarketSmiths helped us arrange it all in a logical, effective way that felt intuitive for users. That really helped us—we just had to add the graphics and design the pages as they suggested.”

“This was not just about revamping a website; it was about storytelling in its most refined form—creating a narrative that resonates and engages. There were rounds of revisions with new changes cropping up,” Altaf says. “But in time, we managed to smooth things out—I stepped in where needed, and the MarketSmiths team helped us finalize the copy and gain internal approval.”