The Digital Startup/Refresh Package
Branding Identity and
Web Design + Development
Why Do I Need Branding?
Without a proper business and brand strategy, your website and marketing may not speak to your ideal customers. It isn’t enough to choose logos, colours, photos, and copywriting that appeals to you because you are not selling to yourself! A proper branding strategy ensures that every piece of your business speaks to the people who will hire you. This is done with market and user research by design experts trained in product management, human design thinking, User Experience, and User Interface.
Why Do I Need A Website?
In a very basic sense, your website will allow people to search and find your business online, as well as give you credibility as an establishment in today’s digital age. Beyond just having a website, it is important that your website should act as a tool to convert potential customers into actual customers. In order to do this, it is important to consider that you have all the necessary information, an easy-to-use experience, and a visually pleasing design.
Why Do I Need a Digital Startup Package?
We only offer digital startup packages that combine digital strategy, branding design and website development because all of these moving parts are essential to creating a superior online experience for your customers. We take you through a customized step-by-step experience to make sure that you are set up for success when launching (or re-launching) your new venture. Everything we do incorporates digital strategy and optimization at the core of our process and products.
We only offer branding identity and web design and development through our digital startup package. We do not offer these services separately, as we believe that all new online ventures (or relaunches) require proper strategy behind both the brand and its online presence.
Timelines + Costs
How Long Does It Take?
On average, you can expect the Digital Startup Package to take from 3 to 9-months, depending on the size of the website.
What’s The Investment?
The Digital Startup Package starts at $6,250 (Simple Website) to $8,250(Simple Website with Blog) and up to $14,250 (E-commerce Website) and comes with a 4, 6, 8 or 12-month instalment plan to help spread out the cost.
Choose the package you need based on the website complexity required for your business:
Simple
Brand Design + Simple Website4 Month Plan: $1562.50/month
6 Month Plan: $1041.67/month
8 Month Plan: $781.25/month
12 Month Plan: $520.83/month
Standard
Brand Design + Simple Website With Blog4 Month Plan: $2062.50/month
6 Month Plan: $1375.00/month
8 Month Plan: $1031.25/month
12 Month Plan: $687.50/month
Premium
Brand Design + Advanced Website4 Month Plan: $3562.50/month
6 Month Plan: $2375.00/month
8 Month Plan: $1781.25/month
12 Month Plan: $1187.50/month
What Is Included + How It Works
Onboarding
We onboard you as a new client by getting you to select your package and monthly plan, pay your first monthly invoice, and sign your contract. After the paperwork is done, you will get an email with a link to your client portal which will be where all of your important documents exist. You will fill out your Client Account Information spreadsheet, and start filling out a series of questionnaires that will be your homework to ensure that we have a good understanding of your business and branding strategy. We also book all your client meetings in advance (these are subject to change closer to the meeting date), so that we have clear project milestones.
Onboarding Deliverables:
- Automated Monthly Online Invoice
- Digital Contract
- Online Client Portal
- Client Account Information Spreadsheet
- Questionnaires: Business Strategy Basics, Branding Strategy Basics, Customer Journey Mapping, Business Admin Checklist
Business + Brand Strategy
We get you to work through our business homework by filling out a series of questionnaires that we will then review and compile. In addition to your homework, we spend some time doing market and competitive research to ensure that we have a clear idea of your business goals, offerings, market, audience, messaging, and personality.
Business + Brand Strategy Deliverables:
- Digital Brand Strategy PDF: Includes insights on brand positioning, ideal clients, and competitors
Customer Journey Mapping
We work with you to understand your processes for getting, serving, and retaining customers. We help offer advice and strategize with you to review the software you will be using and how to make sure your website is set up to be optimized for these processes. We will also work on looking at what success looks like for you and what needs to be done to achieve those goals. Your website and online brand should be serving those goals, not just aesthetics.
Customer Journey Mapping Deliverables:
- Identifying Business Workflows
- Customer Journey Map
- Software Review
- Business Goals + KPI Setting
Branding Design
After 3 weeks of the completion of the previous phase, we will send your initial concept for branding based on our strategy work.
Branding Design Deliverables:
- Brand Moodboard (For understanding visual direction)
- Concept Presentation
- Refinements (Up to 3 rounds using our formalized feedback process)
- Brand Guidelines Document
- Links to Font Downloads
- Folder of Various Logo Files
- Colour Hexcodes (In brand document)
- Web UX/UI Elements
Web Design + Development
We kick off the web design phase of the project with a strategy call where we make sure that we know all of the elements of the website which is where the sitemap will be developed. From there we will create wireframes that will show the layout of the site. Once the layout is approved we collect all content that will be needed for the site from you. The next step will be the web design phase. You will see the homepage first for feedback before the rest of the website is created as this is the cornerstone of the whole site. After our formalized feedback phases we will get ready for launching the site.
Web Design + Development Deliverables:
- Web Strategy Meeting
- Sitemap
- Wireframes
- Content Preparation
- Web Design
- Feedback Phase
Website Launch + SEO Optimization
We help you launch your site by taking care of all the details including making sure that your site is built and ready for being indexed by search engines. Unless this is explicitly stated by your web developer this is not usually something that is included in web design packages. Please note you will still need to have a full content marketing strategy with SEO in mind post-launch to grow traffic to your site.
Website Launch + SEO Optimization Deliverables:
- Brand Identity Package
- Web Design Package
- Google Analytics, Search Console, Page Speed, Yoast SEO Set-Up
- Set-up Domain + 1 Domain Email
- Launch site with Hosting Company
- Submit Sitemap to Google for Indexing
- Double-check for SEO errors
Other Costs & Decisions To Consider
When building & launching a website you need to consider additional costs to the project:
Choosing a Platform
We build designs for a self-hosted WordPress.org site
In general, we suggest choosing self-hosted WordPress if your business has complex and custom functionality requirements, including complicated e-commerce needs. The advantage of a WordPress site is that it will allow for the most flexibility in functionality. WordPress is a free platform; however, you will need to pay for a hosting plan (around $15/month), a domain (around $17/year), and your business email (around $5/month per user).
Many people consider other drag and drop platforms such as Squarespace, Wix, Showit5, etc. We suggest only choosing this kind of site if you are a creative whose site is mostly focused on image galleries, portfolios, and static information pages. The advantage of a these kinds of sites is that it will be dead easy for you to edit yourself; however, we do not do any custom development for these platforms, and if you choose to hire a developer down the line, it is likely you will need to get your site rebuilt on a different platform. These kinds of sites are also paid platforms; however, your hosting and tech support is included in the monthly cost (around $30-$40/month). You would still need to pay for your domain (around $17/year), and your business email (around $5/month per user). Typically these kinds of platforms will also make you pay quite a bit extra to “unlock” certain features that allow you to customize your site. Thus, we suggest you go the route of hiring a WordPress developer so that you can save money in the long term, and have full flexibility and ownership in your design and content.
*It is important to note that when we say WordPress we mean a self-hosted WordPress.org site and NOT a WordPress.com site (which is comparable to the drag and drop builder platforms we mentioned above). Many people get confused between these two WordPresses. If you are ever confused, feel free to send us an email and ask!
Purchasing a Domain
(ie: www.marceildesign.com)
We suggest buying this directly from Google for approximately $12-$17 a year.
Setting up your email
(ie: Lauren@marceildesign.com)
We suggest g-suite from google ($5/month per user) to get an email address at your domain, as well as a Google Drive and other services for your business.
Choosing a hosting service
(ie: Who pushes your site live on the internet and keeps you safe from cyber attacks)
If you choose the self-hosted WordPress site as your platform of choice, then we will suggest that you choose Flywheel as your hosting provider (around $15/month) as we have a trusted partnership with them and have found them the most responsive, affordable, and available hosting providers for our clients using WordPress.
(Optional) Choosing an e-commerce platform
If you want to sell things online, you’ll need an e-commerce solution
1. If you choose the Showit5 platform we suggest Shopify lite (approximately $9/month)
2. If you choose the WordPress platform we suggest using Woocommerce (free for very basic, each extension costs around $99 USD each. Typically a project will end up requiring at least 2-3 additional plugins at your cost).
(Optional) Choosing a payment gateway
If you want to sell things online, you’ll need a way to process payments.
We suggest discussing various options with us at the time of your custom project. Typically payment gateways are free to install, but take a % of each transaction processed via credit card