Module 1
Logo
A logo is the highest-return investment you can make in your brand. A well-constructed logo tells people who you are, how you are, and that you'll be around a while. It sets a tone for all your customer interactions. And it helps people connect their experiences with your firm across your site, business cards, signs, menus, ads, etc.
Start of
module
You
provide
Responses to our questionnaire (usually takes 1–2 hours)
Middle of
Module
we
review
2-4 logo concepts
End of
Module
we
provide
Custom-designed logo in a variety of file formats
The process
Your dedicated designer will work directly with you on a sufficient but reduced number of iterations to net you a well-reasoned, professionally-designed logo.
- You complete logo questionairre
- Sketching
- Refinement to 2-4 digital concepts
- Review concepts with you
- Refine and revise
- Deliver final polished logo in a variety of file formats – 8 total files
Notes
Module 2
Logo
A logo is the highest-return investment you can make in your brand. A well-constructed logo tells people who you are, how you are, and that you'll be around a while. It sets a tone for all your customer interactions. And it helps people connect their experiences with your firm across your site, business cards, signs, menus, ads, etc.
Start of
module
You
provide
Module 1: Strategy
Responses to our questionnaire (usually takes 1–2 hours)
Middle of
Module
we
review
2-4 logo concepts
End of
Module
we
provide
Custom-designed logo in a variety of file formats
The process
Your dedicated designer will work directly with you on a sufficient but reduced number of iterations to net you a well-reasoned, professionally-designed logo.
- You complete logo questionairre
- Sketching
- Refinement to 2-4 digital concepts
- Review concepts with you
- Refine and revise
- Deliver final polished logo in a variety of file formats – 8 total files
Notes
Module 3
Photoshoot
Elevate the professionalism of your website, not to mention your pitches, email signature, photo frames and more with a professionally-managed photoshoot.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Nothing, we just need you to coordinate with the photographer to schedule the shoot within a two-week mid-month window
Middle of Module
we
review
Photoshoot plan
End of
Module
we
provide
Up to five headshots
At least five candid workplace shots
Need more? See below.
Our photographer knows how to make the most of your time. He will work with you to schedule a shoot at your workplace. If necessary, he will come out to the workplace ahead of time to scout the location so he's prepared to maximize the efficiency of shoot day.
On shoot day, the photographer will meet briefly with each of the agreed-upon employees for a series of headshots, and he'll spend time walking around the space taking candid, photojournalistic workplace shots.
He'll keep in mind the primary end use of these photographs – to communicate the quality, permanence, and professionalism of your company to website visitors. Of course, many of these photos will find other uses, in your pitch decks, email signatures, brochures, office frames, etc.
The process
- Photographer gets in touch to schedule shoot and, if necessary, scouting trip
- At photographer's discretion: scouting visit
- Photographer shares shoot plan
- You approve shoot plan, along with any necessary requests
- Shoot day! Your team keeps to the agreed-upon schedule for headshots, and photographer explores the space looking for workplace shots.
- Photographer prunes and edits shots
- Photographer delivers high-resolution JPGs
Notes
Workspaces more than 20 miles from the Cozy office may incur a travel fee
Shoot will use natural lighting
One headshot will be provided per person
If you'd like to upgrade, you can get double the headshots, double the workplace shots, as well as artificial, professional lighting for double the module cost.
Module 4
Branding
& business cards
A "brand bible" to unlock the quality and consistency that is a hallmark of any reliable company, and your first client “deliverable”.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Module 2: Logo
All content for your card: your name, title, phone, address, and anything else you want on the card exactly as you want it on the card (we will be copy-pasting)
Middle of Module
we
review
Styleguide
End of
Module
we
provide
Digital styleguide with color, type, and logo guidelines
400 high-quality business cards delivered to your door
Styleguide
COLOR PALETTE
We will develop an elegant set of colors that represents and enhances your particular brand, industry, and personality. We'll provide color codes in RGB, Hex, and CMYK so you can accurately reproduce these precise colors in any environment. Armed with these values, you can keep all of your collateral – all the way down to internal memos – feeling on-brand.
TYPOGRAPHY
We will develop a hierarchy of font treatments to help you communicate effectively and consistently. This usually involves picking one or two typefaces (e.g. Helvetica), one or two fonts within this (e.g. Helvetica Bold), and setting specific sizes for things like main headings, secondary headings, and body copy.
Additional branding elements
We'll expand the visual language for your brand as needed, including iconography, swashes, flourishes, badges, and so on.
Digital Document
A styleguide consolidates all of your brand elements into one resource. It's your go-to visual reference for your brand. Our digital styleguide is a shareable resource you can easily share with any vendor.
PROCESS
You'll again work directly with your dedicated designer who will develop professional, clean, minimalist typography and color standards you should consistently apply to all of the collateral you produce to represent your company.
- Initial development of digital styleguide, including color, typography, and logo guidelines
- Review styleguide with you
- Refine and revise
- Deliver final digital styleguide (via email ✉️)
Business cards
Now that you have a shiny new logo and a beautiful new site, it probably makes sense to improve the link between you and that site - your business cards. When you meet with a prospective client, it's vital that you present a consistent brand and a professional, high-quality ethos. A well-designed business card on a quality paper stock using the right printing techniques can say a lot in an instant.
When you've convinced someone in person that you might be someone they want to do business with, your card should then take over and continue to do selling work for you. The next time you talk to that lead, you should do so with confidence.
We'll custom-design business cards just for you and your brand. Then we'll print 400 of them on high quality, 19pt paper (that's just stiff enough to stand out without being greedy) with a premium "Soft Touch" finish (that tactile difference will stand out in your lead's mind). We'll even throw in a business card holder.
Additional batches of 400 cards (for you or a teammate) are available for $300.
PROCESS
- You provide all content for your card (remember, we will be copy-pasting)
- Design and internal revisions
- Prepare handoff for print production
- Hand off to print vendor
- Support print vendor through print preparation
- Send print confirmation to client (via email ✉️)
- Send UPS tracking code to client (via email ✉️)
Module 6
Core marketing website
Let's get you online with a professional-grade website that looks great on all devices.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Logo
if you skipped Month 1
Branding guidelines
if you skipped Month 2
Site content
Final words & images
Domain registrar login credentials
Middle of Module
we
review
Live site preview
End of
Module
we
provide
Final site live on your domain
We want you to have a beautiful, easy-to-maintain, responsive, reliable, extensible, high-performing site.
Your site should do work for you: when you send a lead to your site they should be closer to giving you money the next time you talk. The site should look great on a phone and a desktop. And your site should have a reasonably good chance of being found via Google.
To achieve all that at a fraction of the cost (and time) of a standard custom site build, we build our COMPACTIFIED sites on Squarespace (we're in the Squarespace Circle developer program). Squarespace drastically reduces cost while improving the level of quality. And it's more reliable because it is all one unified system – no reliance on flaky plugins by developers who might disappear (ahem, Wordpress).
All you have to do is provide the content you want on your site – up to five pages – and we'll take it from there.
Process
Site design will begin once we have all the necessary inputs – your logo (if you have one, or if we've designed one for you), your copy (the words on your site; send them over in a Google or Word doc), and your imagery (original, high-resolution shots; we'll handle optimizing them for the web).
- You provide your copy, imagery, logo (unless we've created a logo for you), and hosting login credentials
- Initial development of site
- We review site with you
- We refine and revise site
- We point your domain to your shiny new site
Important notes
- Don't have a domain (e.g. www.cozydesign.com)? You have two options: if you pay annually, we'll throw in a domain for free. Alternately, we can set you up with one for $150. Note that domain registration is a (small, currently $20-70/year) ongoing cost that's not part of COMPACTIFIED in this case.
- If your host is not in this list, there may be an extra cost for setup.
- If you'd like, your site can include:
- Newsletter sign-up
We can include a form asking for a visitor's name and email address. We can then send this information to you (via email), a unified Google Spreadsheet, or Mailchimp. Or all three. Your choice. - Protected access
We can invite a user in to add/edit content on the site (including adding ongoing blog posts, which we highly recommend) as well as access detailed metrics reports without the ability to “break” the site. Just give us an email address. - Links to your social media pages
Connect your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Medium, Yelp, Foursquare, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Meetup, Bandsintown, Google Play, iTunes Store, Rdio, SoundCloud, Spotify (and more) accounts. Whew. Icons at the bottom of your site will ensure your visitors can find you everywhere.
Module 6
Launchpad website
Let's get you online with a professional-grade website that looks great on all devices.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Module 1: Strategy
Logo
if you skipped
Module 2
Branding guidelines
if you skipped
Module 4
Site content
Final words & images
Domain registrar login credentials
Middle of Module
we
review
Live site preview
End of
Module
we
provide
Final site live on your domain
We want you to have a beautiful, easy-to-maintain, responsive, reliable, extensible, high-performing site.
Your site should do work for you: when you send a lead to your site they should be closer to giving you money the next time you talk. The site should look great on a phone and a desktop. And your site should have a reasonably good chance of being found via Google.
To achieve all that at a fraction of the cost (and time) of a standard custom site build, we build our COMPACTIFIED sites on Squarespace (we're in the Squarespace Circle developer program). Squarespace drastically reduces cost while improving the level of quality. And it's more reliable because it is all one unified system – no reliance on flaky plugins by developers who might disappear (ahem, Wordpress).
All you have to do is provide the content you want on your site – up to five pages – and we'll take it from there.
Process
Site design will begin once we have all the necessary inputs – your logo (if you have one, or if we've designed one for you), your copy (the words on your site; send them over in a Google or Word doc), and your imagery (original, high-resolution shots; we'll handle optimizing them for the web).
- You provide your copy, imagery, logo (unless we've created a logo for you), and hosting login credentials
- Initial development of site
- We review site with you
- We refine and revise site
- We point your domain to your shiny new site
Important notes
- Don't have a domain (e.g. www.cozydesign.com)? You have two options: if you pay annually, we'll throw in a domain for free. Alternately, we can set you up with one for $150. Note that domain registration is a (small, currently $20-70/year) ongoing cost that's not part of COMPACTIFIED in this case.
- If your host is not in this list, there may be an extra cost for setup.
- If you'd like, your site can include:
- Newsletter sign-up
We can include a form asking for a visitor's name and email address. We can then send this information to you (via email), a unified Google Spreadsheet, or Mailchimp. Or all three. Your choice. - Protected access
We can invite a user in to add/edit content on the site (including adding ongoing blog posts, which we highly recommend) as well as access detailed metrics reports without the ability to “break” the site. Just give us an email address. - Links to your social media pages
Connect your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Medium, Yelp, Foursquare, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Meetup, Bandsintown, Google Play, iTunes Store, Rdio, SoundCloud, Spotify (and more) accounts. Whew. Icons at the bottom of your site will ensure your visitors can find you everywhere.
Module 7
eCommerce buildout
Turn your static website into a functional store – list products, accept payments, run promotions, and more.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Module 6: Launchpad website
Content for your products
Title, description, price, imagery per product
Middle of Module
we
review
Live preview
End of
Module
we
provide
Final eCommerce store live on your site
Would you like to sell products online? If you sell anything, your customers likely expect you also sell it online.
This month, we'll set up a store on your site. We'll present your products – products (digital or physical), services, even donations – beautifully on all devices. We'll set you up to accept credit cards, send customized confirmation order emails, and more. You'll also have access to more advanced features like commerce analytics, failed/chargeback/refund payment tracking, discount codes, and so on.
We'll add up to 5 products and set up payment, email notifications, analytics, an example discount code, and order management. If you'd like us to set you up to update products yourself, you'll be interested in Month 5.
Process
Site design will begin once we have all the necessary inputs listed.
- You provide all content for your products – title, description, price, imagery per product
- Initial development
- Review eCommerce work with you (mid-month video meeting)
- Refine and revise
- Deliver final eCommerce work (via email)
Module 8
Content management
Let's set you up to confidently update the content on your own site. After all, it's yours.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Module 6: Launchpad website
Middle of Module
we
review
Nothing here
End of
Module
we
provide
Content management setup and guide
Being in control of your content is empowering and freeing. To that end, this month we will set up content management on your site. That is to say we'll set up your site so that you can easily update its content: add/edit/remove pages, add/edit/remove blog posts, and add/edit/remove products (if you included eCommerce). Then we'll create a content management guide consisting of a series of video walkthroughs, screenshots, and links and walk you through all of this.
In short, we'll set up and then teach you content management. You'll never have to pay for basic site maintenance again (we do recommend bringing in a professional for more substantial, structural site updates).
Process
- Content management setup
- Creation of educational assets
- Production of content management guide
- Deliver final content management walkthrough (video meeting)
Module 9
Upkeep & improvement
Much like a car or a house, a site needs constant upkeep. Except in this case, the technology is constantly shifting too.
Start of
Module
You
provide
Module 6: Launchpad website
Middle of Module
we
review
Nothing here
End of
Module
we
provide
Two professional-grade blog posts
Written, designed, developed, and launched as well as pushed to your social networks
Analytics and content + social media marketing report
At this point you have two options: you can take over ongoing maintenance for your site, or we can do it for you.
Option 1: You do it
If you'd like to take over, we'll hand over complete ownership and control of the site to you. This means passing the hosting account over to you to take on the monthly hosting costs (currently $12-$40 per month; usually $26 with ecommerce, $12 without). You'll take over updating content on the site (which will be much easier with the content management from Month 5), and any support issues.
Option 2: We do it
If you'd like us to manage the site, you don't have to worry about any of the above.
Furthermore, we'll engage in series of vital, industry-standard activities to assist your site's continued and growing success:
Content marketing
Google doesn't think people want to land on outdated sites. So you really need to be continuously updating your site. The best way to do this is to have an active blog.
An active blog also provides content to keep other channels active (Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
Every month we will analyze search engine traffic to identify keywords that people are searching. That's an audience-in-waiting.
We will dedicate a writer from our staff of experienced professionals. Twice a month, our team will write, design, build, and publish a blog post aimed at the identified keywords, complete with properly-sourced and optimized imagery.
Social media marketing
If you'd like us to push each new blog post to your Facebook, Twitter, and other social feeds, just provide us the logins so we can make the necessary connections. This is an excellent way to show the world that your business is active and contributing. And it drives traffic back to your sparkling site.
Analytics
Every month we'll send you an analytics report with details about your site's activity. This includes metrics like number of visitors, average time on site, average bounce rate, most popular content, etc.
This is an ongoing effort. If at any point you'd like to take over the management of the site, just let us know and in the following month we'll take all the necessary handover steps outlined above in the "You do it" section.
Process
Each month, we will:
- Identify top keyword opportunities in search engine traffic
- Write two blog posts
- Design and develop two blog posts
- Publish two blog posts
- Push the two launched blog posts to your social media channels (optional)
- Send you an end-of-month report showing the posts created that month
