New to website projects? Here’s how to get started with us – whether you’ve got a detailed brief or just a vague idea.
Not sure where to begin?
You may have a clear idea of how you want to shortlist agencies and select one for your new website or digital project. But many of our new clients haven’t run a project like this before – and that’s totally fine.
We’re always happy to offer advice on what to include in a brief, how to compare agencies, and how to get the ball rolling.
Start with a written brief (if you have one)
If you already have a brief, feel free to send it over. Even if it’s short, or still evolving, it gives us a useful starting point.
Discovery call and follow-up questions
We’ll usually suggest a call to explore your brief in more detail, understand your goals and constraints, and discuss the best next steps. After that, we might follow up by email with further questions, or send you one or more questionnaires to cover specific areas like content, design preferences, functionality or internal approval processes.
We’ll ask about your budget
You don’t have to tell us – but it helps! If we know what kind of budget you’re working with, we can recommend solutions that are realistic and avoid wasting your time with overblown (or underwhelming) suggestions. It’s about matching your resources with the right level of functionality, support and polish.
Need help scoping things out?
If you’re not sure what you want, or if your needs are unusual, we may suggest a standalone, paid roadmapping project. This lets us work with you to flesh out your ideas, and results in clear deliverables like:
- A sitemap or content architecture
- Functionality specification
- Wireframes or layout sketches
- Indicative, informed costs and options for the full project
This helps you get internal sign-off – and gives you the confidence that what comes next is properly scoped.
Otherwise, we’ll send a proposal
If your brief is clear – or if it’s a familiar type of project for us, such as a website design and build for a law firm or barristers’ chambers – we’ll normally move straight to a written proposal.
Our proposals include:
- Background on our team and experience
- Relevant case studies and examples
- A project plan and timeline
- Pricing options
- Any assumptions or exclusions
A note on pitch designs
Occasionally, we’re asked to provide design ideas or sample layouts as part of the sales process. We’d gently recommend avoiding this approach – for a few good reasons:
- Design isn’t usually the first part of a website project – it’s informed by research, content and strategy, so early concepts are often disconnected from the real goals.
- These preliminary designs are almost always discarded once the real work begins, so the time invested in them is often wasted.
- Design work takes skill and time, and designers need to be paid; if they spend time doing unbillable pitch designs, it drives up costs for other clients which is unfair.
Instead, we suggest using past projects, team credentials and a structured proposal to guide your decision. We’re happy to present our ideas and show relevant examples that demonstrate our capabilities.
Next steps: decision or presentation
You may be ready to make a decision based on the proposal alone. But if you’re presenting to a committee or need to convince internal stakeholders, we’re happy to do a follow-up video call to talk it through, answer questions, and help you make a confident choice.
If you choose us
Fantastic! We’ll get the project into our schedule, confirm the contract and deposit, and kick things off formally. From that point, your project manager will guide you through the rest of the journey.
And if you don’t…
If we’ve done a roadmapping project for you, you’re free to take the deliverables and work with someone else. We hope you don’t – but our goal is to be helpful and professional, whether or not we end up working together on the build.