Welcome to Step III in Plan V — the “Create Phase”. Let the magic begin!
When you join us as a growth-driven design partner (read more about that here), we implement Plan V. Plan V is our 5-step plan for long-term marketing success, outlining the steps we take to understand your business to set you up for growth. In following this methodology, we use data to perpetually strategize, position, create, implement, and evaluate our marketing efforts to drive strategic decisions and results. It is a fluid plan that enables us to go back through any of the steps to maximize our results or change our strategies and tactics to be more effective.
Our creative team reviews any notes and documents from the first and second phases of Plan V - Strategy and Position. Once we gather enough information on your business from our strategy session, and figure out what we’re going to say and how we’re going to say it in the positioning phase, we hit the ground running to create visual elements that represent your brand.
Depending on the nature of your marketing problems, we could begin the create phase in a few different ways:
Your website branding is often the first impression you make on a potential customer and it’s critical to make it count. If you are having a brand identity crisis, you are not alone. Many of our clients know that their current visual branding doesn’t represent their business, but have trouble articulating why. Whether you’re looking to totally rejuvenate your current branding, or just get a second set of eyes on your existing brand elements, we help refine your visual branding by fine tuning your color palette, logo(s), graphics, and more. We help your brand to stand out against competitors in your industry while honoring your stylistic preferences and vision.
Almost all clients that we work with in a growth-driven capacity have approached us because their web presence is lacking. In the Create phase, we will provide you with a launchpad website that is designed to look and perform better than your existing website. By taking the time to review strategy documents prior to designing your site, we ensure you are set up for long-term marketing success with design elements in place to grow with your brand and business.
We also review your brand’s positioning and reinforce that messaging/vision in building your homepage layout (learn more about the approach we take to building your homepage here). Your homepage will take the longest time to create and approve as that is the guiding light of the rest of the website’s look and feel. Once we establish a homepage and determine what the key visual elements will be, we then work to build out each page in your site with content provided from either the positioning phase or your existing marketing materials.
Following the growth-driven design methodology, we aim to shorten the time to value with a website launch. This does not mean that we cram everything into a series of all-nighters in a few short weeks to get it done. It means that as part of the strategy phase behind our approach, we determine what the most important content and impactful features of your site are and focus on implementing those first for launch. Once launched, we then create a wishlist of “nice to haves” or additional things you’d like to see implemented. By focusing on what is most important to start, we take your website live, collect user data and begin other marketing efforts that will not only drive results but also help us to determine what the most strategic next steps are and if our strategies are effective.
Depending on the degree to which you wish to start, we will often create other supporting marketing materials in this phase to accompany a brand refresh and/or new website launch.
If you are updating your brand in any way, or even just want to ensure your sales collateral matches the new look and feel of your website, our team is here for it all!
Because our goal is to implement an inbound marketing strategy once your website is live, our design team often works hand-in-hand with our content and digital strategists to determine what supporting materials are needed during the Create phase. Sometimes, those items include one-sheeters, PDF downloadable guides, landing pages, and if using HubSpot, email marketing templates. Again, the sky is the limit with what we can create for you, but our goal is to ensure whatever materials you are putting out look great and are consistent with all of your marketing efforts across the board. What exactly those materials are is truly as unique as your business, and we will help you to develop.
Once we’ve set you up for success with a great look and feel to your brand, website, and supporting materials, we then move you into Step IV of Plan V: Execute. The next phase is where our creative visions are brought to life and the inbound marketing magic begins to take place.
Our creative team consists of some of the most talented creative professionals you can find. We thrive on being able to deliver intriguing creative solutions that make you look great, while truly keeping your business’s mission and vision at the front of our process. Our best results are cultivated from long-term relationships. By continuously learning about your business, your challenges, and your vision for the future, our creative team often knows exactly what it is that you want before you even realize it.
Get started with growing your business today.