If you have a tight budget, you can save money by creating a defined scope of work and providing ALL necessary items to your web designer.
However, to make it an effective project, you really need to have an understanding of marketing, what your business really needs, how to make an impression in under 3 seconds, and have the time to do it yourself (and do it right). You don’t want to put the money into something just to have just anything out there. You want to make it work for you, make a lasting impression AND actually work (so many do-it-yourself websites do not actually work on many browsers nor mobile devices). So, if you do have an understanding of marketing and have some time, then here are the things you can gather to save you money with your project:
- Figure out who your target market/audience is.
- Decide what you need. For small businesses, I recommend investing in the basic package of a logo, stationery, business card design, a brochure/rack card or a postcard/flyer, a website and basic social networks.
- Surf the web and scan images from magazines. Find styles, looks, colors and fonts that you like and either provide links to me or share a Dropbox.com folder with me.
- Compile all of your text for every single line of your project, proofread, have your team approve it, and put it into either one Word document or txt file or into a folder.
- Gather all of your images. If your images need cropping or altering, and you have know-how, please alter them how you like. Clearly name each image accordingly and save them as a .jpg, .png, .psd , or .tif at 300 dpi.
- Combine the text, the images, ideas you like, and anything else your project requires and send it to me in 1 or 2 emails or in a shared folder via Dropbox.com.
If you do not know what you want after doing this research, contact me and I can help you plan appropriately to your business goals and needs.