Does your business require regular design work or website maintenance? How about updating your Google MyBusiness or AdWords, or creating consitent visuals for your social media channels? Or even making short videos on a regular basis?
There is no end to the amount of visual communications a business needs to put forth today. If you’re a business who is trying to do it all yourself, but just can’t get it done — now’s the time to consider hiring a graphic designer on a monthly retainer.
What is a monthly design retainer?
A design retainer ensures you have a set amount of hours of time every month with your designer to fill your regular design and maintenance needs. It's like having an in-house graphic designer dedicated to you, but without having to pay them to be a full time employee.
Think of it as a subscription to a service you use often, like a cell phone data plan. Instead of paying for one product at a time, or one gig at a time in this analogy, which can be more expensive, you pay a monthly rate and get the work you need done regularly. If design or maintenance work takes longer than the amount of hours you retain in a month, you’re charged a discounted rate for overages, as opposed to the regular hourly rate. If you don’t use the hours each month, they can rollover into the next month.
How a design retainer can help you:
As business owners, creating that brochure or banner you need for an event this coming weekend can be time consuming. You can do it yourself, but you may not have the design skills or software skills to make it quickly and have it look professional. Having a graphic designer on call means you can offload this work to them and have it turned around quickly, so you can get back to managing your business and doing what you do best.
Having the same designer on call also means your visual communications maintain a consistent look and feel that matches your brand identity and tells your story. This important visual aspect across all communication products portrays your business as professional and easily identifiable to your customers, instead of disjointed and unrelated.
Here are some examples of what a design retainer with Best Coast Design Co. covers
Best Coast is pleased to now offer monthly design retainers starting at $150/month (three hours), handling routine maintenance work for:
- Websites and related tasks
- Print and design of new and frequently used products
- Social media advertising and campaign toolkits
- Shooting and editing short videos regularly for social media or vlogs (video blog)
- Being on call for emergency issues if you need service same day or next day
- Making your work priority for fast turnaround
- Working and coordinating with printers and promotional item producers
- Consulting on visual strategy or planning for your business
Design retainers do not include the following:
- Building new websites
- New logo design
- New brand identity design
- Brand videos or explainer videos
Interested in what a design retainer can do for your business? Contact Best Coast Design Co. for a free one hour consultation.