Picture this: You stop by the convenience store and see that lightbulbs are 4-packs for $20 and think that’s awfully steep. On your way home, you pass by the hardware store and discover their 4-pack lightbulbs are $10, and what a deal that is! Done deal, donezo, pack it up, high-fives all around.
Shopping around is a great strategy when buying lightbulbs, corn cobs or sectional furniture for your half-covered backyard patio. Shopping around is a terrible idea when investing in your digital branding.
No one knows your business like you do, so it’s important to find one partner that you completely vibe with when building your digital branding position, strategy, visual identity, everything. Here are 4 reasons why you should stick to one agency to build your digital brand:
Consistent on-the-same-page energy
In the same way that you know your business better than anyone else, every agency understands their own visions just as strongly. Working with several agencies to piecemeal your digital branding together can often result in clashing opinions, miscommunication between deliverables and misled expectations. See definition: Too many cooks in the kitchen.
The sum of the parts is the vital deliverable, and if one agency works on the logo while another works on the website development and another works on the digital strategy, that’s a lot of coordinating to ensure every single party has what they need. Working on your digital branding is a lot of work as it is — now double or triple that effort every time you add a new agency to the roster. Have you ever tried coordinating a last-minute meeting with 3+ different partners? That’s a lot of your time wasted.
Working with one digital branding agency gives both parties the clarity and streamlined process that you’ve dreamt of. No bottlenecks here!
Easier to activate a long-tailed vision
Let’s say that you have a big product launch coming at the end of the season and you’ve commissioned one agency to build the strategy and another agency to implement it. While the strategy folks gave you an amazing presentation to convey the master digital plan, you now have to relay that information to your implementation team at another agency. When wires get crossed and visions don’t get conveyed, communications can break down and it can be difficult to activate on your overarching vision for the organization.
It’s nearly impossible to execute an effective vision and plan that evolves and reshapes to your ever-changing goals and expectations for the business. If you want consistent and clear messaging that lasts long after your vendor contract ends, you should work with one digital branding shop that can help carry your vision across the finish line in one cohesive piece.
Invest in one solid relationship
While you may save money by shopping around for specific vendors for specific deliverables, that’s exactly what you’re receiving: deliverables. As your business scales and morphs into the best version of itself, you want to build a roster of partners and business relationships with people that you can trust.
Who will you call when you release a new product? Who do you trust with your Instagram password? Working with one digital branding agency allows you to nurture one relationship and build history with one agency that truly understands your vision and objectives — because they helped you build them!
Save money
It’s ironic that the intention of shopping around for a variety of agencies and vendors was to save money, but more often than not, it actually costs you more. Of course it is literally cheaper to purchase a logo for $250 and a full website build for $500, but it’s not cheap to fix the problems when you discover that neither of them are AODA compliant and are riddled with bugs that you aren’t technical enough to patch yourself (because they didn’t leave you with a hand-off guide!)
When you partner with one digital branding agency for all your brand work, you can bundle all your needs into one proposal and receive one invoice (save the trees!) for all the work from one agency that you totally vibe with. Easy peasy.
So, how many partners do you need when building your digital branding? One. Pick one agency that really meshes well with you and your team to execute a holistic plan as a cohesive whole. Take your time and look for the right partner that understands you. Ask them the tough questions and get to know them as people and as potential partners. Then, commit to them and watch your visions come to life.
On the hunt for a digital branding partner? Super Duper Studios is a digital branding agency in Toronto. We specialize in game-changing visual identity, websites that make sense, and double-tap worthy social media content. Nice to meet ya! Email me at michelle.nguyen@itssuperduper.com and let’s chat.
Michelle Nguyen Lead writer and social media strategist at Super Duper Studios.