5 Reasons Why Brand Strategists Partner With A Design Studio

When you’re a freelance brand strategist, who can you trust to bring your clients’ brand & messaging strategy to life with a cohesive design?

We get it. You’re a brand strategist, and you love diving into the details to deliver the big picture for your client. You know their mission, vision, and value proposition; you’ve got a clear picture of the competitive landscape; and you understand their audience. Not only that, but you’ve done their messaging, and maybe even the copy. Now your strategy is going to help your client (re)position themselves in the market.

Next comes the tricky part: handing over your brand strategy to a team of designers, developers and creatives to deliver on your promise. There are a lot of roles to fill. Besides graphic design, there’s UX/UI design, web development, and copywriting. Whether you’re a freelance brand strategist or part of a small branding team, you can only wear so many hats.

Sooner or later, your marketing engine is going to need more creatives to keep it running — research and strategy quickly turn into project management, or referrals to other creatives. In effect, you’re giving clients half the solution, and then putting them in someone else’s hands to execute your strategy.

If those creatives don’t deliver, it reflects badly on your strategy — even if it’s great. That’s when contracting to a design studio makes a lot of sense. Here’s why.‍

1. A single point of contact

If you’re part of a network of other freelancers, it might be possible to assemble a full design team to execute your brand strategy. Chances are, they’re working remotely across different timezones and platforms. They also have their own schedules and other clients to consider.

Onboarding, unifying, and collaborating with multiple freelancers on a single timeline for project completion is no easy feat. Right now marketing and IT talent are in high demand, so if another project comes along that takes priority over yours, you stand to lose expertise, capacity, and time. Say it’s your UX/UI designer — any delay from their end impacts the rest of the website build.

By partnering with a design studio, everything is handled for you. It’s like having your own in-house design team doing all the heavy lifting. They’re a silent partner executing your strategy. And the best part? It all happens through a single point of contact, so you’re not having to manage multiple creatives to get the job done.‍

2. Totally devoted to you

As a freelance brand strategist, there’s always the option to work with one of the big design agencies. From graphic designers to SEO specialists, they’ll certainly have the in-house expertise needed to execute your strategy. The problem is that they’ll also be serving multiple other clients, and you may not get to meet your creative team in person.

With all that time invested in getting to know your clients, it seems counterintuitive to contract-out the creative execution to people with no relationship to them or you. Partnering with a smaller design studio means you can actually deal directly with the team responsible for delivering the brand identity, website, and copy.

Typically, a design studio will work with a single client and have another in the pipeline, so they’re totally devoted to one project at a time. Collaborating with a design studio means you get a closer connection, a more thorough understanding, and a better alignment with your client’s brand strategy.‍

3. Expertise built around you

With a design studio, not only do you get a closer relationship with your creative team, you also get a ready-made pool of technical talent to support the execution of your brand strategy. This saves you time sourcing, hiring, and onboarding the right freelance talent to get the job done.

A good design studio will put together a team to suit your client’s specific needs. That includes delivering on the technical side of the website such as website performance, SEO fundamentals, and connecting Google Marketing Platform and its sub-products such as Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. In fact, they’ll help you build and roll out the brand way beyond strategy and messaging.‍

4. Project management you can trust

When you bring onboard multiple freelancers to a project, it’s time-consuming and costly. With multiple moving parts, it’s easy for something to go wrong or slip through the cracks. This can end up negatively impacting the client’s experience of your services, and therefore your own brand’s reputation.

With a design studio, not only do you have a single point of contact, but any issues with contractors, like the availability of certain expertise, is out of your hands. It’s down to your design partner to take care of the day-to-day and smooth-running of the design execution.

Put simply, all the heavy-lifting is done for you, so you can sit back and let someone else drive the project forward on your behalf.‍

5. More time to focus on new business

There’s no question that project managing the execution of your brand strategy takes you away from what you love.

Putting your brand design in safe hands means you can free-up time to focus on other activities that add-value to your business, whether that’s reaching out to new clients, or starting with your next strategy project.

Either way, hiring a design studio gives a brand strategist the perfect opportunity to offer clients a complete end-to-end service from market research right through to the launch of their new brand identity and Webflow website.

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“Khula has been the missing link I’ve needed to deliver beautiful brands and websites that fit the brand strategy and copy I develop for clients. Jamie has solid communication skills. He answers questions quickly and in detail and is a genuinely positive person. I always leave our calls 1) impressed by the work he delivers; 2) in a good mood. For businesses looking to strengthen their brand and website, look no further!” — Reagan, Brand Strategist

Be the hero to your clients

Partnering with a design studio gives brand strategists the creative and technical talent they need to deliver more for clients. Not only do they get to oversee the execution of their brand strategy, they also have the opportunity to add value by not sending clients to a third party to create their brand identity and website.

By contracting Khula to operate in the background, brand strategists get to play a bigger part in clients’ lives and create more meaningful impact on their business. They also get to take extra credit — and earn a little extra — by delivering the final brand identity and website without building it themselves.

When you work with a design studio which has helped hundreds of small businesses refresh their brand image, you get an identity design and website with marketing assets that are all cohesive and create a unified brand experience for your clients.

Wondering what that might look like? Take a look at this case study that showcases a cohesive brand image at every touchpoint, from the logo and the website right through to social media posts and marketing campaigns.

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How it works with Khula

At Khula Design Studio, our brand strategist partnerships typically work like this:

Step 1

We formulate the visual side of the brand based on the strategy and research you conducted with the client. That includes mood boarding, creating a solid logo concept, and helping you develop a strong brand identity.

Step 2

We take your web copy, refining it where needed to create the UX/UI web design before building the site in a no-code, all-in-one platform, Webflow.

Step 3

We set up the technical side of the website, conduct a comprehensive go-live checklist, including SEO fundamentals, ensuring everything’s ready to launch.

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“I worked with Jamie as a consultant to help me grow my own design and development studio. I was looking for a mentor/coach, but hadn’t found anyone that I “clicked with” and that I felt could help me take my business to the next level. From the moment Jamie and I got on a call, I knew I had found the perfect match. He’s energetic, insightful, and, most of all — He just gets it. The level of strategy he brings to the table is unmatched, and I’d recommend Khula Studio to anyone who’s looking to grow their business and delight their customers.” — Josh, HMPSN Studio

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For freelance brand strategists, Khula Design Studio has a proven process and framework, plus a streamlined way of working. See what we offer.

Interested in finding out how you can partner with us? Book a complimentary call here.

Originally posted on www.khula.studio